By G. Michael Dobbs
news@thereminder.com
I was not a normal child.
I know that doesn’t come as a surprise to many people.
I was never doing the things typical boys did growing up in the 1950s and ‘60s. I never followed sports. I never thought about playing ball. I never dreamed about playing sports professionally.
I read comic strips and comic books and loved magic, ventriloquism, dinosaurs and airplanes. I also loved listening to the radio.
I received a transistor radio – the first of many terms used in the column that may require some research for anyone much younger than me – when I was in the fourth or fifth grade. Listening to music didn’t impress me much. I liked listening to comedy bits and people talking.
It was when my father was assigned to Kadena Air Force base on the Japanese island of Okinawa that radio grew in importance to me. I listened quite a bit to Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) and heard my first program from the “Golden Days of Radio” – an episode of the Lone ranger.
I was transfixed.
AFRTS carried the last gasp of commercial network radio programming. Arthur Godfrey still had a daily radio show in the 1960s – who knew? The venerable Don McNeill’s Breakfast Club was also still on until 1968 and we listened to that as well.
Back in the states and living in Granby, the radio was on every morning at breakfast. It was always tuned to WTIC AM and to Bob Steele. My love of radio was tested severely during this time. I didn’t appreciate Steele with his corny jokes, the word of the day and that middle of road elevator music he would play.
None-the-less, I wanted to be on radio and even thought about taking courses through an outfit called the Columbia School of Radio.
As a teen, I listened to WHYN – who didn’t? – which was the most popular Top 40 format in the region. I also listened to WDRC out of Hartford.
Do you remember a French song titled “J’ taime?” it was an innocuous French pop song that became notorious for all of its whispery suggestive rendition. WDCR deejays would spend five minutes condemning the song, hinting about its apparent sexuality, and then would take a poll on whether or not it should be played. What showmanship! Of course, it was always played.
I would play a game at night and slowly twist the tuner on my desk radio to see how distant a signal I could receive. AM signals could “bounce” and I distinctly remember listening to a station in Cleveland, OH, one night.
I still wasn’t into sports. As a teen I was a movie and comic book crazy kid. It’s little wonder I wasn’t a hit with girls.
Going to UMass in the 1970s meant I would listen to WNBC every morning in my little Datsun truck heading to campus. Yes, the New York City powerhouse station was easily picked up and Don Imus was the morning man. He was then in his prime and was hilarious.
Many evenings I listened to Wolfman Jack who was also on WNBC.
My mother developed a regular habit of listening to local talk radio during the day. If the radio was on in the house, I listened if I was around. The first station was WACE and mom was very interested in a daily syndicated show by evangelist Garner Ted Armstrong. His message was less important to me than the commanding yet intimate way he delivered it.
Her next discovery was WREB and Tracy Cole. The late and lamented WREB in Holyoke featured Cole, who was simply ahead of his time. He understood how to get and keep an audience, an audience he regularly abused. For Cole, whose show was mid-day, women who agreed with him were “ladles,” those who did not were “broads” and those he actively hated were “welfare broads.” My mom didn’t like him, but she listened to him every day. I think she was hoping someone would get the upper hand verbally and embarrass Cole.
I don’t think that ever happened. Several of Cole’s on-air antics were legendary – sorry I can’t repeat them here – and what stopped him was a stroke he suffered during an on-air shift.
My buddy and fellow WREB alumni George Murphy wrote a blog about Western Massachusetts radio. Check it out at http://holyokemassradiowreb.blogspot.com.
Years later I was hired by WREB to be the afternoon host. It was an odd sensation to be on a station to which I had listened to as a kid.
Those stories are for the next column. Tune in next month!
G. Michael Dobbs is the managing editor of Reminder Publications and Prime’s new columnist.
