Love this photo sent to me by my friend and former Radio World colleague Sharon Rae Pettigrew.
She took it while visiting a farm in Grand Ledge, Mich., near Lansing, that is owned by the Perry family; the property has been in their family for more than 100 years.
The Perrys farm 1,000 acres. Crops include soybeans and corn. Animals include horses and a ram named Rammy who lives in a dog pen and gets stuck in the dog door. Sharon thinks the family must also grow kittens there, based on the 500 million or so barn cats she told me she saw.
“They also tap maple trees and make their own syrup. They watch Michigan State football and the Tigers on a big flatscreen TV in the pole barn. They use old car seats as chairs and the La-Z-Boy is occupied by a cat.”
The radio turns on automatically when anyone flips the light switch in the barn. It is tuned constantly to Cumulus station WITL 100.7 FM, which plays country music. I love the pic, which seems to capture the role radio has played in the lives of so many Americans, particularly those in rural and agricultural areas, for so many years.
