A Radio “Miracle.”

When I was a little kid, my family would make an annual pilgrimage from Ann Arbor to Chicago to visit my aunt Cheryl and her husband David (DB to us) to do some Christmas shopping. We’d stay at their house in Riverside, right next to a house Capone apparently had built for his sister. Then we’d go downtown and visit Marshall Fields’ main store in the Loop and have Christmas tea in the famous Walnut Room.

Tea by the big tree was fine, but as a child of the ‘80s I was a greedy little consumer. Early on I discovered a treasure trove in the basement no one else seemed to care about: a little metal rotating rack of cassette tapes.

Cassettes from the Golden Age of Radio.

Already a fan of The Shadow, The Lone Ranger, and The Green Hornet, I would race to see what shows they had this year. Mostly I was looking for episodes of shows I already loved, but I did pick up some episodes of Dragnet, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, and my first ever episode of The Six Shooter.

One year (can’t remember when, but I must’ve been in double digits) I saw a bland pink insert that said:

Old Time Radio

Miracle on 34th Street

Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O’Hara, Natalie Wood, and John Payne star in this radio version of the yuletide classic about the Macy’s Santa who claims to be the real Kris Kringle.

I knew zilch about the Lux Radio Theatre, but I adored that film, so I wheedled and cajoled until my folks bought it for me. We listened…