The '70s that I miss

When I think of the 1970s, this is the '70s in my mind and of blessed memory.

The '70s I miss is, to be sure, the bubblegum, rock and soul-flavored fun of Top-40 AM radio, but even more, it is the thoughtful and horizon-expanding world of FM radio . . . the freeform, AOR, laid-back funkiness of that cultural space between 88 and 108 megacycles.

That brief moment in broadcasting and pop-culture history when FM was a statement, not the next place to be assimilated by the forces of homogeneity.

WHEN I think of Jimmie Spheeris, the name is inseparable from "Loose Radio" in Baton Rouge, WJBO-FM, later to become WFMF.

That's the 1970s to which I sometimes desperately wish I could return. But I can't, and neither can any of us.

Dem things happen.