L.S.M.F.T.

"Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco."

It's amazing that with all the tobacco commercials I heard growing up I don't smoke four packs a day.

If I were to buy into all of the fine products that sponsored my favorite shows, I would only use Johnson's wax to clean my floors (housewives flock to buy it!), Folger's Coffee in my coffee pot (it's good 'til the last drop!), Carnation milk in my cereal (milk from contented cows!), and Swan soap in the shower (it's eight ways better than old style floating soaps!) . . . What exactly are floating soaps?

But choosing a cigarette brand would be difficult. Jack Benny promoted Lucky Strikes. Bing Crosby preferred Chesterfields. Two great men, whose advice do I follow? I suppose I'll have to pick the brand with the best jingle. The clear winner here is Chesterfield:

"Chesterfields, Chesterfields always win first place. That milder mild tobacco never leaves an aftertaste. So open a pack, give 'em a smell, then you'll smoke 'em."

I'm sold, aren't you?

Oh, heavenly days!

"There has always been a lot of rivalry in Wistful Vista over whose house is the most beautifully decorated for Christmas. Mr. McGee of number 79 has never placed in the first 25. Until maybe this year. Because here in the hardware store laying in a supply of outdoor lighting equipment, we find that once-a-year exterior decorator, and his wife, Fibber McGee & Molly. . ."

One fateful Christmas, circa me, 8-years-old, my father gave our family six cassette tapes of Old-Time Radio recordings. The episodes were all Christmas-themed and came in a cheap, plastic case shaped like an old-fashioned radio. That same year my dad also gave me a tape of Bing Crosby's White Christmas in my stocking. At least that's how I like to remember it. It's quite possible these gifts arrived on different years, but I like thinking that the day I discovered Bing Crosby was the same day I discovered Old Time Radio. They are two strange loves for a girl of only 24, but love them I do.

When I first began to listen to these tapes my immediate favorite was the Fibber McGee and Molly show. The McGees head home from the aforementioned hardware store with the copious amount of supplies purchased by Fibber. As he decorates the house, many passersby (all friends of the McGees, of course) stop to shoot the breeze, and hilarity ensues. I might be playing fast and loose with the word hilarity here, but I can still get a chuckle out of it, even after listening to it hundreds of times over the past 16 years.

I lost the tape for a few years and began listening to the other shows. These tapes were my first introduction to Burns & Allen show, The Jack Benny Program and even The Great Gildersleeve, a spin-off of Fibber McGee. At some point in middle school I came into possession of a catalogue that sold Old-Time Radio tapes. It felt like a whole new world had been opened up to me. The first collection of tapes I bought for myself was Old-Time Radio's Greatest Shows, as chosen by the Radio Spirit's, Inc. Sixty episodes for $60, and I saved my hard-earned babysitting money to buy them, a purchase I'm still getting use out of all these years later. I now own hundreds of episodes on tape, a few on cds and about a dozen mp3s. But listening to them on tape is still my preferred method.

I love Old-Time Radio. For sentimental reasons, for its historical relevance and for the plain and simple fact that I enjoy it. It can make me laugh, cry and even scare the pants off me. It has long been a part of my life, and I'd now I'd like to write about it. I hope you, whomever you may be, enjoy what I have to say and maybe even learn something new about the history of American entertainment.