Queen for a Day

by Marty Roselius



Since our family didn’t have a television set, I often listened to radio programs on my transistor radio before bedtime. I could only receive a few stations, those that broadcast a signal strong enough I didn’t have to filter the program from background static. I enjoyed listening to a voice from some distant place, speaking to me, unreeling a tale about poor folks less fortunate than I. Stories that unfolded with a sad beginning—a family stuck in the throes of poverty, down on their luck, the father unemployed, medical problems, disability issues and other depressing situations. While concluding with a happy ending—help received from social services, a church support system, or selected to win a wonderful prize that would help them crawl out of the dark abyss of poverty and climb up one small rung on the social ladder.


The shows to which I am referring are the Salvation Army Show and the ever-popular Queen for a Day. On the Salvation Army Show the family would be rescued and the bread multiplied after receiving support from the Salvation Army and access to necessary social programs, leaving them forever indebted to those kind and dedicated folks. It always made me feel warm inside.


The Queen for a Day show came from a slightly different perspective, a game show format, with three women taking turns divulging tragic tales of poverty and destitution. The audience voted for the woman who had the saddest story. She would be crowned Queen for a Day and receive fabulous prizes guaranteed to pull her and her family up by their boot straps, and given at least a view of the bottom rung. 

Prizes certain to turn their life around, such as a new automatic washing machine and ten years supply of Tide detergent for a mom with a dozen kids, all under the age of eight with nothing but a washtub and scrub board for doing their daily laundry. Or a new wheelchair, complete with a black and white TV and a rabbit ear antenna for the mom who’s taking care of a disabled teenaged son she has to carry everywhere because her husband has a broken back from an industrial accident. Stuff like that.


Like I said, they always had a happy ending and gave me comfort as I contentedly slipped off to sleep even before the announcer signed off the air and the radio signal became an annoying buzz. I must have gone through a few batteries in that transistor radio. But lying in bed, listening to stories made me use my imagination. It allowed me to visualize in my own mind, creating vivid scenarios from the words spoken. Something kids don’t do too often anymore. It made me feel lucky too. Lucky our family had a washing machine, lucky we had a set of bunk beds so I didn’t have to sleep on the floor, and very fortunate I had a small family that included only one bratty little sister.


Thanks, Marty, for reminding us that some of the best programming is found on the radio!

World Series on the Sly

Click for outside article on Herb Score

by Marty Roselius

In America, baseball, football and basketball held the attention of sports fans during the 1950s. These three major sports had highly recognized professional leagues and were the primary activities high schools of the area competed in almost to the exclusion of others. 

I followed the professional teams and their star players through my collection of sports cards. In Key West, being a few states and more than a thousand miles removed from the nearest major league city, there were no radio broadcasts of games, although a few would be telecast nationwide on the weekend by one of the three networks. Without a prized television standing in the corner of our family’s living room, my exposure to professional sports was minimal. Nevertheless, I always found a way to stay on top of who was leading the division, how the hated Yankees were doing (they always won), and how my favorite players were faring. 

In 1948 there were only 190,000 TV sets in all of America, but with sports becoming a major portion of television programming during this period, it quickly grew to 10.5 million sets two years later. Radio broadcasts were quite popular as most families had radios, whereas many could not afford a television in the days before the common use of credit cards.

In the major leagues there were only sixteen teams, all concentrated in cities in the northeast and Midwest. There was no team west of St. Louis until the Giants moved to San Francisco in 1958, or south of Washington, D.C. until the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966. But there were still two leagues, The American League and The National League. And the World Series pitted the two best teams of the year, the two champions, against each other for the World Championship.

Start times were a little different too. Ballgames were played during the middle of the day, regardless whether the game was the first of the season or the seventh game of the World Series. Television and radio networks broadcast the games live, during daylight hours, as they were traditionally played. 

So for us school kids, this presented a major league dilemma. The World Series is on the radio. And heck, we’re sitting behind a school desk! That left us with only one alternative. Sneak our transistor radios into class, beneath the watchful eyes of our most unsympathetic teachers. However, some genius inventor acknowledged our dour predicament and developed an amazing invention that made this possible—an earpiece that allowed us to listen to the radio without any audible sound that could be detected by a teacher. With great skill we carefully concealed the small earpiece, feeding the thin wire down our shirt collar to the transistor radio hidden in our pockets. Resting our elbow on the desk, we leaned our head against the open palm of our hand to cover it. 

Willie Mays famous over the shoulder

1954 World Series catch

This deception created a difficult challenge: following the action of the game while not making sudden and compromising sounds, gestures or facial expressions during the excitement of play. Our teachers were aware of the conflict their classroom priorities had with the broadcast of the World Series and were ever watchful for the telltale signs of a distracted student. These World Series games were made even more exciting since we had to follow them discreetly, with the threat of a paddling and the loss of our prized electronics in the midst of the most exciting sports event of the year, if we got caught. But, holy sneakers, we just couldn’t miss the game, at any risk.

I didn’t, get caught that is, and enjoyed the excitement of many a Mickey Mantle home run or a famous Willie Mays’ over-the-shoulder catch from center field while Mrs. Wagner or Mrs. Haskins dutifully carried on their teaching responsibilities with a history lesson from the front of the class. I don’t remember those history lessons, but I do remember those World Series’, which in fact, are history lessons in themselves, aren’t they?