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"Hurt"
by Claude Hall
Chapter 14
The woman sitting beside Doris seemed to flow from the
porch swing like magic; it was actually an evolution
from sitting to standing in one motion that sent her
print dress swirling about her knees. She stepped
toward me and took my right hand in both of her hands,
held my hand for a long moment while studying me with
eyes the same color of green that made her daughter a
stunning beauty.
"So you're the one my daughter has chosen?"
I didn't quite know how to respond to something like
that. Was it a statement? Or was it a question? I
stood in front of them, trying not to appear as
nervous as I really was. Her mother, head tilted
slightly, waited.
After a while, I grinned at her in what I hoped was a
friendly manner and said, "Maybe I did some selecting
myself." I immediately wondered if she might consider
that kind of statement as sort of smart aleck. I had
liked her the moment I saw her and I wanted her to
like me.
"Of course! Of course," said her mother, but she not
only smiled, I could sense a certain amusement in the
sparkle of her eyes. She patted my hand. She seemed
reluctant to let it go.
"Mother!" Doris said in a tone of admonishment as if
her mother was up to something mischievous that she
shouldn't be doing. But her eyes were also laughing.
Her mother, however, quickly took me by the arm and
led me to the porch swing and sort of pushed me into
it beside her daughter.
"You must forgive us, Chuck. We're an unusual family.
You sit right there and I'll fetch some ice tea for
you two young people." She quickly disappeared
through a door toward the back of the veranda.
Doris leaned over and gave me a quick kiss.
"Wait a cottonpicking second!" I said. "What did
your
mother mean about expecting me?"
"Maybe J.D. called or something," said Doris, not
looking directly at me.
"And maybe not," I said. "J.D. simply doesn't call
an
awful lot of people. He probably owns a big chunk of
AT&T, but I think he prefers carrier pigeons."
She looked at me a while. I stared at her a while.
For the past couple of days, I'd tried to remember
exactly how she looked. And I couldn't. I could
never picture her face in my mind. I remembered her
as being extremely pretty and I could tell you in a
lot of detail how her hair looked to me. Her eyes,
too. But I couldn't see her face no matter how hard I
tried. In my mind, her face was always a painting
that someone had tried--and failed--to paint like it
should be painted.
Here beside her in the swing, looking directly at her,
I knew why I couldn't picture her face in my mind.
She had a very pretty face with a cute, turned-up
perky nose. But now I realized a radiance flowed from
her that was almost overwhelming; this was framed by
her violently red hair. You couldn't explain what the
effect was except that it was sort of blinding. It
kept you from really looking at her personally. I
wondered it it was just me that felt it.
"So you knew I was coming up here to get you?"
"I knew you were coming. I don't know anything about
getting," she said.
"I'm not real happy with you at the moment," I said,
trying to insert a stern tone in my words. "How come
I have to talk to J.D. to find out you've left town?"
"How did J.D. find out? I never told him."
"I don't know. He just knows a lot of things. Maybe
from the newspapers. I used to think he only read the
stockmarket page, then one day I caught him reading
the sports pages. Turns out he likes the Chicago
Bulls."
"A lot of people like the Chicago Bulls, including my
father."
I shook my head. "It's not the same," I said.
"It's
definitely not the same."
"Well, I'm definitely not the one who left town
first," she said, putting a rather unmistakable tone
on some of the words.
"In my case, it was different."
"How? You weren't with that nutty group I heard about
who chases wolves in the mountains, where you? They
claim they're after werewolves or something."
"I most certainly was not part of that group," I said.
"Well, you must have been up to something equally as
dumb. Survival training? Fooie!"
I held out both hands in more or less a pleading
gesture. "Now and then," I said, "I need to get
back
to nature. I was gone only a couple of nights. One
night, I simply drove over to the rim of the Grand
Canyon. That's all."
"Well, for what it's worth, I tried to phone you a
couple of times to tell you I was with mom and dad up
here," Doris said, and now her own voice carried a
stern tone almost similar to mine, so I knew she was
faking a good bit, "but a strange woman answered the
phone."
She stared at me, daring me to try to explain that one
away.
"That's Amanda," I said after a while, purposely
letting her stew, purposely slurring my words so she
wouldn't quite understand me. But she understood
everything very well.
"Amanda who? Better yet, Amanda what? She told me
she was a relative. Orphans don't have relatives."
I looked at the woods beyond the clearing around the
cabin. Then at the distant lake that could be seen
off to the left beyond the road and further beyond
some trees.
"Just a very nice little old lady," I finally said.
