Radio Days

I am in the car much more often these days. And I seem to drive around at many of the same times. I always let the radio provide background sound for my wanderings and have found that I follow a listening pattern. Let me say that I just have a plain old am/fm radio in my car along with a CD player that I mainly use to play "Silly Tunes" for my grands and sometimes "The Best of BeeGees" for me. Okay. I do have some Beatles, Led Zeplin (is that spelled accurately?), Santana, Rod Stewart, Willy Nelson, etc. hanging around that I pop in and out depending on my mood. But I usually rely on the radio.
I always begin with NPR. I especially like "This American Life" on weekends and try to time my drives to Salem just so I can listen in. I get a kick out of "Car Talk" as well and like "Prairie Home Companion" once in a while, especially Guy Noir. "The Splendid Table" at 6:00 on Sunday evenings is a delight. If NPR is featuring a story set in the Middle East, I usually forgo it. I am tired of that part of the world. I also don't much listen to stories of countries whose locales I can't fathom. Features about The Netherlands or tropical sorts of places I do listen to. I'm not sure why. And I really like to listen to things about Alaska but not Sarah Palin. If NPR is not up to my preference, I switch immediately to the classical station. I have some favorites here as well. I'm in if it's Mozart, Beethoven, just about anything done by the St. Johns Wood Orchestra (again I'm guessing at titles here), guitar players and even Saturday morning opera once in a great while. But if the music is beyond my appreciation (string instruments slicing off what sounds like uneven notes to me) I'm out of it and on to "Mark and Brian" unless they are in one of their too offensive for me bits. Can't handle that stuff anymore unless it's really funny.
And here's my big confession: before she was kicked off the air, I was absolutely fascinated with Dr. Laura and the snide, disrespectful, obnoxious way she had with her callers. I would actually talk out loud to her reminding her that some mothers do indeed need to work full time and that ready sex isn't necessarily what women with straying husbands should counter with. She really made me laugh. I miss her. But thank goodness for NPR and the classical station along with KINK and the oldies but goodies stations. (And along the same lines, I find it amazing that I sometimes hear The Rolling Stones in the grocery store.)