On April 2, 2019, WDUN will have been a reality for 70 years. That’s seven decades. Or 25,567 days, if you prefer. For 39 of those years I have been privileged to be part of the gang. To think it all started with winning a pizza. Well, sort of.
The ball actually was set in motion some months before the famous pizza call that started it all. I had always been a fan of Top 40 radio. I listened to the music and envied the jocks who so seamlessly moved from one song to the next with cool trivia about the music and quick jokes. I never thought of pursuing radio as a career until one day in high school, I helped DJ a dance. The guy I was helping also was a volunteer jock at the Brenau College (now Brenau University) station, WBCX.
After watching a few shifts, I felt like I could do it too, so I asked if I could have a shift. When they said “yes,” I was elated. It wouldn’t be until a few years later while I was at West Georgia trying to help staff the college station that I realized they’d take anyone who wouldn’t cuss or steal the equipment and who could fog a mirror. But ignorance is bliss and I was one blissful idiot.
I worked mostly weekend shifts with the occasional weekday evening thrown in. The station was block programmed. That means that we did a block of this then a block of that. A good example was Saturday mornings. I would do the 6-10 a.m. shift. The first two hours were classical followed by two hours of rock. While it was more fun to jock the rock, I did enjoy the classical fare. That is with the exception of the names of some of the composers and conductors. If you want a lesson in humility, just say something on the air. If you want to know how well you said it, just pick up the phone. There’s always someone ready with a critique. That can be especially embarrassing when that “somebody” is your piano teacher who just also happens to be a college professor and concert pianist. But that’s how you learn.
One detour before I get to the part about the pizza. Mike Hall used to come on after me on those Saturday mornings. After Mike was dropped off in front of Pierce Auditorium, which housed the station, he would climb the three stories of steps and walk down the hall to the studio all while lugging his box of records. As my last song was playing, he would sit down, cue up his first song, and pull out cards with the things he was going to say that day. Pretty standard, right? Wrong. Mike is blind which is something I didn’t pick up on until several minutes after meeting him. It was amazing to watch how smooth he was in making that station run. It made me realize that I shouldn’t be so intimidated by all the techno gear. They’re just simple machines and working them isn’t that difficult. The real work is what’s happening in that mushy thing in your head. If you want something bad enough, you can’t let anything, even blindness, keep you from making the attempt to achieve it. Which brings me back to the pizza.
Getting what you want is as much about timing as it is about skill. So one Saturday afternoon on WIDE 107 (a station then owned by the Jacobs), they asked a trivia question. Get the right answer and you’d win a pizza from Squeaky’s Pizza (oh, how I miss that place). I got through with the answer and won the pizza. The jock happened to be the same guy who helped run WBCX. We had met once and he had heard me on the air. After answering the question on air and winning the pizza, he put me on hold so he could get my information off the air.
I told him who I was and then walked through the door that fate, and a knowledge of pop music, had opened for me. I asked, “You guys aren’t hiring, are you?” The answer was “yes” and just like that I became the overnight guy on Friday and Saturday nights, working midnight until 6 a.m. I never got the pizza, but I did get a paycheck.
Getting the job was exciting. Getting to work at the same station as the people I listened to everyday was over the top. There was “Jim Hammond and Your Morning Coffee.” I didn’t drink coffee then, but I did listen to Jim on the way to school every morning. There was Jon Kelli, the guy who hired me. And Bobby Ellerbee. Holy cow! Bobby Ellerbee! He was the slickest, smoothest jock around. To this day, I still wish I could be as smooth as he was. Bobby was the guy who trained me. He made it look so easy. It wasn’t, but it was a lot of fun. Seeing him do what he did after only hearing him was an eye opener. Just like watching Mike, it showed me that it doesn’t matter how good your gear is (and we’ve always had good gear here), it’s what you do with it.
All that was 38 birthdays ago, but some mornings when I walk into the studio, I still catch a whiff of vinyl records mixed with a touch of ozone. It instantly takes me back to those first shifts: a touch of nerves and a ton of excitement.
I know you can’t dwell in the past, but it sure is a fun place to visit especially when you’ve been able to create so many great yesterdays.
Thanks, Mr. Jacobs, for letting me be part of your dream.
To read more about the people with whom I've had the privilege to work, check out an earlier blog "Have you talked to your toaster lately?" here.
Twitter: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
