Listen to the radio

Drew Kennedy has a song called AM Radio. Anyone who has been driving late at night, spinning on the radio for some music, only to find that the one good station you find faded to static 5 minutes later will appreciate it. In the chorus he says “say a prayer to save me from static, thank God for AM radio.”

In college, I would often drive from College Station back home to Corpus Christi. Just south of the halfway point along the drive was Victoria. In Victoria was arguably the greatest radio station, certainly that I've ever heard, 98.7 KTXN, Steve Coffman's Texas Mix. He called it the 100,000 Watt blow torch broadcasting Texas music up and down the coast. In high school this station came on the air wave and I was lucky enough to have spun across it on the dial. I found that late at night or early in the morning I could tune in this station in Corpus. I also found oddly enough that as I went south on Padre Island that the station came in clearer. Around Big Shell the station came in as if I was in Victoria. One day my Senior year of high school I over heard my English teacher talking to another teacher about a radio station he found that would only come in late at night or early in the morning, but was really good. He was speaking about Texas Mix. Old and young alike would shift their sleep schedule to listen.

On the drive between Corpus Christi and College Station I would look forward to listening to the Texas Mix. I would begin trying to tune in as soon as I crossed the Harbor Bridge out of Corpus and usually could get the station by Refugio. I would spend the next several hours listening until I reached the dot on a roadmap of Swiss Alps, just north of Schulenburg. It was at this point I would lose the station. Jut as I crested a hill by some antennas I would lose the station. My joy of listening to great music would turn to fists shaken in anger a I would spin the dial, trying to find a descent radio station to listen to, only to be met with static.