Singleton remembers early days of the first radios in the South

George Buster Singleton

(For decades, local historian and paranormal investigator George “Buster” Singleton published a weekly newspaper column called “Somewhere in Time.” The column below, which was titled “Saturday night came alive because of family’s radio,” was originally published in the Oct. 6, 1988 edition of The Monroe Journal in Monroeville, Ala.)

I grew up when times were hard and many of the material things were difficult to come by for a country family that made its living out of the ground and depended solely on farming and row cropping. This was during the 1930s, when the Great Depression had seized this country in its vise-like grip.

My father had, by some extraordinary means, saved some extra money from selling off the cotton crop to purchase a radio for our family. An honest-to-goodness radio that would transmit actual words and music from as far away as Nashville, Tenn., and the Grand Ole Opry. This was a miracle in itself, being able to sit there in rural Marengo County, Ala., and listen to the words and the banjo picking that were going on way off up there in Tennessee.

The day the radio was delivered, it was as though a very special event was to take place there at our house. Everything was made ready for the installation of this special electrical wonder that was soon to become a part of our lives.

An antenna had to be run from the house to the top of a sweet-gum tree that was about 70 yards away. My father believed that the insulator that connected the antenna to the sweet-gum tree had to be kept clean.

This was where I came into the picture. As a boy of nine, I could scamper up that sweet-gum tree in no time flat. For this chore (which I was delighted to do) and for pouring water around the ground rod under the window near where this amazing invention was located, I became rather important. I could foresee an electrical career for myself.

The actual operation of the radio was the sole responsibility of my father, my mother and my oldest brother. They were the official turners-on of this marvel of entertainment. This was where the words “Don’t touch that dial” came into being.

It wasn’t long before all the neighbors, both far and near, had found out about the radio. So, when each Saturday night came around, there were 15 or so neighbors and children over to the house to hear the radio and be entertained by such people as Uncle Dave Macon and his Dixie Dewboys, Roy Acuff, and many others who appeared on the Grand Ole Opry.

Our visitors would always stay until the Opry signed off the air. This was always at midnight. This didn’t matter for the first few Saturday nights, until the new began to wear off, having the radio at the house. You couldn’t pull the kids away from the radio to play hide-and-seek out in the yard in the darkness. They all wanted to sit right under the radio and listen to the music. For those of use who had become accustomed to this marvel of entertainment, there was nothing to do but to slip away to bed, so as not to be bothered.

One of our neighbors, one who was there every Saturday night, was an old man and one of the most hard-headed men of his time. He always wore overalls and a blue jumper. This was always the garb that old man Hicks would have on, whenever or wherever you chanced to meet him. He also had the habit of dipping snuff. As long as I remember, I never saw him without him a dip of snuff in his lip.

This added to the problem of listening to the radio because, regardless of how cold it was or whatever the circumstances, old man Hicks would get up, open the door, walk to the corner of the front porch, and spit his snuff out in the yard.

This didn’t set to well with my mother because she was a person who demanded everything to be clean and perfect. But she didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to hurt the old man’s feelings. After all, he was a good neighbor, with all his shortcomings. So we tolerated his frequent trips to the front porch and his snuff dipping, for the sake of being neighborly.

Another one of his habits was that he would pat his foot and try to keep time with the music. When a song was played that he liked, he would make a special effort to stay in time with the musicians.

It was during one of these times when Uncle Dave Macon and his band were playing the song “The Old Rugged Cross.” This was much to the man’s liking, so he proceeded to pat his foot and keep time with the music.

I’m sure he thought he was good in keeping time because he would smile and look around the room and seek out any approval that he thought he might find. Those who approved of his foot-stomping were few and far between, but he continued anyway.

As Uncle Dave Macon’s band was playing the last of the old hymn, old man Hicks sat quietly there and it seemed that he had tears in his eyes, for whatever reason. He looked over toward my father and said, “Tell them to play it again, Vincent. That was the best that I’ve ever heard – tell them to play it again.”

There was never any doubt by anyone there that night that the old man was sincere in his request for the song to be played again.”

(Singleton, the author of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the age of 79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime resident of Monroeville, he was born on Dec. 14, 1927 in Marengo County and served as the administrator of the Monroeville National Guard unit from 1964 to 1987. He is buried in Pineville Cemetery in Monroeville. The column above and all of Singleton’s other columns are available to the public through the microfilm records at the Monroe County Public Library in Monroeville. Singleton’s columns are presented here each week for research and scholarship purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work and memory alive.)