Back in style

I had my car battery replaced a few weeks ago and I realized yesterday while driving home from work that this erased the programming for my radio buttons. So I was pushing the seek/scan button. I heard some music that sounded sort of Eastern Indian, although I couldn't be sure. It just reminded me of those clips you see where in Indian movies all of a sudden everyone starts dancing and singing.

Then I found a station where they were definitely speaking Mandarin. I could only understand about one word every three minutes, but I listened for a while. The sound of Mandarin being spoken takes me back to my happy years of being involved in Friendship Agape Church in San Jose, California. (Just looking at that website now filled me with love and memories.) Hearing Mandarin is like hearing a beloved song.

Then I found a station where they were speaking French. Again, I could not understand more than the occasional word, but I recognized the language. I'm thinking most of these stations originated in Canada. I live near the U.S./Canada border. Right above the border and up through Vancouver, the area is fairly densely populated, while just below the border it's more bucolic.

Tonight I turned on the radio and, moving on from the French station, found one where they were playing some big band music, and I heard an instrumental piece that sounded like it could be part of a sound track of a movie starring Olivia de Havilland or someone of that black and white vintage. I heard this great song I had never heard before: "Big, Fat Mamas Are Back in Style." The version I've linked to is not the same singer I heard in my car, but it is the same song. I also made a mental note of the station number so I could google it and find out what station it was. It was 102.3 FM, and they had one station identification where they mentioned it was in Bellingham. Turns out it's KMRE, a station run by the American Museum of Radio and Electricity, a local organization I've been unacquainted with till now, but which looks worthwhile.

By association, I thought about the Queen song "Fat Bottomed Girls," which was popular for some reason with all the Dutch girls at Calvin College at our Parties with Music [code for dances--shh, don't tell the alumni] when I was there in the early '80s. I won't link to it. If you want to hear it, you'll have to google it yourself. Don't blame me.