Guns & Radio don't Mix

Continued.....

 MY parents were not in a position to send me to College. I had the grades. I had all the extracurricular junk (President of Key Club, Boys State Rep, etc) and I thought I had the smarts. I just didn't have the money.

 I had saved enough to do the one thing I thought I needed to do, and that was to get my First Class FCC License. I went off to school and I studied like nothing I'd ever done in my life. I gave it 110%. By the time I got to Boston to take the test, I was so dead tired, that I failed the test by a point. ONE LOUSY POINT. I had NEVER failed at anything I had tried in my life. What in the heck was going on?

 I had to wait 90 days to retake the test. This time in Albany. I was rested. I passed. With flying colors. I felt vindicated, but I had failed at something and I didn't like the way it tasted. I had ALWAYS been able to do what I wanted to do and this time, my brain let me down.

 And then along came deregulation. Up until 1973, EVERY radio station in America HAD to have a real live engineer with an FCC first on staff. MUST HAVE. That's important. The ticket was my ticket. Post de-regulation, you didn't have to have one, just had to have one that you could call. Well THIS SUCKS I thought. What in the heck is going on in my near perfect world?

 Once I got the First Class ticket, I began looking for an opportunity. I knew that School was going to have to wait a bit and I was fortunate enough to get an offer from WQCR in Burlington. Burlington WAS the SMSA that I played in, and about a 40 minute drive. They offered $100.00 a week salary and I figured I could live at home, drive back and forth, etc. I junked The VW and bought a used Opel Kadet. Good on gas and ready to roll....it was a HUGE improvement over the VW.

 The first shift they gave me was overnight, Midnight to six. While that is bad enough, the REAL problem was, I was playing Classical Music. It sucked. One night, I woke up about 2:30 and record is going, tick tick tick....song was over, couldn't remember how long I'd been out, and NOBODY noticed.

 During this time frame, I got to know the guy who was working nights at WVMT, the AM powerhouse in Burlington at the time. He'd call and we'd talk. One night he called and asked me if I wanted to get together for breakfast after the show. I said sure and we made plans. I showed up but he didn't. I waited around for a bit but he never showed. The next night, I learned he had driven to the lake, put a gun in his mouth, and ended it all. I really didn't think having breakfast with me was THAT big a deal, but I guess he did. This was my first real experience with ANYTHING like that and it shook me up pretty bad. Never did find out WHY, but then, probably no one else did either. Just sad.

 About six months in, they wanted me to move to the AM side and they wanted a rock jock. I had never done the screaming rock job thing, but I thought, hey, it might be fun. I was wrong. Not only was it not fun, but it hurt my voice. I'd get done w/ the gig, and I'd need to sleep for a week. The good news is, it didn't last long.

 They decided to move me back to FM and I decided to move period.

 Next stop was Utica NY and WZOW. This was wild too and I was really beginning to think I was nuts to do this radio thing. I got there and the station is in a room, in the Hotel Utica. At the time, it was pretty run down and the roof was leaking. The board was on a portable table, but I was making $150.00 a week so I gave it a whirl. Again, FM with Classical Music. I also started selling advertising there so it was certainly a learning experience. Needless to say, WZOW didn't last long.

to be continued......