The technical part of the world is making it seem almost impossible for any of the past to come back to being in the present. I can recall the small crystal radios that were used by adjusting a small wire around on another piece of special metal that would allow you to pick up a radio broadcast. If you didn’t like the one you were hearing, you could move the tiny wire around until you accidentally came upon your favorite program of music or whatever.

I can remember a science class that I was taking that required us to construct a crystal radio set which included the head hearing phones that strapped to your head and allowed you to sit or lie down to listen to the radio program. The project required the teacher for instructions. The head phone set cost me two dollars and I had to do several days work just to pay for my head set.

I can remember always wanting to listen to "Little Willie Box" which was a comedy program that came on around eight o’clock in the morning and at five o’clock in the afternoon.

One of the latest stories that I have picked up from the local Cherokee historian and retired pastor, Leon Milton is about when he was a teenager in the Aubrey High School. His job in the afternoons after school was very hard work, but he wanted to earn a little extra spending money. Leon said that he was earning seven dollars and fifty cents a week working for the Elman Allen Farm that was located where the new high school has been built. His job on the Elman Allen farm was a good paying job and his farm work consisted of almost anything that came up.

Leon was accustomed to using the old crystal radio set that consisted of a small wire being moved around on the crystal part until he found his favorite station. He recalls that he had to look around town to find at least one hundred feet of copper wire to stretch out from tree to tree so that the set could pick up the radio frequencies that broadcast his favorite program.

One day he was in Clyde Simpson’ s Drug Store looking around (the store was always stocked with the most up to date items that were attractive to the young people), after Clyde Simpson had just received a new shipment. He was just removing the items from the shipping boxes and pricing the shipment out. After the items were priced, he placed them on attractive glass shelves that displayed the fine dishes and small electric appliances. It was on this day that Leon saw a new dry cell radio being unpacked and priced at thirty dollars which included the battery. The Emerson radio had knobs that allowed you to change the stations with ease which was a far cry from the crystal radios that he had been using for his radio listening.

While Clyde was displaying the dry cell radio on the shelf, Leon asked him how much he wanted for the radio, the reply was far more that what Leon had in his pocket. Knowing that his seven dollars and fifty cents would not last long, he told Clyde that he would like to own the radio which was becoming more beautiful as each minute went by, but his only problem was the shortage of operating cash. Leon looked up to the owner and said that he would pay it out by the month, but he didn’t have any credit established.

The druggist said, "Well son, if you can pay me a little every month, I will be glad to let you have the radio." Leon said he was beginning to feel relieved about the business deal and told the druggist that he would make sure that he paid five dollars every month.

Leon grabbed up the large Emerson radio and couldn’t wait to get it home to show his parents, Sudie and J.D., and his little brother Otha D. what he had purchased.

His neighbors were the Blanks, the Bothwells, Benson, McCarsons, and Nugent Smith and others who lived close by making up a crowd of fifty people who would come in and sit around the front yard on Saturday nights and listen to the battery radio station WSM from Nashville Grand Old Opry.

The Simpson Drug Store was the teenage hang out if you had the money to buy an ice cream cone or a soda fountain drink.

Leon’s great-grandparents were Dave Rae and Lizzy Rae. They were the builders of the lake with horses and mules and fresnos during the 1890's on their farm. The lake supplied fresh water to the small creek that went through the farm and became a popular picnic area and local resort area for the townspeople for fishing, swimming and baptismal services.

Leon said that the lake had a bath house that made the visitors more comfortable as the folks rode out to the lake in the comfort of their buggies with springs in their seats.

On Saturday nights large groups of friends would get together and listen to the dry cell radio and then on Sunday they would load up in the buggies and go out to the fresh spring fed clear, beautiful water for Sunday swimming after church. I am guessing that the boys were on one end of the lake and females were on the other end, since mixed swimming was strictly prohibited.

The photo is Leon and Otha D Milton’s great-grandfather Dave and his wife Alley Rae, with Daughter Lizzy and Ed. Leon thinks this photo was made in the early 1900's. Photo is courtesy of Otha D. Milton.