At the top of the page, you’ve probably noticed a little iframe widgety thing. Contained therein are the songs currently playing at WNCS, FM 104.7 (pointfm.com) out of Montpelier, VT. If there is a phenomenon of a radio station being the center of a teenager’s life, then this one was mine.

When the options for radio included country, speed metal crap rock, big hair bands, soft rock, and country, WNCS floated its alterna-folk-rock sounds to my bedroom and car in those formative years. Though static was what I most often heard — being nestled in the Buffalo Mountain valley will do that — I knew that when I came up out of the valley between Hardwick and Woodbury, the sound would clear and so would my head.

I don’t know if it’s possible to explain how calming and exciting it is to be able to tune in to the familiar — but also new — sounds from here in Massachusetts nearly 15 years later. Static-free, zipping along co-ax and fiber-optic cable instead of bouncing off of clouds, ‘NCS still calms my soul and reminds me where I’m from. In the moments between notes I can drive once again along Route 12 between Montpelier and Elmore after dropping dad off at work. I can feel the cold morning air rushing against my face through the open window of an ’82 Ford wagon (Farley, I called him).

Up until a day ago, I kept forgetting how much a part of my life music really is. Finding ‘NCS again is a reminder that I do have a sound in my head and that it’s not half bad.

Take a listen if you can. I don’t know if the sounds will mean the same thing outside of Vermont, outside of my head, beyond the confines of an old brown Ford, but who knows. Maybe you’ll get a sense of what it was like growing up where everything — including your future — seemed so far away and hard to get to. “You can’t get there from here” wasn’t just a local color cliche. In parts of Vermont, it’s true.

I’m just glad ‘NCS can get here from there.