More than forty years ago, Paul Simon wrote this wonderful ballad called “America.” It has perhaps one of the greatest lines of any song I’ve ever heard: “Countin’ the cars on the New Jersey turnpike, they’ve all gone to look for America.”
Recently, I’ve come to realize what he meant by that because I’ve had to search for another radio station when my favorite one changed formats.
When I moved to San Diego County twenty years ago, from Ohio, I scanned the radio dial listening for any station that played music and didn’t have too many commercials. After a long search (ten minutes), I finally set the car radio to an all news stations in Los Angeles and to a classic rock station in San Diego. This combination worked for almost twenty years, then strange things started to happen.
First, the all news station added a cooking show. Yep. Listeners would call in and ask how big a turkey they should buy to feed their clan and how long they should cook it. The fact that the station started taking calls in the first place should have been a tip-off to me that my relationship with this radio station was heading into the toilet. Fast.
This news station used to do the national news at the top of the hour and it would last about twelve minutes. Now it last three, if that. The station is still programmed on the car radio, but I don’t turn to it except when we have earthquakes. They are still better than anyone else in southern California for giving you news on any earth movement in the region.
Two weeks ago, the classic rock station in San Diego became a “talk” radio station. I tell you, it felt like a friend died. I don’t mind the existence of talk radio, I don’t listen to it, but I don’t mind it for others. After all, some people need someone to tell them what they should think and what’s the correct way to think it.
Anyway, I started searching for another music radio station. With any luck, the one I find won’t change its format for another twenty years. But I’ve started buying music CDs just in case that’s an unrealistic expectation.