I’ve had SiriusXM radio from almost the beginning. A perfect circumstance of listening to Howard Stern on syndicated terrestrial radio and actually seeing the (back then,) outrageous antics on the E! Network. Combine that with being just out of college and able to buy my own Sirius radio in 2005, a year before he was set to debut on satellite radio.
This was well before Sirius and XM radio merged. Today, every newer vehicle comes with the ability to listen to satellite immediately. Most have a year to 6-month trial. Back in 2005, you had to buy an actual hardware unit. It wasn’t super expensive from what I can remember. And even the monthly subscription was fairly inexpensive. Six or seven bucks, at most.
I was happy to pay it. Even though I still didn’t know my ass from my elbow back then, fresh out of college AND moving 1500 miles away to California from my home state of Michigan, I knew my sad monthly income had to include the Sirius radio and all the excitement that Howard and commercial-less music channels would surely provide.
I’m not here to put free advertisement out for Sirius. I’m just going to call it Sirius from now on. Nothing against XM, that’s what it was called at the beginning and it’s what I’ve always referred to it as. I have no problem speaking satellite radio’s praise, however. I’ve happily paid a monthly subscription now for almost twenty years. Never once considering dropping it. Especially when I have to deal with regular radio while driving in a work vehicle, or someone else’s car that doesn’t have satellite. How do you still deal with that? The constant commercials, the same goofy Howard wannabe talk shows that have to work around swearing and being fake controversial. Even though I no longer listen to Howard, it’s just gotten tired now, like most things, I still find interesting shows and hear new music that I never would on terrestrial.
Sometimes I like going through the channels I never listen to. Seriously, there’s like 300 channels on Sirius. I only listen to maybe five or six regularly. I’ve found some compelling shows and channels I never would have found if I stayed in my regular rotation. Did you know there’s one dedicated only to Hispanic techno? Well, there is.
Always looking for talk radio, and I’ve found some great programs. A lot of which come and go. Sirius inherently was made for this format. The appeal of course is that the FCC has no regulation over satellite radio. Almost anything goes. Now days there’s a million podcasts, spanning every conceivable topic. Everyone from the top a-list celebs, comedians, and even politicians have their own show. But in the early days, it was fresh. Exciting. You never knew what diamond in the rough you could find. That’s where I find myself today.
Almost twenty years later, I’ve gone back to my home state. A couple hours south of where I graduated college. I’ve got a family, a mortgage, and run my own plumbing company. I’ve been fortunate enough to move out of the shit (literally,) and supervise a good team of men and women that handle the actual jobs. I use my own vehicle to bid for jobs, check up on job progression, etc. My personal/work vehicle has Sirius radio, naturally. This is when one late afternoon drive changed what seemed to be a completely normal day.
I’ll try my best to be brief in my setup. I feel like I’ve rambled on too much. I’ve never been a good writer. The last time I seriously wrote was for my college papers. Majored in Sociology. Can you believe that? Five years of school figuring out how people interact with each other just to clean your clogged poop. Life happens to everyone, right?
I’ll also do my best to recap what I heard. I wasn’t recording or anything so please bear with me. This is a loose recollection of what I heard about two days ago. I’m still trying to make sense of it, if there’s anything to make sense of. Maybe someone out there can help.
After going through a set of channels I normally don’t listen to, I landed on channel 119, Channel J, the tab said on my display.
“Welcome back to WJEF,” a deep buttery voiced man yelled, when I stopped on the aforementioned “Channel J.”
Right away this hit me as strange. WJEF sounds like a FM or AM designation. Channels on satellite are usually named, not given a random set of numbers/letters. Howard 100, the 90’s channel, SiriusXM fly, etc.
WHAT THE HECK IS UP JEFFREY NATION! I’M YOUR HOST, DOUBLE J, JEFFREY MALUM. Ok, Ok, I’ll take my voice down. It’s getting late in the day, and you know what that means… it’s time for Jeff Nation’s spot o’ the week. You know how it goes here. We always dive into the mysterious. The dark. The.. uncanny. And this week’s spot o’ the week will have you itchin in yo drawers. Serious ants in the pants for this one.
Wouldn’t you be intrigued? Personally I’ve always been into urban legends, scary stories, cryptids.. This sounded right up my alley.
How many of you remember the Texas crossroads from a few months ago? Car stalls on train tracks and ghost kids start pushing your car across, trying to save you from the same fate they suffered? Who remembers the mysterious Alburquerqe lights that mesmerized an entire city for the better part of two weeks? Well today’s story makes those experiences sound like a SESAME STREET STORY!! HAHAHAH. Excuse me. You know Uncle Jeffy gets excited.
Today, we’re talking about “Knock Knock Road.” This one seems to be a little more.. macabre. And what’s better.. it might be just around the corner from you. So sit back, grab a drink, IF YOU’RE AT HOME, and get ready to get absolutely JEFFED. That’s patent pending, so don’t steal it.
After that introduction, the host read off a couple sponsors and threw it to a short commercial break.
A slight pang of remembrance hit me in the forehead. I’ve heard of “knock knock road.” Probably just a run of the mill urban legend, but something still stood out to me. A guy I used to work with (who I hated,) mentioned it to me years ago.
Welcome back, Jeffrey nation. So, what is knock knock road, and where can you find it? Better yet, how can you survive it? Better YET, do you want to even bother?
This simple legend has a simple set of rules. Best case scenario, you and your friends tuck up your baby nuts and get a little thrill in the middle of the night.
Worse case scenario? You see the ghost of a little girl that was brutally murdered by a hit and run, ever searching for her killer. Legend has it, anyone that seeks her out is just a fine a victim as the one that actually killed her.
Like I said, this is all from what I can remember. I am not a great writer, but I always have had a good memory. It’s not word for word, but I know I’m conveying the general idea of what I heard.
About 20 years ago, so a fairly newer urban legend, it was said that a few friends were having a little night out after seeing a movie. The group raced up and down their neighborhood. Probably imbibing, probably smokin’ up that cush, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN JEFFREY NATION?! Before the driver knew what happened, his friend yelled “look out!” The driver snapped his gaze back to the road, where he saw, just for a second, a little girl in the middle of the street. Staring at him with dark brown eyes, holding a teddy bear in one hand, and dreams that would never come to be in the other.
I’ll spare you the gross details, folks. The worst part of this is that the people in the car, between their own cries of hysteria and disbelief, kept hearing a knocking on the bottom of the car. It didn’t stop until the driver finally, mercifully stopped.
At this point I’m hooked. I love this kind of stuff. Until the next few lines. This is why I’ve come here, to see where I should go from here.
The best part about this legend is, it seems to be in everyone’s hometown. Don’t believe me? How dare you! Go outside. You’re by a lake, right? There’s a stop sign about a block away. Come back after your dumb plumbing job, about midnight, and take a right at that stop sign on Langley Rd.
I know this is hard to believe, and I don’t expect you to. It was like he was talking directly to me. I looked up, I was stopped at Langley. I’ve driven by this road who knows how many times in my life. Did he say something about plumbing? Has anyone else heard this? Am I.. am I in danger?