The importance of music at the Hemlocks

            In the front room in the main house at the Hemlocks is a large four legged wood box with a small vernier dial on the front. This "thing" is just an old fashioned AM (amplitude modulation) radio (now defunct, though the guts are still in it) which connected  to a folded dipole antenna that was on the porch. There are even grooves in one window seal for the antenna to go through. I imagine, though I don't know really, that that is how important a radio was to the old time people here, like our ancestors. I can imagine them listening to the WSM Grand Ole Opry on Saturday nights, too, just to listen to local music.

            Now days, we can use a small radio to do about the same thing. And the batteries for this are rechargeable so we should be able to sustain all this using existing local water power and even solar power.

            The point of this post is to emphasize how important I think it is for whoever is here to be able to listen on the radio to news, weather, and music. And in a hard times scenario, one may have to find the "channels", but that is something we humans are pretty good at. And remember the idea of radio "skip" and the "ionosphere", which basically means radio reception is better during the night time than the day time. This idea applies to FM (frequency modulation), also. Basically, the ionosphere rises during the dark time which enhances radio.

            Now the Hemlocks also has a pretty good reading library for entertainment and instruction. But, as the old time expression goes, variety is the spice of life, so the radio and music will probably be invaluable in their own right. And we don't need electricity to listen to the radio. A little firelight will work just fine.

            And don't forget about singing in its' own right, too. That can be pretty good entertainment, too. So can reading and telling stories to the listener.

            Last, the Hemlocks also has a large selection of music that takes public electricity to run. So we may go without some of this if times get hard. That's what a radio can provide that the Hemlocks can't provide, if times get hard.  Said another way, others may still provide music, or so I hope, and expect. We just have to find it.

            And it all may not be from the USA, and it all may not be in English, but by golly it will be music, and probably enjoyable. And again it will work best during our night time when radio waves skip best, wherever we live. What a good time for music.

            And that is how important music and the news and weather forecasts will be, and always is, or so I think.