For several years in the early 90s, I worked at a radio station in small-town Iowa that was a 70-mile round trip commute from where we lived. Whenever the weather went sideways in the winter, I had a standing invitation to stay in town with the station’s GM and his wife, who lived in a fabulous house they had hopes of converting into a B&B one day. She was a great cook and he liked to drink beer, so a snowy night could become a highly congenial (and sometimes a highly alcoholic) occasion.
One icy night I was relaxing in the hot tub with a beer in hand (did I mention they had an indoor hot tub?) when Gene, the GM, tossed me the phone and said, “Call your wife.” And so I did. The Mrs. was back home in our crappy little apartment, where it was freezing cold because the electricity was out, and where just before I called, the cat had set itself on fire thanks to the candles she had lit. For some reason, she was not especially interested in hearing about the good time I was having.
We had a big ice-and-snow storm up here on Sunday. It wasn’t as big as the weather service promised, but because we’re already smashed all the snowfall records for the season with over a month to go, perhaps they can’t be blamed for exaggerating this one a little. I had to do my Sunday 10a-2p shift at the station, but when I got up and saw how rotten it was, I decided I’d better go in early. Once I got there, I learned that the woman who follows me on Sundays couldn’t get out of her driveway, so since I was already there, I covered her shift, too.
The news-talk station in our group went into full info mode shortly after I arrived; over in our little classic-rock corner of the building, we were obligated to do substantially less, but I still did plenty. That’s because days like this, with ice and rain and street flooding, then snow and power outages and everything in town shutting down, are the days radio men live for. And I know tonight that however I might choose to pay the mortgage, whatever I might consider my primary career to be, I am, in the end, a radio man. I’ve been one since I was 11, and to my last day on Earth, whether that’s sometime this week or when I’m 101, it’s what I’m going to be.
Coming tomorrow: We’ll listen to one I’m sure they wrote for you and me. Twice.
“Snowbound”/Donald Fagen Band (live in Westbury, NY, March 2006; bootleg)
Filed under: Radio Tales, Tracks
Old Fashioned Love Song – TDN? Maybe not, but the first thing that surged to my mind.