"I found her sleeping on the concrete in an alcove of
the apartment building a few days ago. I gave her a
place to stay out of the cold. That's all."
"Just how old is this Amanda Robinson?" she asked.
"By old, do you mean like 28 or like 38?"
"More like 62," I said.
"Oh, sure," she said.
She crossed her arms and pushed the swing into motion
with both feet.
"But it's true!" I said. "Absolutely true.
You can
ask J.D."
"You men always stick together. Perhaps you've
briefed him on what to say about this strange woman
sharing your apartment," she said. "Perhaps he's in
cahoots with you."
Then I noticed a certain glimmer in her eyes. And I
realized almost instinctively that I was being teased.
"Cahoots, eh? How did you know her name was Amanda
Robinson? Perhaps there are a whole bunch of people
in cahoots with somebody else around here at the
moment."
She shrugged. "Well, naturally I checked up on her."
"You aren't, by any odd chance, jealous?"
"Of course not!" she said. "Anyway, she would have
been 64. Just for the record, of course."
"Of course," I said. I almost laughed, but quickly
figured that might be a mistake, so I didn't.
Once more, I searched through the trees beyond the
porch. A rather large crow with feathers so black
they shined sat facing us on a high branch of a
twisted pine in the corner of the yard. Close enough
to hit with a rock, but far enough away so it would be
able to fly off if anyone tried something like that.
Doris noticed that I was watching the crow. She only
gave it a spurious glance, uncrossed her arms and
touched me lightly on the cheek.
"So, why are you here to get me?"
"I was worried that you might not be safe," I said.
"From what?"
"I'd rather not explain all of that just now."
She frowned.
"Well, I'm not about to be rescued from something you
won't even talk about. Not me."
I tore my eyes from her face. Off out there several
yards away was the forest. Tall pines. Some oak. A
lot of brush. Even in strong daylight, dark shadows
cowered underneath the scrub oak and among the low
cedars. Almost anything could be hiding out there and
you'd never know until it leaped at you.
"There's some kind of trouble brewing that maybe
relates to the hospital...any maybe not," I said.
"Strange trouble. Me and J.D. sort of thought that
maybe you'd be safer down in Vegas with us."
She took a while before answering.
"You and J.D.?"
"Yes."
"This is something real and it's serious? Not a joke
or something like that?"
"Yes."
"Crap," she said. "I thought you might be coming to
get me to elope. Eloping would be romantic."
"Sorry 'bout that," I said.
I thought I saw something move in the rafters above
the porch among the dark shadows. But when I stood
up, I found nothing. Maybe they'd moved deeper into
the dark.
I had the uncanny feeling, however, that someone was
watching us, but all I saw out there was that old
crow. I felt like throwing a rock at it and if there
had been one on the porch, I probably would have tried
to knock it off that limb.
The funny thing was that I still had that same
prickling of the hair on the back of my neck after
Doris' mother returned to the verandah carrying a tray
with a pitcher of iced tea and some glasses. She sat
the tray on a foot stool in front of the swing.
"I don't even know your name," I told her.
She glanced at her daughter with a disapproving frown.
"My daughter sometimes forgets trivial things such as
formal introductions," she said. "Actually, she's so
good at...well, guessing games that I suppose she
figures everyone else knows. I'm Jennifer O'Connor."
She stuck out her hand and I took it. Once again, she
held onto it much longer than necessary, seemingly
studying my face. Her hand was soft, but still firm.
"Mother!" said Doris again, virtually in the same tone
of voice.
"All right. All right," said her mother and let my
hand go. She quickly bent and began to pour each of
us a glass of tea.
"I don't know how you guessed," I said, taking a sip
from the glass she handed me, "but I really like iced
tea. I developed a taste for it when I was a kid in
the deep South."
She smiled at her daughter. "Oh, sometimes I'm almost
as good at guessing games as my daughter."
"Better, darn it," said her daughter.
And both of them laughed softly as if sharing some
secret joke.
But it was okay, I thought, because both of them came
over and kissed me on the cheek and that was pretty
nice.
Just then, a Mercedes-Benz pulled into the driveway
alongside the verandah. I recognized the senator as
soon as he stepped out of the car. I'd seen him a
couple of times on television, of course, but mostly I
recognized him because senators carry a certain air
about them that more or less brands them as a senator
once and forever.
Senator Bangor O'Connor was more than likely Irish.
