GLEN ELLYN, Ill. – If old-time radio has a guru, Chuck Schaden is it.

For 35 years, Schaden has broadcast “Those Were The Days,” a weekly show that plays programs from what is known as the Golden Age of Radio. For the last year, he also has hosted “When Radio Was.”

During free moments of a recent broadcast of “Those Were The Days,” Schaden spoke about his long career, his passion for old radio shows and why he believes old-time radio is still popular today.

“I’m just as enthusiastic about doing the show today as I ever was,” Schaden, 73, said. “That’s why I haven’t gotten bored with it. I love planning the program and deciding its content and broadcasting the show.” “Those Were the Days” airs Saturdays on WDCB FM 90.9, the public radio station at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn.

According to Schaden, many of the radio programs that were broadcast during the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s still hold up today. “The listeners are the camera,” Schaden said. “Through their imagination, they decorate the sets, costume the actors and provide the pictures. TV and movies are spectator sports, while radio is a participant sport. That’s what keeps it fresh.

“Old time radio is not just a curiosity piece.”

Schaden remembers running home from school as a boy to listen to his favorite shows. There were “The Adventures of Superman,” “The Lone Ranger,” “The Cinnamon Bear” and “Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy” – to name a few.

“My brother and I were sprawled on the floor, while my mother was knitting on the couch and my father was sitting on an easy chair looking through a magazine,” Schaden said. “We were all listening to the radio.”

The key was variety. There were comedies, mysteries, dramas, Westerns, variety shows and big band music – all on one station.

Some of Schaden’s favorite shows are the “Jack Benny Program,” “Suspense” and the “Lux Radio Theater.”

Schaden draws from more than 50,000 recordings of vintage broadcasts to prepare his programs.

During one August edition of “Those Were The Days,” Schaden played a 1949 broadcast of “My Friend Irma,” a production of “Mice and Men” from 1949, a 1950 episode of the “Phil Harris-Alice Fey Show,” a “World News Today” segment from 1942 and a 1957 broadcast of “Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.”

He and his co-host Ken Alexander also did a segment where they read snippets from a May 8, 1949, issue of the Chicago Sun-Times. Alexander, a veteran radio broadcaster, has been a regular on “Those Were The Days” for the past six years.

“I always wanted to be a radio broadcaster, but I didn’t have the voice for it,” said Schaden, who worked as a banker, a newspaper editor and a marketing executive before he retired.

His collection of old radio shows began some 40 years ago when he jumped at the chance to purchase some reel-to-reel tapes of vintage broadcasts from an East Coast collector. His Morton Grove house is filled with recordings of old radio programs.

It was his collection that landed him a part-time job with a small radio station in Evanston. His first “Those Were The Days” show aired May 2, 1970.

“I haven’t had to cut the grass on a Saturday afternoon since then,” Schaden said.