Old Radios

Steve Earle - Copperhead Road
Listening to this tune reminded me of a guy I knew back in Ohio who claimed that he used to run moonshine down in Kentucky.

1962 Pontiac Catalina Super Duty

He drove a big ol' Pontiac, looked something like this one (above), though it was a little scruffier. He'd also taken the back seat out, supposedly so that when the trunk was loaded with moonshine, the back end wouldn't sag, which would have been a dead give away to them dad burn revenoors. He was out drinking and shooting shotguns with a friend of his one Saturday night and he let the weight of the shotgun rest on his trigger finger. It went off, aimed right at his foot. Didn't lose his foot, but screwed it up pretty bad.

So I go looking for pictures of moonshine runner's cars and I find this one in a collection of photos.

A well equipped moonshine runner. (photo courtesy of Evan Klein)

I've never seen a radio like that one. I thought the staggered double row of knobs on the upper right side of the faceplate were knobs, but Jack thinks they are pushbutttons used to select the channel.

Coincidentally, Posthip Scott sends me this photo of a fancy antennae.

Washington, D.C., 1929. "Radio with wire-loop antenna." Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative.

It's a little hard to make out until you look at the full size image, but there are a whole series of wires strung around the ends of the X frames. I am not sure what these antennaes were for, but this was still early days of radio, so they probably didn't know either.

Another old radio here.