First, because he was a good politician and J.D. had
once assured me that as a rule all good politicians
are Irish; the rest of them, he said, were something
else. Second, the senator had to be a leprechaun. At
least, he looked something like a leprechaun and I've
always thought that leprechauns were Irish. A bit
taller, perhaps, than any leprechaun I've seen, but,
of course, I've only seen one or two in movies. And
his hair was mostly white and curly, especially around
the temples, instead of red. But until this very
moment, I had always thought that leprechauns were as
mythical as the unicorn and now I wasn't so sure.
He came up the steps onto the verandah, an eager and
somewhat curious expression on his face, to greet me.
"How did you rate a kiss from each of these charming
ladies?" he asked in a bantering tone of voice that
you instantly realized was an attempt at humor. "I
haven't earned that sort of thing in years! Don't
deny it. I saw the whole scene as I turned into the
driveway."
He offered his hand and I shook it.
"Well...."
"A likely story!" he said quickly. He turned to his
daughter. "When's the wedding?"
"We have been disappointed," Doris told him, laughing
to emphasize that she knew he was joking. "He didn't
come up to Lake Tahoe to elope...he has some kind of
foolish idea about rescuing me. But he won't tell me
exactly what the danger is from which I'm being
rescued."
"I simply won't hear of something like that," Senator
Bangor O'Connor said. He quickly took his daughter by
the arm as if to keep me from snatching her away.
They both sat down on the swing, followed almost
immediately by Jennifer O'Connor. All three of them
stared up at me. And all three of them were smiling
as if they knew something that I didn't know.
I tried hiding behind the glass of iced tea in my left
hand, but it was too small. I looked around for
somewhere I could sit, but there wasn't another chair
on the porch. I was growing increasinly uncomfortable
looking down at them.
Too, they may have been smiling, but their eyes were
also full of questions.
Finally, I sat down on the porch railing. It was
fairly comfortable.
"We've been having a little trouble at the hospital,"
I explained to the senator.
With that statement, the senator's smile suddenly
became a little raw. Some of the sparkle disappeared
from his eyes.
"What kind of trouble?" he asked, trying to keep a
casual tone in his voice.
Of course, I couldn't tell him everything, but I knew
that I had to mention some of the problems in an
attempt to pacify some of his intense curiosity.
"Some kind of protest group picketed the hospital a
couple of days ago," I said. "And a day or two before
that, someone driving a Ford Bronco shot at me as I
walked across the parking lot. Then, one of the
attendants was killed."
"I'm glad you weren't personally harmed," he said,
"but why would those incidents, bad enough unto
themselves, involve my daughter enough to bring you up
here to...to take her to safety, might I ask?"
Right then, I knew I was in trouble.
"That's very difficult to explain," I said.
"Something out there?" He waved beyond the porch, a
casual toss of his right hand.
"No."
"You keep looking beyond the trees."
"Just nervousness."
Senator Bangor O'Connor took a long, searching look at
the trees, the road that extended up the slope,
meandering among the pines until it disappeared. For
a moment, I thought he saw something. His eyes
blinked. I studied that particular landscape and
could see nothing.
"There's something you should learn right now, Chuck.
You can't bullshit a politician. We don't have an
excusive right to the manufacturing process, but we
certainly excel at it and can usually recognize it
when it's being tossed at us. Most of us most of the
time anyway."
The crow flew off toward the lake, causing the limb of
the tree to quiver as if from a sudden gust of wind.
I felt uncomfortable under the steady, penetrating
gaze of the senator.
"Could we take a stroll?" I asked.
"Certainly not," said Doris, looking up from her close
conversation on the swing with her mother. "You do
not stray from my sight."
"Men talk, daughter," said the senator. "Men talk.
We're just going over yonder to look at the lake."
We stepped down from the verandah and crossed the
graveled road to an open area beyond three tall pines.
Here, rock exposed from the side of the mountain
created a natural platform. You could even sit down
on a boulder. But we stood near the edge of the
cliff. The lake, trembling in a sun-thrown silver,
fell away from a narrow rocky shore below us. Off
over the lake, a thunderhead was already building,
clouds climbing on clouds, and it was rimmed with a
slivery glow.
I wish I could have talked to J.D. first...to ask if
what I was about to do was okay. But I realized that
I had to take a chance.
"Have you ever heard of something called the dervish?"
"No," he said.
"Well, I suppose that's understandable. We sort of
gave it that name ourselves. That is, my partner J.D.
hooked that kind of name on them. We don't really
know who they are." I paused, hoping that would add
emphasis to my words. "Nor what they are."
I'd placed even stronger emphasis on my last sentence.
I wondered if the senator would notice and sort of
get the drift of my conversation.
