Lately, some of us have been trying to document life way back in the forties. That’s the 1940’s. One memory came to me today concerning imagining. Back then we didn’t have TV and had only limited black-and-white movies. We had only images of what we ourselves had seen or maybe imagined.
My memory brought back a thought of our nighttime bedtime habit. I shared a double bed with my younger brother, and we had a radio beside the bed. At bedtime, we were allowed to listen to one program after the lights were turned off. So, in the dark, we would listen to such programs as Inner Sanctum. It was a hit US radio thriller series that ran from 1941 to 1952, known for its creaking door sound effect and spooky hosts.
It was a scary program that began with what sounded like a creaking door and our mental image of a ghost or some other scary creature entering the house or room. We had no TV visual images, only what our own heads could conjure up. All radio programs back then were like that, sounds created in a studio to spark our imagination.
Since I also read a lot of books too at that time, I had a ton of created images in my head. I still have a very active imagination. I am always thinking up explanations for images that I see. I think that even as wonderful as the creation of television and the marvelous enhancements of movies are, people may have lost that imaginative imagination.
Trying to Recreate
Many years after my bedtime radio programs, when I myself was the Mother of a young son, one of the local radio stations announced that they were going to broadcast a long-ago Lone Ranger radio program. Since my son was an ardent TV watcher of those types of programs, I thought it would be fun for him to listen to the radio broadcast. I set it up like a special movie watching, but only with the radio program. We both sat on the couch as it began. He was immediately bored, and I didn’t last much longer, but I could still remember the wonderful hours that I had spent listening to those radio programs.
What had changed? We had become accustomed to seeing someone else’s image, and we still do today, not just with TV and movies, but also with images on our phones and on our computers.
Creating those sounds back in the radio days was a special talent. Slamming doors, creating creaks, rustling papers to imitate a crackling fire, scraping metal against things to cause special sounds. Click on this link to watch a replay of a standard radio program. We have really lost a lot by creating more.
News Reels in the Forties
Earlier, I also mentioned “limited movies”. Our Saturday treat was the Saturday matinee at the movie theater. Truthfully, I don’t remember any of those Saturday movies, but I vividly remember the “news” short reel at the beginning of the show time. It was during World War II, and these reels would show moving images of the war. Of course, there were pictures in the newspaper, but these moving images made the war more real to me as a young person. I had heard the announcement for Pearl Harbor, so these movie reels were important to me.
How is Your Imagination?
I asked AI if there was a simple way to test your imagination. I was amazed that there are all kinds of sophisticated tests available. If you’re interested, you will have to ask AI yourself. One easy test was this. Close your eyes and imagine an apple on a plate. Now think about it. Is it a red, yellow, or green apple? Does it have a stem? Is it whole or just apple slices? Can you imagine the taste? What color is the plate? Is it plain or does it have a pattern or rim? Do you start imagining the things you could make with that apple?
Your answers to the above questions will tell you about your own imagination.