A Radio Table

My mother and father were married in 1924, I believe. It isn't that important, but suffice it to say it was long ago. Those were interesting times, radio had first come out some years earlier and while a popular new medium for society you had to have electricity.

My Dad had a fascination with wood working. It would've been nice through the years if he could've had a home with a shop and puttered away at that hobby. Regardless, in 1926 Dad went to a woodworking shop class held in the evenings for adults. The teacher was the high school shop teacher, Mr. Henry Nelson. Turns out that in seventh and eighth grade some thirty years later Mr. Nelson was my shop teacher.

In 1926 the social events that occupied a Friday or Saturday evening was listening to the radio. Many couple gathered in homes, listened to the radio, danced, sang along, drank whiskey and beer and partied. My parents were no different. One of the activities that occupied peoples' time was developing a log to record various radio stations call signs on. According to my father it was an oft discussed topic where someone would tell of picking up a Pittsburgh, PA station, or and Indianapolis station, or Louisville, KY station. Much time was spent perfecting the tuning, listening to new frequencies and trying to pick up the call sign and location of the broadcasting station.

Dad decided to build a radio table in the manual arts classes offered at night. I have that table. It is beautiful, he turned the four legs on a lathe, the front and side pieces are mortised into the legs, the top is solid wood and has a decorative groove cut round the top. It has a center draw to hold the log book and writing instrument. It is beautifully finished although it suffered some water damage to the top some years ago that needs to be restored. On the bottom of the piece is my Dad's name, Vernon A. Floria, and the date in 1926 that he made the table. It is really a very nice piece of furniture.

Right now the radio table supports the sewing machine and is serving our needs in that way. It is very sturdy, shows no sign of weakening in the joints and I still like to look at it and think that 81 years ago my father made this piece of furniture.

Oh yes, the function. It looks like a desk, however in those days some radios were operated by a wet cell dry cell electrical arrangement. Where one would think drawers would be there is a solid front. That's because on the back side there are two large compartments. One compartment held the wet cell, the other the dry cell, and wires then ran to the radio from behind. The radio sat on top of the table, the one drawer held the log document and writing instrument and you were set for a Saturday evening's entertainment.

I'm proud of my father's skill, I am pleased that I have this heirloom. It connects me to a fine man who raised a fine family, and did the best he could for the 94 years he was allowed to be on the old earth.