Finding a memory on top of a mountain

Below is an e-mail I recently sent to the Program Director at WCCO-AM, 8-3-0 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Hi Wendy,

I wasn't sure who to share this with but I'm a native Minnesotan who now lives in Colorado. As I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, first in Brainerd and then Luverne, my father kept our radio tuned to WCCO. We'd listen to Boone and Erickson in the morning and Steve Cannon in the afternoon. As a kid I'd sneak a radio into my bed at night and scan the AM dial trying to see what cities had stations I could pull in. I was fascinated by the idea that I could listen to radio stations from Cleveland, Louisville, Denver, Fort Worth and St. Louis while I was in a small town in Minnesota. I especially enjoyed catching a football, basketball or baseball game.

A few weeks ago, I spent Labor Day weekend at a friend's condo on a mountain about 1,500 feet above the town of Silverthorne, Colorado. Saturday night, the Gophers were playing their first game. My family and I went out to supper in Dillon, CO and as we headed back up the mountain to the condo I thought I'd see if I could find out how the game was going. I tuned the radio in our mini-van to the still familiar 8-3-0 and there was Dave Lee coming through as clear as could be. It was fun to listen to a bit of the game. And it brought back memories of those late nights when I was a kid, scanning the dial to find a distant station that was broadcasting a game.