Music I'm listening to: New Kid on the Block

I have lived eight years now in Santa Rosa but have never had a tuner in the main pile of components in the living room. Why it took me so long, I don't know, but today I finally got around to buying a receiver. After the usual struggle with cords and jacks that connecting a new component entails, I now have--for the first time in a very long time--easy access to music programmed by somebody else. I listen mostly (but by no means exclusively) to classical music, so I've tuned in KRCB, our local PBS station. I wish it were commercial-free classical 24 hours a day. It's not, but it's something. I noticed immediately upon returning to the US after nearly 20 years abroad that not even PBS is entirely commercial-free anymore--especially the TV stations.

You would think the San Francisco Bay Area could support at least one such radio station, but I guess not. Makes me nostalgic for WOSU in Columbus--my standby during my college years--or WGUC in Cincinnati, the station that fed me classical when I lived in Dayton, Ohio, many years ago. All classical, all day long. All-classical public radio fed the growth of my record collection in those years. Maybe it will now do the same for my CD collection--not that I have room for many more. The radio is playing. I look forward to that little thrill of hearing something new that is immediately exciting. Sometimes you recognize a piece that will be a friend for life the first time you hear it.