[BC] What brought me into radio

[Donna Halper]

On 7/29/2014 1:50 PM, COURYHOUSE at aol.com.INVALID wrote:
> For me it was the Tom Swift Series... Discovered them in 4th  grade  But  I was already hooked  by then!
>    

So, did you know there was a "Radio Girls" series?  Four volumes, circa 
1922-23.  I found that out much later, but yeah, the radio craze of the 
1920s really did appeal to the imaginations of both genders.  My own 
interest in radio was more personal, as opposed to wanting to do 
engineering. My father was a tinkerer, and we had a short-wave set, but 
as I said, I was attracted by the personalities and what radio could do 
to make a person feel more connected.  Marshall McLuhan has said that 
radio is the most intimate of all the mass media, and for me that was 
100% true. When I heard my favorite disc jockeys, I felt as if they were 
talking to me, and I knew that THAT was what I wanted to do with my 
life-- to use radio to reach out to people who felt lonely, as I did, 
and to give them the music they loved and a friendly voice to deliver 
it.  My cultural hero was a d.j. named Arnie Ginsburg-- he had a 
high-pitched voice (which he frequently joked about) but he never let it 
stop him, even though at that time, the norm was jocks with big deep 
voices.  I figured if Arnie could become a success, perhaps there was 
hope for me-- a girl, at a time when women were not encouraged to be on 
the air in top-40.  Because Arnie was such as inspiration to me, I put 
him on the cover of my book about Boston radio.  And thanks to people 
like him, and thanks to my own willingness to fight for the right to be 
on the air, I finally did get to be a d.j.  and a music director, and 
most of you know the rest of my story, including why I became a media 
historian.  But I must say I feel sorry about how most kids today will 
never have the experience of bonding with a favorite station or favorite 
air personality... Radio absolutely changed my life...