• Submitted by: admin
• Arts and Culture
• Science and Technology
• 08 / 23 / 2007

Eighty five years, a whole life, reaches the Cuban radio. Eighty five uninterrupted years, almost a century of emotions, of good and bad news, of music and musicians, of troubadours with guitars playing in improvised studios in a hotel lobby or on a roof, of big orchestras in radio theatres (the band of Benny More, the Sonora Matancera, La Aragon, Van Van...), of temperamental bolero singers who almost cried in front of the microphones (when you are gone, shadows will wrap me up...") of melodramas, of course, the great melodramas of the radio, "opening now the pages of La Novela del Aire...", of adventures, of mystery series, of sung advertising announcements, Candado and La Llave soaps, "fume Partagas, el cigarro que gusta más" a world of live broadcasts of baseball games either in Cuba as abroad, of sport chronicles that make your skin crawl, of gatherings, of big and small interviews, eighty five years commenting day in and day out, describing the main events of the hour, "Radio Reloj reporting, Radio Reloj reporting...", eighty five years of immediacy, making history: "Pueblo de Cuba: en estos momentos acaba de ser ajusticiado revolucionariamente el tirano Fulgencio Batista.."!, of debates more or less passionate, of allegations and proclaims, of angry shocks, of speeches in the Revolution Square, of summoning to struggle, of hopeful and freeing messages (Aqui Radio Rebelde..."!), of radio-classes, of invisible teachers who taught how to sing, eighty five years making people split with laughter, "que gente caballero pero que gente"!, an entire life of constant experimentation, an entire life close to people, in the melancholic dawns, in the nights of insomnia, in the park, the bus, the beach and the car, in the long days without electricity in the most difficult times, in the fifteen-year parties of the 60s, in days of hurricane, with a battery radio and your heart in your sleeve, in the middle of the field, in the night shift, in the guard's hut, eighty five years telling time, the exact time in the entire national territory, minute after minute, second after second, almost a century of love poems, of educational chats, of cooking recipes, of tips on how to live better, of medical advices, of messages and congratulations for peoples birthday, of announcing removals, of death notes, of traffic reports, of official statements, of invitations to concerts, of symphonic shows, of opera arias still having scratch sounds, of programs of alternative music, of weather forecasts, of radial telegrams, of decimas and controversies, of good mornings and good nights...

The radio has always been in our lives, still is, although we are not very aware of its presence. Grandiloquent or modest, with loud speakers or almost whispering. The radio has been the greatest chronicler of a full century. Of an epoch.

Source: By: Yuris Norido, CubaSi