So the Lil Missus and I were spending New Year's Eve like we do every other wild and crazy Saturday night.

As we sat around the dining room table doing a jigsaw puzzle of Lewis and Clark, I suddenly realized it was very quiet in our house.

"Didn't we have kids once upon a time?" I asked my wife. "Two smelly males ... hung around here all the time making noise. Whatever happened to them?"

While the Lil Missus pondered that question, I grabbed my laptop computer and dialed up one of those radio stations they have on the Internet. I had to have some noise or I was going to drop well before the ball dropped.

We decided to kick it old school and listen to some old classic country and western music. As we were both born and raised in rural southeast Missourah, we were both weaned on music by folks like George Jones, Porter Wagoner and Johnny Cash.

As a Merle Haggard song blared, we reminisced about being with grandparents and listening to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio and watching "Hee Haw" on Saturday nights on black and white television. We remembered old relatives that would pull out a "gee-tar" (also known as a guitar) and attempt to sing and play.

"Those were the days, huh?" I said and snapped a piece of Merriwether Lewis' head onto his body.

Shortly thereafter, we started noticing how many of the songs being played were about drinking and/or getting drunk. People sang about getting whiskey bent and heck bound. They sang about a whiskey river and white lightning. They even sang about hiring a wino as an interior decorator so that their home would resemble a tavern.

We then noticed songs that weren't about drinking were most likely about cheating and carousing. Ruby took her love to town, someone had a cheating heart and one song was about two young lovers that are married, just not to each other.

"Tell me again why we're listening to this old stuff?" I asked the Lil Missus sarcastically. "We could listen to hip hop and get more wholesome messages."

I knew the answer. We were listening for songs that reminded us of our youth and spending time with dear departed loved ones. The music of that generation wasn't always happiness and joy, but the country artists of that day sang of the culture they knew. We continued to listen to the drinking and cheating songs, not endorsing their message, but enjoying the memories of grandparents.

Our warm reminiscing was then interrupted by an old country singer using a racial slur in a song. I looked at the Lil Missus, who was looking at me with her jaw dropped to the floor.

"Did he say what I think he said?" she asked me.

I quickly shut down the laptop.

"Maybe silence isn't so bad after all."

Scott Beck of St. Charles is a Web page specialist for a health foundation in St. Louis. He writes a semimonthly column for the Journal.