KAA-X-OKAAY ST. LOUIS

630 AM on your dial. In fact, on everyone's radio dial in the late 50's to early 70's in the St. Louis and metro area reaching to SoIL. Until about, ironically, 6:30 PM when reception was not good in MTV though at times, our northern neighbors in Centralia could still pick up a strong signal.

One reason that I remember that is because that's the time when George Harrison's sister from Benton came on to talk about her Beatle brother. By that time, we followers had turned to WLS 890 AM from Chicago. Until that hour, we couldn't get good reception. So it worked out well if not perfect.

From waking up to sleepy time, radio was my constant companion in those days. When I wasn't listening it was because I couldn't. Or maybe I was playing my stereo, a junky little no-name with miniature speakers that played LPs and 45s. Younger readers have no idea what I'm talking about. Even before the 8-tracks. Now that was good stuff.

Why others and I were so dependent upon music entertainment was because we were seers. We just knew that we were listening to the best pop music ever. The years have backed us up. In addition, the DJs back then knew when to talk and when not to. Johnny Rabbitt and Dick Biondi were great. I think they learned from the master, Dick Clark. They certainly weren't annoying like most today who think inside jokes with co-or even tri-DJs are humorous to their audience. Innuendo? Not in those days. I'm talking about the times not too long removed when NBC censored tv late night host Jack Paar for saying WC (water closet) on the air.

WLS had the top 3 songs of the night according to the listeners' choices who had called in. It was long, long distance for us ruralites and I never knew anyone who had called the station, but we loved listening to the results and, of course, the songs. Good times. Great times.

But I don't recall which station played the little ditty, "What's the weather for the week-end gonna be/ will it be hot?cold?rain?snow?" And it shouldn't have mattered to us if it were WLS, because they were over 300 miles away.