Saturday, August 13, 2011

Garage Sale Memories of Flint


Today was the neighborhood-wide garage sale in Bernal Heights. I spotted this pristine Panasonic "Panapet" R-70, an exact replica of one I listened to in Flint in the seventies, for just $3. It's AM only, works great, and it has undeniable style. According to transistor.org:

Perhaps the most famous portable transistor radio from the 1970's, the Panapet was very popular, and came in a large variety of colors. They were quite a relief from the plain rectangular boxes other radios were housed in at the time.
I'm listening to Jon Miller call the Giants game as I type. Not quite as good as Ernie Harwell announcing a Tigers game, but you can't have everything.

Oh, the retro photo is courtesy of an iPhone app. Nothing like cutting edge technology allowing you to make vintage technology look even more vintage.



8 comments:

  1. I had a yellow one. Used to take it to school with me.

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  2. Mine was orange. I'd love to have another.

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  3. I remember some kids on the beach at Harrisville State Park having radios like this in the late 1970s. They were listening to The Big 8, CKLW. People driving into the park had Big 600 blaring in their cars. Used to be a big beach scene there, driving up from Flint for the day.

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  4. Hey, now you need a Toot-a-Loop! Right on.

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  5. That's a long drive for a day at the beach.

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  6. In the days of cheap gasoline and relatively less travelled expressways, up to Standish anyway, it somehow didn't seem like a long trip. We'd have a picnic in the park before heading to the beach. Sometimes, it was part of a longer stay for a few nights on the Sunrise Side. But I always remember it was popular before the price of gas went way up. It was probably usually during a Holiday weekend. Anyone else remember going there? And I think it was after the days when the Flint gentry went to Lake Fenton for the day or weekend, and before they had the "beaches" Northeast of Flint on the river. And before I-75 took much of the vacation traffic to Traverse City and the Straits Area.

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  7. Hey, Anonymous 2, that may have been my sister and me at Harrisville SP with CKLW on the spherical radio! My mom used to drive up there from the Mich/Ohio border.

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  8. Had one of those radios at Harrisville State Park listening to Dick Purton roll the hits on CKLW

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.