senior-spectrum.com - Larry Miller

My Bedside Radio Is Talking in My Sleep

Since my dear wife passed away almost six years ago, nights have been lonely. Oh, a few of them haven’t been, but for the most part it has been difficult to be in bed alone after almost 51 years of marriage.

I have tried various ways to remedy the situation. No, not blow-up dolls or big pictures of some of my fantasies — I wouldn’t know where to buy them. I tried to solve the problem with sound.

At first, I tuned the radio to music stations. If the music which came across the airwaves was of the big band era, I would be up all night remembering the days of Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller and others my wife and I loved so much.

For a time, I tried contemporary music — rock and roll. But that kept me awake mumbling to myself about the demise of popular music. “Whatever happened to melody?” I kept asking myself. Then came rap. This, I couldn’t understand at all. Not only had melody disappeared from the popular scene, so had songs.

Worst of all was classical music. Mozart, Beethoven, Bach. Their music presented an intellectual challenge to which I responded by listening for bass lines and counterpoint and structure. How could I sleep when my brain was working so hard? I just couldn’t.

Then one night I discovered all-night talk radio. At last I could fall asleep and stay asleep.

The all-night talk radio station I found featured a host who was into such esoteric pursuits as UFOs and crop circles and out-of-body experiences. It turned out to be the perfect antidote for my midnight wakefulness. I listened as a man with a warm, soothing voice introduced his guest for the night.

First came the list of accomplishments the authority of the evening had accumulated — various college and university degrees, the number of books written and/or edited, lecture tours all over the world. By the time I heard enough honors and achievements to convince me that here was a person I wanted to hear, I was fast asleep.

I remember listening to a description of the exploits of a man who had been aboard various UFOs 17 times. I was anxious to hear him describe how his captors looked, how they made him pregnant with the first male-conceived child on earth and what happened to that wunderkind. But alas, I fell asleep before I even heard the man’s name. Now, I can’t even find his book because I don’t know its name, either. I am sure that he gives lectures, but I don’t know when or where. I was fast asleep by the time they talked about that, which I am certain they did.

Crop circles have always fascinated me. I think I have seen them from 40,000 feet in the air while flying across the country. Someone who had devoted his life to debunking crop circles was due to tell his story on this all-night radio talk show. I was ready to listen.

Then, it happened again. While the host was listing the credits of this man who was famous all over the world except in my bedroom, I fell asleep. Without his expertise to guide me, how would I ever know if it really was a crop circle staring up at me from 40,000 feet below? I never will know, but I won’t lose any sleep over it. I’ll just keep listening to the radio at night.

Did you know that Ouija boards are dangerous and can cause all kinds of terrible things to happen to you and your family if you use one? I know that because I heard it on the radio one night. I am unaware of how the radio found out about it, because I fell asleep before even learning to spell “Ouija.” I had to look it up.

So, if you have trouble sleeping, forget pills. Forget a warm glass of milk. Forget counting sheep. Just listen to talk radio at night. You may not learn anything, but big deal. I don’t learn anything from listening to talk radio in the daytime. And I don’t fall asleep then.

Humor columnist Larry Miller is a former television writer who has penned lines for Dick Van Dyke, Ed McMahon, Jack Paar and many others, and for shows including "The Dating Game," "Beat the Clock" and "Petticoat Junction." In 1985, he began his weekly newspaper column on the lighter side of getting older.

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