Past My Bedtime
by Blossom Wood

Although I was positive that I was undetected, I had to be careful and quiet.  But that was okay, that was generally the way I liked things… safe, close, assured.  With the door shut to my room I became what I liked – unseen.  I could do, feel, be anything I wanted within the limits of that small bedroom.

There, in my domicile, in my bed and under my sheets, I held in my hand a vehicle to take me to the far away world I dreamed of – an AM transistor radio.  It became part of a nightly routine that I followed with amazing devotion.  Promptly at 10pm each night, I would verify that the radio tuning dial was in the far left position – at the beginning of the smaller numbers.  This way, when the room was dark, I could be assured that I would be properly scanning the dial to catch every possible far away broadcast that I could.  

Once “lights out” had been called, and my mother had made her rounds to make sure I was properly pajamaed before switching off the overhead light – leaving behind the sent of cigarette smoke and perfume - I would plug in the hard, Caucasian flesh colored earpiece and slowly turn the jagged power knob on the radio with my thumb.  An audio flash of crackles would invade the earpiece and bring a smile to my face. 

The first sounds I would hear would usually be rising and falling radio waves – maybe an inaudible voice or two before reaching the exotic Spanish speaking stations.  These were my gems – I didn’t know if they were from Cuba , Mexico , South America or maybe even Spain .  The announcers spoke their foreign language with lightening speed, and their music was bright, peppy, and filled with as much color as a sound could hold… usually reds and oranges if that makes sense. 

Further up the dial, after running across various local stations that seemed so pedestrian after listening to Latin sounds, I would sometimes be lucky enough to catch a Midwestern preacher who would be so full of emotion that I could see him in my mind’s eye covered in sweat and near the point of exhaustion.  Although he spoke of happiness and joy, his voice was full of rage and anger.  It always made me wonder why he hated being so happy.

If the Latin stations were my gems, I had one spot on the dial that was my diamond.  A station that each night, without fail, would always be clearly audible… amazing, actually given the distance.  

The sweet sounds of WLS from Chicago would reach my tiny Alabama bedroom and would open up a world to me that I had not known.  A station so cool, so in touch with the seventies, that they only needed three letters as opposed to our WVOV or WBHP.  (How silly those four-lettered stations seemed after finding the joys of that hip three-lettered station)

Looking back, I am sure it was far from cool – more than likely a top forty format station – but they had the chutzpah to play Donna Summer.   Donna Summer’s spicy lyrics and lusty notes were banned from the local stations.  It was taboo, it was naughty, those songs were filled with the suggestion of disco love… and I liked it!

Sometime between 10:15 and 10:30 , WLS would air a segment that I waited for with much anticipation.  It was called, “Boogie Check.”  Its introduction came as a recording of a gymnasium packed with excited (and I predicted, very cool) teenagers who were chanting, with an intoxicating rhythm, “Boogie Check, Boogie Check…Ooh..Aah, Boogie Check, Boogie Check, Ooh, Aah….”  Between the choruses, those celebrity teens would stamp their feet in perfect rhythm.  That cadence has stayed with me to this day - although, now - sadly, I rarely have a reason to use it.

Boogie Check was the way for the Chicago teens to let each other know that they were doing juuuuust fine, checking in each night – saying, “hello windy city, I’m here… and I’m cooooool.”   Each young adult who would call the station to say hello was, in my mind, the ideal child of the seventies.  Those with perfectly feathered hair, who knew all the steps to the hustle and the bus stop, and knew all the words to every Donna Summer tune.  And I was eavesdropping from far, far away - making myself a part of there glamorous, disco world.

I would overhear my parents speak of growing up in Huntsville in the fifties, of what a wonderful life it was – even of their ritual of calling in to WEUP each night to “check in.”  I would just sit in the backseat and smile – for as idyllic as they thought their teen years were, they couldn’t possibly compare to my far away Boogie Check friends.