There are gifts that transcend the moment of their giving. For me, the radio was one of those gifts.

It probably came at Christmas when I was 11, maybe 12, a nudge from my parents to begin the transition from toys to real things. This was a real thing. A radio with a clock. I put it next to my bed and could tune in whatever station I wanted – an adult thing that I controlled.

It was white plastic with a radial clock face and a radial tuner, with a speaker between, and stood about 5 inches high and 10 inches long. It was AM only because this was the early ’60s, and AM was all you needed. The new radio fit perfectly into the headboard space of my bed. There was a special timer on the clock so that I could go to sleep, and it would shut the radio off automatically. In 1962, this was cutting-edge technology.

The cool station in western New York was WKBW; 1520 on the dial, it came right out of downtown Buffalo. The Beach Boys, Elvis, Fabian, Bobby Rydell and many more filled its airwaves all day long. Every night I got into bed, turned off the light and WKBW carried me to sleep.

Over time, something unexpected began to happen. It might have started on nights I couldn’t fall asleep, or maybe there was a song I didn’t like, but I began to search the dial.

In the dark, I learned that distant stations also found their way to my radio. It was quite an amazing thing. The first to be discovered was WABC out of New York City, 400 miles away. Cousin Brucie was right there, talking to me from downtown Manhattan. His voice had that little touch of reverb so you knew absolutely that he was coming from the canyons of the big city. I still know the jingle, “Seventy Seven, Double U A B C!”

Listening to a New York City radio station was almost as cool as being in New York. But that wasn’t the only station I found. There was KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pa. WOWO in Fort Wayne, Indiana. WBZ in Boston.

Music became less important than the idea of going to some distant city and hearing what they were hearing. In winter, I followed school closings in Pittsburgh. In summer, I would imagine myself in Central Park as Cousin Brucie ran down which of my favorite recording artists were doing gigs in the city that weekend.

Sometimes I would just troll, slowly going around the dial and carefully listening through the static for any form of life. I was always looking to see what was the farthest station I could tune in. I think I picked up Oklahoma once. Voices would fade in and out like little bursts of wind. In the safety of my bedroom I would connect with distant places, learn their weather, their plans for the next day. Unfamiliar street names and suburbs and radio personalities filled my imagination. Like a good book or movie, I would just immerse myself in their environment. And everyone knows, the Beatles sound better when heard from a station coming out of New York City or Boston than the radio station that was right nearby.

Part of the allure was that it only happened at night. Once the sun came up the distant stations would disappear like stars to the light. By day I lived in western New York. But when darkness fell I was traveling the Northeast, sampling other cultures, other dialects, comparing the humdrum of my life with the humdrum of theirs.

There are scientific explanations why this happens – clouds, atmosphere, clear channel frequencies – but I never took a lot of time to explore them. I was content just finding the stations. Some things are more alive if you let them exist in their mystery.

Eventually I began to settle in with WBZ. Back then, WBZ was a music station, and in late-night hours it would play the cutting edge of rock, underground and folk. I would go to sleep with Dick Summer playing Tom Rush and wake up to Carl DeSuze letting me know about traffic on Storrow Drive. I didn’t know what Storrow Drive was, but it sounded a lot more interesting than the empty streets passed on the way to Tonawanda High School.

Now I look back and think about what has changed for me and why. What are the threads that took shape from late-night radio travels? How did it happen that now I know what Storrow Drive is and tune in to WBZ for traffic alerts when I’m going to be driving on it?

Does it matter? Sometimes life is more alive if you don’t know all the answers.

What I do know is this. When I set down the book tonight and turn off the light next to the bed, I will push the sleep button on my digital clock radio. In the darkness, music will carry us to sleep.

(John Gfroerer of Concord owns a video production company based at the Capitol Center for the Arts.)