undercover radio

At Grandad & Carolyn's, Ross and I would stay in the guest bedroom where there was a large bed that we had to share. There was a little folding stand which could be unfolded to accommodate a suitcase. On the far side of the bed was a little alarm clock radio on the bedside table. The ceiling slanted down to meet the walls where roof sloped into the space of the room. The bed was comfortable and the room seemed a little formal and cozy at the same time somehow. One summer when we were there, Grandad gave Ross Ivanhoe to read, but thought it was too advanced for me. He gave me a strange old book, probably from the twenties or earlier, with a green cover, like a boy's adventure book, set in ancient Egypt. Ross and I would sometimes read our respective books in bed for a while after we were supposed to be asleep. I was a little jealous of Ross's book, and was quite sure that Ivanhoe was not too advanced for me, especially when Ross would read a quote like this to me, "No silver will I give thee, unless I were to pour it molten down thy avaricious throat—no, not a silver penny will I give thee, Nazarene, were it to save thee from the deep damnation thy whole life has merited!" which was already familiar to me, since Grandad had recited it on more than one occasion. But I enjoyed my book too, if for nothing else, the fact that it was old and hard covered, with brittle yellowed pages, and ancient looking type. And I have a vague impression there was a boy throwing a stick on the cover. I think Grandad gave me the book, and I may still have it somewhere. But sometimes, we would get caught with the light on much later than we were supposed to be awake, and then it was really time to turn off the light and go to sleep. So we would turn the light off and wait a while for the adult to return to bed, or to go back downstairs, then, whoever was on the far side of the bed would reach over and turn the AM radio on the clock radio on, and with the volume low, would search for something distant and interesting on the radio. The more distant it was, the more interesting it seemed. Sometimes we would get a Milwaukee station, or Chicago, coming in strong, and we would drift away from those, searching for New York or Boston or somewhere in Texas, a remote and wavering signal, we would strain to listen to the news, or some music, until it gradually faded out or became too staticky. It seemed magical, the sounds drifting in across the ether from some faraway place, late at night. And it seemed slightly, yet deliciously, surreptitious, since we were supposed to be asleep long before. I remember wondering if my dad and his siblings had done similar clandestine radio listening in the same room in the distant past. And we would get tired, and eventually fall asleep, sometimes waking later to turn off the radio, which had been jazz music, or an old time fire and brimstone preacher, or news from the east coast, but was then only a low shhhhh of static.