Beg-a-thon

One of the things I do to counteract the dreaded silence of this house is play the radio.
What I do is play WXXI, the public-radio classical music-station out of Rochester (NY) we used to listen to.
I’m a classical-music junkie, and have been ever since high-school. It started with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.
Bach, Beethoven, Brahms. Copeland, Stravinsky, Gershwin, Ravel. Even Mozart and Chopin (“show-pan”) not too long ago. —But especially Bach.
As a public-radio station, WXXI is publicly supported. You can listen free, but the station encourages its listeners to support it by giving to it. I send them $500 per year.
As such I’m “a member” of WXXI.
I think two times a year WXXI does a fund-drive to generate memberships, or encourage more giving by current members.
To me these fund-drives are unbearable. I have to turn the radio off. The silence is more bearable than the constant hawking.
The hawking is not constant. It alternates with classical music. But instead of announcing what’s played, we get pleading solicitations between the music.
It’s not too bad, but I shut it off.
There are other things I don’t like about WXXI — they’re minor.
Opera, for example.
Every Saturday afternoon they air opera live (or a recording of a live opera performance).
Well okay, fatties bellowing every word of a play, as if people normally sang conversation at the top of their lungs.
Opera is more unbearable than a fund-drive. I never listen.
Pity my poor dog alone in my house on a Saturday afternoon. I turn the radio on to keep her company. Wagner’s (“VAG-ner;” as in “ah”) Ride of the Valkyries at full shriek, or some stringy-haired blonde singing every word of tortured dialog, or wailing loudly as Don Juan stabs her. Why do operas tilt toward murder?
So for a week I must endure silence in this house.
WXXI’s Fall fund-drive is on, a beg-a-thon.

• RE: “Dreaded silence of this house.....” —My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17, 2012. Like me she was 68. I miss her dearly.
• My current dog is “Scarlett” (two “Ts,” as in Scarlett O’Hara), a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s seven, and is our sixth Irish-Setter, a high-energy dog. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. [Scarlett was from a failed backyard breeder.] By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't bad. She’s our third rescue.)