WHO 1040 AM Des Moines, Iowa

For those who cannot recognize this, it was my generations entry point to the World Wide Web. Okay, it is just a radio. Well not really just a radio though.

In 1955, my cousin Freddy returned from a year tour of Germany with a fraulein, a love of lagers and respect for anything German engineered. My folks had a TV but wanted a good sounding radio. Freddy insisted they buy a Grundig - the best radio in the world. He even went out and helped them pick the correct one out. He must have picked a good one. It still sits in my home. At that time, radio had scheduled programing much like what we see on commercial TV today. And there was this new thing called FM. Back before us Hippies destroyed FM with Rock, FM played beautiful sounding classical music.

But I never really liked music. This magic box also had two short wave bands with exotic countries listed below segments of the bands. In my pre teens, I would sit for hours slowly turning the big white knob trying to hone in the best reception from Germany or Russia or Japan. I would thrill at getting BBC and actually being able to understand the words they were saying. A little kid from a town in Indiana was touched by thousands he could never see.

Then in 1960, the Washington Senators moved and became the Minnesota Twins. My family was originally from Minnesota so I had a team to root for. My God what a team. Bob Allison, Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Zoilo Versalles and so many more. I lived and died by the Twins. Being close to Chicago, the Cubs and White Sox were always on TV. My Twins NEVER were. So each night, I would turn on the radio to the BC mode. And tune in WHO 1040 AM in Des Moines, Iowa. And listened. And listened. My ear pressed against the speaker so that I would not interfere with my parents watching the TV. And these men of the Twins were all young and slender and seldom failed to catch or hit in the clutch. MY TWINS. A product of the play by play announcers and my vivid imagination.

And now I am seeing if somehow, I can tune in one more game from their 1965 run to the World Series. Maybe listen one more time to the game without the mention of steroids or free agency or luxury boxes.