Wonderful WOKE Radio

When you look at radio today, it is impossible not to dwell on what's been lost in recent decades -- provided you're old enough to remember what we once had.
One thing we had was humanity . . . humanity that, more often than not, rang out through the speaker of your radio along with the music, news, weather and jingles. Humanity flowed from a relationship between broadcaster and listener.

That relationship flowed from personal involvement.

Personal involvement flowed from a deep sense of caring.

And that deep sense of caring flowed from love. I get the feeling that Wonderful WOKE Radio in Charleston, S.C., was all about love.

BACK IN 1979, on Top-40 radio stations around the world, Earth, Wind & Fire described where we find ourselves now this way:

Something happened along the way
What used to be happy was sad
Something happened along the way
And yesterday was all we had

And, oh, after the love has gone
How could you lead me on
And not let me stay around?
Oh, oh, oh, after the love has gone
What used to be right is wrong
Can love that's lost be found?

INDEED. In a bottom-line world of corporate rule and "cost saving" -- a world where young people no longer know radio and, frankly, don't care -- "can love that's been lost be found?"

WOKE's Harry Weaver is long dead now. So are legions like him. And our questions for the future hang just as heavily as our longing for all the love we've lost.