Audiobiography Some articles on this website include MP3 audio clips.  Click on a symbol below to jump to the appropriate place in the article.  When you get there, scroll down to the audio box and click the Play button.  (If the audio player doesn't appear, try clicking the "URL" button.) 3:06 1929 Vernon M. Thomas starts selling "the best little car that's ever been sold." 2:16 1936 My father hears a big band on Catalina Island. 15:11 7 clips 1961 Christmas dinner, conversation, and music-making with the Thomases. 2:04 3:02 1961 Our shortwave radio, and a 1961 Richwood High School basketball game on WMRN. 1:52 1962 A tape recorder enables me to play Beethoven twice as fast. 2:20 3:43 2:29 1962 The Kentucky Derby, taped off television, with the band playing "My Old Kentucky Home." 1:45 1963 A song I thought I wrote for the Roman Banquet. 1:41 1964 As a high school junior, I call the play-by-play of a basketball game. 0:16 1965 The "dream theme" from my senior class play. 0:40 1965 A paragraph from my valedictory address. A disclaimer:  Before 1967, I used a poor-quality reel-to-reel machine with lots of hum and distortion.  Afterwards, I recorded on cassettes. 0:36 1965 I recreate, with synth sax and synth harp, a tune that we Oberlin freshmen sang. 0:57 1967 The reconstructed opening to the radio program Oberlin Digest. 1:37 1:27 1:40 1967 Parts of four folk-pop songs from the Armenian Nightingale and his college friends. 30:40 13 clips  1967 By torchlight, students agitate for liberalized housing rules.  The WOBC microphone is there. 13:30 11 clips 1968 On the day I fake an on-the-scene news report, I also discuss lab supplies with my partner Jan Olson. 0:30 1968 The chimes of Finney Chapel. 1:08 1968 A warning about the approaching judgment day. 8:53 1969 A visiting student gives his view of the war in Viet Nam. 1:12 1969 Chanting, anti-war Oberlin College students invade the administration building. 0:54 1969 The Oberlin president talks with the students. 0:40 1969 I speak in multiple voices for a WOBC radio announcement. 2:26 1969 A fragment from my radio play "The Sorcerer's Effects." 0:42 1969 The theme music to the Marion CATV program Potpourri. 19:19 7 clips 1970 I talk with former high school classmate Terry Rockhold, now a math teacher. 0:33 1970 A promo and ID from FM 88 in Syracuse. 8:20 5 clips 1970 Fantastic Fred Legend, the radio star, presents his Annette Funicello Dance Festival & Retrospective.  I play a scientist. 5:02 4 clips 1970 More of me as a scientist, voice breaking appropriately, plus two singers whose voices also crack on cue. 3:34 1971 An in-car recording of the Rockhold/Thomas Rally Team reaching a checkpoint. 75:44 29 clips 1972 In Livermore, Kentucky:  conversations with relatives and a church service on Mother's Day. 1:30 1972 An interview from our TV coverage of the Harding High School prom. 0:41 1972 Listen to the bouncing Bingo balls. 1:49 1972 Sandy and Judy cover the opening of a country club. 0:20 1:25 1973 Then they promote their daily show, Marion Today, on which Judy ad-libs a commercial. 2:56 1973 A Marion Today viewer calls in with an opinion about Watergate. 0:11 1973 An especially annoying test tone. 0:54 1974 Voice-over announcements for Marion Today. 1:22 1974 A commercial on Marion's TV-3. 1:54 2:33 2:08 1974 A song by Trinity High School's Susan Downing.  Later in the same article: Messiah and "Pomp and Circumstance." 1:21 1975 Quoted in 1995: "All the people we used to know..." 3:43 4 clips 1976 Excerpts from a 1976 cable newscast. 44 min 4 clips 1978 I play old Broadway standards on the piano for my parents. 2:26 1981 "AM Drive" performs in the TV-3 studio. 2:20 1981 Lanny Frattare describes a Pirates game on KDKA radio. 1:43 1985 Inside a TV production truck, we begin to edit Paterno. 1:02 0:40 1985 A Stevie Nicks song plays the role of Joe Paterno's wife. 3:08 1988 A multi-track recording of a Bach chorale-prelude. 0:50 1989 The wall has come down, and the cry of "Freedom!" rings out in East Berlin. 0:31 1999 A modern commerical recalls a 1962 sing-along show. 3:15 2003 The finale of my centennial organ recital. 1:04 2005 One of my grandfather's favorite songs. 3:05 2006 A Bach bourrée, played very slowly and emotionally.