On the Radio (Babble)

In 2005 when I made a conscious decision to try my hand at writing the first thing I wrote was an essay for the This I Believe project.  It felt like a school assignment, and since the last place I’d formally written anything was in school it seemed like a good way to get my feet wet.  I posted the essay on my blog last year when it was selected for inclusion in a book.  This year I’m pleased to announce that they recorded my reading of the essay for broadcast on public radio.  If you happen to catch The Bob Edwards Show anytime the weekend of the 25th through the 27th you might hear me!

The show is not, however, broadcast in Wisconsin, so I won’t be able to hear it.  But they did send me a link if anyone wants to hear me read on the This I Believe website:

Amazing Grace by Korinthia Klein


It was interesting doing the recording.  I went into the local studio here in Milwaukee and worked with someone over the phone.  I would read, and they would record, and then the person on the phone would ask me to repeat a particular line with a different inflection or ask me to pause in a new place.  All the reading went fine.  It was the guitar playing that freaked me out.

It makes perfect sense that the producers would read my essay and then want me to actually play “Amazing Grace” on the guitar.  What a natural moment for radio!  Except that I don’t really play guitar.  I took some lessons in high school, kept a guitar nearby to mess around on in college, but I don’t really play.  Not the way I play viola in any case.  So when they asked if I would bring an instrument with me to the studio I got very nervous.  The stings on my acoustic guitar I’m pretty sure are the same ones I actually learned “Amazing Grace” on the first time.  There’s nostalgia and then there is simply ridiculous.  So I borrowed a guitar, practiced for a week, and then stumbled my way through the song in a real recording studio feeling rather guilty.  There are actual guitar players who slave away at what they do who will never get the kind of exposure my pitiful little plunking could get, even if it is just on a public radio show that I won’t even hear in my own state.  But it is what it is.  I did my best and I hope it works.
The link above does not include my guitar playing, just my words, but if I find a new link after the broadcast that does include my playing I will put it up.

Reviewing that essay again has put me in the proper frame of mind for the upcoming holiday.  I love Thanksgiving.  I love that it’s about making a grand meal and sharing it with others and remembering to be thankful.  This year we are having friends over to our home and we will eat too much and the kids will play, and our new dog will follow Ian around (Chipper gazing at Ian is the embodiment of ‘thankful’) and it will be great.
Then first thing on Friday morning I’m driving off alone to visit my parents for a couple of days.  My dad has been back in the hospital. He’s currently doing rehab again.  With luck he will be home by the time I visit so we can spend time at the house instead of in a hospital.  I don’t like associating Thanksgiving with cancer.  But I still like the holiday.  And I am thankful every single day.