1992: 25 years with the Dream Machine
This miniseries about 1992 is floundering. Despite the fact I have a couple posts in mind, I have written only two—and that includes an intro. Needless to say, it’s time to give myself a swift kick in the ass and start writing.
The 22nd was my 35th birthday. Not only does turning 35 mark my entrance into a new age demographic (35–55, or maybe 35–64), it marks my silver anniversary with a trusted electronic companion, one I used to surf the FM dial to discover the world of music.
I turned 10 in 1992, and one of the gifts my parents gave me on my 10th birthday is something I still use every day: a Sony Dream Machine AM/FM clock radio. Everywhere I have lived in the past 25 years, my Dream Machine has been in my bedroom—facing my bed, a constant presence telling me what time it is, waking me in the morning with the sounds of a favorite radio station. (I accidentally set the alarm to buzzer instead of radio once. It was, as best as I can remember, the first and only time the buzzer has been used. I hope it is the last and only time, too.)
The Dream Machine is my second clock radio. On my ninth birthday, my parents gave me a small, cordless Tozai clock radio. The next year, when I received the Dream Machine, I thought it was odd that my parents gave me another clock radio. However, I’m glad they did. While the Tozai was probably my first radio, it is nothing special: the time is off the minute the clock is set, the numbers are not lit, and the small light that illuminates the front is woefully inadequate. I still have it, and use it every morning to listen to NPR (it also comes in handy during severe storms when the power goes out), but it was essentially replaced by the Dream Machine.
The Dream Machine, with its one speaker, was my stereo for years. When I was a kid, it was perched on a shelf, atop two paperback Guinness Book of Records for better reception, across from my bed. (I still place it on top of two Guinness books for the hell of it. In the above pic, the blue copy is the 1993 edition and the yellow one is 1991. I do have the red-colored 1992 edition, but I’m not using it for some reason. It certainly would be fitting for this post.) It pumped out the hits of the early and mid-nineties—the soundtrack of my youth and formative years—and I listened for hours and hours. Though its role as my stereo ended when I commandeered the family boombox sometime in 1995, the Dream Machine continued to be my alarm, and it remains so to this day.
A part of my life since I was a fourth grader, the Dream Machine has seen me grow up. It was with me in my dorm room, my first apartment, and when I lived in California. It has been tuned to Magic/Mix 96, Q103, KRNA, Rock 108, KRUI, KCCK, whatever radio station I liked in Santa Cruz, KKJZ, KCRW, and KUNI. After 25 years, it is still going strong. It is a useful and cherished daily reminder of 1992, and I hope it continues working for 25 more years.
