A good car is like a favourite shoe. You wear it and repair it until it falls apart. Almost four years ago our beloved Chevrolet Malibu with a loud bang called it quits. We were upset and sorry to see it be towed away to Dueck’s.  We saw a fine blue/silver Chevrolet Cruze which ameliorated out loss.

But it took a while to adapt ourselves to what really was a computer on four wheels. It took some time before I was able to “pair” our phones to the car.  I had no idea what that was all about. Soon we not only adjusted but we could now no longer go back to a car without a rear camera, burn your but seats and a heated steering wheel. There was something that I lost in the Malibu that I only regained in the last few days.

The Malibu had a CD player. On long trips, particularly with our two grandchildren, the player was a way of exposing them to jazz, punk rock, baroque music, Astor Piazzolla and Neil Young. The Cruze has no CD player. On long trips to visit our daughter in Lillooet I connect a portable CD player to the car’s  very good Bose sound system.

In the last three years I have suffered with CBC Radio 1 ( Gloria  Macarenko, and As It Happens excepted) with what to me is run-of-the-mill (if not mediocre) popular music and announcers with speech impediment, bad diction and unpleasant voices. I have depended on Radio 1 for news and on Saturdays when I take my granddaughters or daughter back t Burnaby in the evening I enjoy Vinyl Tap with Randy Bachman. He is a man with a voice I like and with a very good taste in the art of association. Ideas is still good but I miss Lister Sinclair.

For reasons that completely escape me I did not have CBC 105.7 on my radio favourites (the only other being Radio 1) until today.

So there was Tom Allen (the trombonist!) a wonderful voice from my past of listening to the radio in bed. His program is still called Shift. What a delight! He played music that was entirely dedicated to women who were composers or performers in preparation to celebrating Women’s International Day on March 8. So 105.7 is now in my radio. It will soothe me as I navigate in the city.

Listening to Tom Allen brought memories of being in bed at night years ago and listening to Katherine Duncan who would begin her program with, “This is Katherine Duncan in Calgary.” Her voice made Calgary sound exotic!

Thank you CBC!

And today March 7 2022 I must add CBC Reclaimed and CBC Ideas.