Remember when the Trona High School basketball games were held downtown across from Austin Hall? Well, I suppose that most of you won’t. I don’t remember this particular game. I don’t remember much of what happened when I was two.

I do remember seeing at least one game being played there. I was probably a free spectator looking through the trees and fence. I think the girls who sold tickets would also let us in for free during the fourth quarter. I cannot imagine my mother giving me money to pay for a ticket to watch basketball.  The courts were concrete rather than wood. They were also used as tennis courts and were used for the weekly roller skating and movie event before courts were torn down and replaced by the one on Argus Ave. Later skating was moved to the tennis courts at the high school. Skating was also held at the clubhouse on the ballroom floor for a few years. Metal skates were not allowed there, only wooden wheels. My sister was the only one in the family that right kind of shoes for the clubhouse.  I never did learn to skate.

The one event that sticks out in my mind the most though is a fundraiser auction that one of the organizations conducted after one of the games. My mother kind of set me up. She decided I should do the bidding on one of the items so see sent me up front  but since I had no idea what I was doing I kept running back to ask her what I should bid next. I lost the bid during one of the times that I was running back for instructions. Then I got the blame for not winning the item. Mom, what were thinking? I was probably only six or seven at the time.

Oh, yea and there was the dog fight that broke out during the movie when skating was held at the High School. The Wilson’s dog had a hold on my arm with its teeth and then someone turned on the lights. I could see the surprize in the dogs eyes when he realized that all his biting and tearing were being wasted on me rather than the on other dog. He quickly let go of me and took aim at the other dog’s hind leg. The Wilsons had to keep him tied up until the authorities were sure he didn’t have rabies. It was a good thing for ma and the dog that he had his shots. I still have the scars but I never did blame the dog. He was a good dog.

AM radio was an important part of my life in Trona in the 40s and 50s. Television made to Trona by way of cable in the last half of the 50s. That was about 10 years after the rest of the country had TV. Radio and movies at the Trona theater were the two choices we had for modern entertainment until we finally had TV. Once Trona had TV there wasn’t enough people going to the theater to keep it open. Sadly it had to close.

KFI was a 50,000 watt NBC affiliate station that still broadcasts out of LA. It was the only station that could be reliably heard during the day in Trona. My mother would listen to the soap operas it broadcast while she did her housework. My favorite soap was “Just Plain Bill“. As I remember it every time the lead actor’s contract came up for renewal Bill would die. Then as the ratings would drop they had figure out an inventive way to bring Bill back from the dead. KFI was the station of the Bob Hope show, Dragnet, Amos and Andy, The Lone Ranger, Bob and Ray, and Fiber McGee. KNX was the CBS station in Los Angeles. It carried Burns and Allen, and Jack Benny and others that I no longer remember. The problem was that KNX would only come in at night or very weakly at sunrise and sunset. At night, KSL the 50,000 watt station in Salt Lake City was actually, a better source for CBS programs than KNX. As TV became more popular in the rest of the country radio drama started to slowly disappear.

During the last half of 50’s when we were all teenagers interested in rock and roll XEAK, “the mighty 690“, a rock and roll station came barreling out of Mexico and could be heard in Trona during the day most of the time and at night there wasn’t any radio signal that was louder. With 70,000 watts of power it covered all of southern California and beyond. The station was in Mexico but the studios were in the LA area. Every night. It would stop broadcasting rock for a half hour and do a hundred “Hail Mary’s” as if it had to do penance for playing rock. XEAK signed off in 1961. Mighty 690 was a big hit with Trona teens of the era.

That was the days of tube radios and early transistor radios. Many people are predicting that AM radio is going to go completely away and be replaced completely with internet radio and podcasts. That may very well happen but if it does it will be a sad future that has been brought about by poor stewardship and perhaps political corruption in the FCC that has allowed radio station ownership to be trusted to a few corporations that are only interested squeezing all the profit they can out the stations they bought. They have no concern for the future or the public interest. Radio could stay innovative but that would require investment and commitment. The industry has been so run into the ground it almost has to fail before anyone can hope to put it together again. If there is any hope at all for it.

When I started this post I was just trying to share memories but somehow the path I took ended taking a swing into the political realm. Hey, sometimes these things happen. I grew up with radio. I am still a big fan of radio even though 80% of what I now listen to are podcasts downloaded from the internet.