86 MHz


In my bedroom on the floor next to my computer desk is an old radio/record player—it was given to me by my father, and it was given to him by his father. The record player is a wooden box that sits on the ground with two distinguished knobs on the front, a bit larger than a milk crate. The knob on the left adjusts the volume while the knob on the right tunes the frequency. Outmoded, obsolete and forgotten, the old fashioned radio is the eldest of my possessions—ageless, quaint and nostalgic.

I try to picture my grandfather as a young teenage boy lying on his belly across the floor in front of the radio, patiently and methodically adjusting the knobs. Static. He tweaks the knob on the right just slightly. Nothing. More static. He adjusts the knob on the left and takes the volume down just a touch so as not to wake anyone. Again, he slowly turns the knob back and forth, waiting…listening…feeling…

The radio is tuning into a frequency—quiet, invisible radio waves transmitting signals and messages through the air. Without a way to receive and interpret such frequencies they go unnoticed—but don’t vanish. Radio towers transmit radio signals 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Without his radio, my grandfather couldn’t see these frequencies, hear them or feel them, but he had a radio, a listening ear and some patience—and with all factors permitting, my grandfather tuned into a clear frequency. Lying on his belly for hours at a time in silence, listening attentively and patiently to the scratchy, static voices playing over the airwaves, my grandfather is in tune.


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