Radio offered soap operas, mysteries, sports before TV came to Knoxville | Opinion

I grew up in Knoxville listening to the radio. Television did not get here until the fall of 1953, so radio was the chief source of entertainment for many. It offered music, soap operas, mysteries, adventure, quiz shows and great fodder for the imagination. We had the opportunity to create faces from the voices we heard.

Although I had favorites, I overheard many of the programs that my grandmother tuned in to. l, of course, did not follow any of the storylines, but I got a sense of such programs as "Our Gal Sunday" and "The Romance of Helen Trent," a woman who sets out to prove that romance can live on at the age of 35 and even beyond.

There was "Just Plain Bill," "One Man's Family," "Portia faces Life," "Young Widder Brown," "Back Stage Wife," and so many more that had the ever-playing organ music in the background.

Then there was "Oxydol's Own Ma Perkins," a show that was actually named for a detergent. They were called "soap operas" because many of them were sponsored by Blue Cheer, Duz, Dreft, Lux, Rinso, Snow Drift, Super Suds and other brands of soap that have faded from memory.

The show that grabbed my young mind was "The Shadow." "Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men? The Shadow knows," said the announcer. I also followed "Inner Sanctum Mysteries" with its creaking door and featuring such horror masters as Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre and Claude Rains. "Our Miss Brooks" with Eve Arden as a high school English teacher offered comic relief through her romantic activities and the antics of one of her students, Walter Denton, played by future movie star Richard Crenna.

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I suppose my grandmother's dedication to the newscasters Gabriel Heatter, Walter Wenchell and Hans V. Kaltenborn got me interested in government. Heatter usually began his program with "Ah, there's good news tonight." Wenchell started his show in staccato fashion with "Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North and South America and all the ships at sea. Let's go to press." It was a captivating technique.

My earliest memory of listening to a radio program was on June 18, 1941, when was 6 years old. My great-uncle and several of his friends came to our house to listen to the fight between world heavyweight champion Joe Louis and challenger Billy Conn. After a card game of "Coon Can" they turned on the radio. That gathering had signaled to me that something important was about to happen.

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I  heard several fights after that one with "The Brown Bomber," Joe Louis, as he defended his crown. After getting out of the army, he fought Conn again June 19, 1946, before I entered the sixth grade. When a sportswriter told Louis that Conn was fast on his feet, He replied, "He can run, but he can't hide."

In 1946 the Knoxville Journal published the daily programs for our three radio stations: WROL, WBIR and WNOX. By 1952 it added the shows of WIBK and WKGN. That year the three older stations came on the air at 5 a.m. and the others came on later. While WIBK signed off at 6 p.m., the others signed off at midnight or later.

Robert J. Booker is a freelance writer and former executive director of the Beck Cultural Exchange Center. He may be reached at 865-546-1576.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Radio offered soap operas, mysteries, sports before TV came to Knox