Summer of 1974

During Those Were the Days on Saturday night, I will be reminiscing about the summer of 1974. That was a wonderful time for family, farming, mix tapes, and visiting the neighbor girls. All of the area families had a young lady that was my age. I would ride my 3-speed Hiawatha bike to the end of our long driveway and meet up with them. It was important to look cool. The playing cards in my spokes may not have helped this. I did have a radio that bolted to the handlebars of my bike. It did not get many stations and even WRCO AM 1450 would get electrical interference when I rode under a power line or cruised by an electric fencer. The young neighbor girls may have only been interested in me because I was friends with boys that they liked. That began my time of being a funny guy that was a good friend. This would be mentioned a few times later in life when I was searching for a movie or prom date. It was hard to believe that they were not taken by my bowl cut haircut, my top of the ankle play pants, or the fact that I could make them amazing cassette tapes. I would sit by the radio and wait for the cool new songs to play so that I could record them. The real snappy ones would be on my shopping list for my next visit to Saffels or the Dime Store in Richland Center. A new 45 record would set me back 85 cents. During 1974 I transitioned from a reel to reel tape recorder to a cassette! It was great to be at the forefront of technology!

What a great bunch of songs to pirate off of radio broadcasters that summer. My favorites include Band on the Run-Wings, Rock Your Baby-George McCrae, Dancing Machine-Jackson Five, The Locomotion-Grand Funk, The Show Must Go On-Three Dog Night, Don’t You Worry Bout a Thing-Stevie Wonder, Waterloo-ABBA, Radar Love-Golden Earring, and La Grange-ZZ Top. I can’t wait to play some of these on my own radio show during Saturday nights’ edition of Those Were the Days on WRCO FM 100.9, WRCO.com, or courtesy of the always free Civic Media app. Light your campfire, or pull up a front porch chair, and enjoy the Driftless Area this weekend while listening to the ‘cool kids’ radio show.

Philip