In 1976 Winnie the Pooh came into my life and gave me rock and roll. It was February and it was my birthday. I was given a gift of a small transistor radio in the shape of Winnie the Pooh's head. High tech for that time, Portable. I didn't think much of it at the moment. Music to me at that point in my life was what ever I had heard my parents playing in the car. I didn't have a lot of other inputs back then. TV had 3 channels, 4 if you count the one that came on the round antenna that didn't work that well. We had a record player, but the selection of records I had to pick from was bleak at best, and looking back was a big clue as to where my dad was coming from in terms of sexual persuasion. Nothing like a little Ethel Merman. I heard music in church, the Methodist church... do I have to go on. No this music was sweet, and sexy and hard and fast. Rock and Roll had entered my life.
When I first turned the Winnie head on it was set to Christian music, and magically no matter what station I had on when I went to sleep, I woke up with the Winnie head turned to Christian music. Apparently my mother was sneaking into my room at night and changing the station as I slept. That's a little creepy in it self. When I first turned the small dial on the side of the Winnie head to change the stations I distinctly remember the sound of Stevie Wonder singing "Sir Duke" for the first time. It was one of those Ah Ha moments in life. I then turned the other dial on the side of the Winnie head that made things louder, something until them I didn't really want to do. There was some inherent desire to hear that music loud. It just sounded better. I fell in love. I listened to that Winnie head all the time and most nights fell asleep with it on 98 KUPD the station that "Rocks the Desert". Of course that is not the station it was on in the morning. The problem then was that there was no auto off switch and I was running down the battery at night and I was always on the desperate look out for new 9 volt batteries. They became a precious commodity.
Winnie was a portal for all kinds of things. The DJ's were funny and the Ad's gave me insight into other aspects of life that I had been missing. Pink Floyd was slow and menacing and I loved it. Paul McCarthy was in this great band called Wings and Eric Clapton had shot a Sheriff. I seemed to become self aware and with Winnie as my tour guide I ate it up. With what I am sure was an impulse buy on my parents part to give me a small gift for my birthday, the innocuous face of a Disney character that spoke Oral Roberts but sang Tina Turner, changed my life forever. I wonder if Tinkerbell did the same for my sister.