He was quiet a long time before responding.
"Do these so-called dervish have anything to do with
the hospital?"
"Probably. Probably a lot to do with the hospital.
We believe that it was the dervish who killed the
attendant."
"I see."
The crow had not flown very far. It was sitting on a
branch of a stunted pine off to our right. The
gnarled limbs of the tree looked like a flailing giant
hand.
"Would this guy Braun, the one who runs the hospital,
be, perhaps, one of your dervish?"
That was a startling idea. I hadn't thought of that
before. I tried to figure it out. But I couldn't.
Once again, I wish J.D. was here.
"I haven't the slightest idea," I said at last.
"But
I don't think so. He may be somewhat of a devil,
though. And, unfortunately, that may well be a
literal definition in more ways than one."
It turned out that Senator Bangor O'Connor had
breakfasted with Dr. Bruan that morning at a casino
resort on the other side of the lake.
"I don't think much of this Braun character," the
senator said in the same kind of tone that meant he
was probably still considering the matter, but had
more or less made up his mind.
"Funny," I said, "because I find myself thinking about
him an awful lot."
"If I didn't know better, I would have sworn he was
trying to bribe me this morning."
"He is, indeed, a rather devious person."
He glanced at me, studying my face with eyes that
seemed very intent on reading every emotion.
"I'm not quite sure that I could work for a man like
that," he said softly.
"Frankly, I'm beginning to think the same thing," I
said.
He seemed pleased at my answer. He glanced away. But
it was a subterfuge. I'm quite positive he was still
studying me, perhaps wondering what his daughter, who
could have certainly had her choice among half of the
men in Southern Nevada if not the entire state, saw in
me. Since I didn't understand that very thing, I kept
quiet and let him do all of the studying he wanted.
"You seem concerned. Are you expecting trouble? Here
and now?"
I shrugged.
"It's just a feeling," I explained. "Like a hunch.
You know?"
"I sometimes have those hunches, too," he said.
"You
seriously think my daughter is in some kind of
danger."
"Yes, sir. I do."
"Because of some bill I'm trying to pass?"
"I doubt if it has anything to do with you," I said.
"It's probably me."
"I would surmise you know that I'm head of a committee
investigating hospitals in this state? My daughter,
under the circumstances, might have told you something
to that effect."
"Yes. I know about it," I said.
"Are you also aware that there are some serious
questions about the hospital where you work?"
"My major problem," I said, "is that I may be
responsible, at least in part, for some of those
questions."
"I see," he said. He nodded his head. "I see.
Might
I ask in what way?"
"I don't think I want to discuss all that. Certainly,
I don't think I want to talk about it at the moment."
"Okay," he said and was quiet for a moment. We both
looked in the direction of the crow on the branch of
the tree.
It was an odd-looking crow with a hazy metallic sheen
to its feathers.
"Do you have a plan of some kind?" the senator asked.
"No, sir. Not a good one anyway. I figure to run.
Maybe head west to the coast. I've always wanted to
visit San Francisco."
Why I said those things, I don't know. It's true that
I've run many times in my life, but I never liked
doing it and every time wished that I hadn't. This
time I certainly had to intention of running. Those
words had just rolled off my tongue unbidden. Maybe
because I wanted to assure the senator that his
daughter would be safe with me. I don't know.
"My daughter, it seems to me, would be much safer
here."
"No, sir. She would not. She most definitely would
not. I can't explain all of the reasons why. I'm
sorry. You'll just have to take my word on all that."
"In other words, you can't guarantee my daughter will
be safe with you?"
"I wish I could. But I can't. In my opinion,
however...."
His hand raised, as if to cut off further words.
`
"Your personal opinion, Chuck, is of little value in a
situation such as this, I'm afraid," he said, "and
certainly not very reassuring to me at the moment."
"I have help in Las Vegas," I said. My voice,
however, even sounded weak to me.
"Ah, but what kind of help? Here, I have the police
fairly well at hand. A phone call from me can bring a
small army of uniforms within minutes."
"I can't do anything like that," I said, "but my
friend J.D. is a bit unusual, you might say. More
important, we're familiar with the danger that we're
facing."
"You've simply got to explain to me what kind of
danger."
For one brief instance, I thought about telling him.
Then I realized that everything would sound crazy.
Vampyres? Werewolves? Ghouls. The dervish, whatever
they were. He'd have me locked up in some psychiatric
ward. Probably one in Canada or somewhere else just
as far away from his daughter as he could get.
"I can't tell you," I finally said.
For a while, both of us just stared in the direction
of the lake. Far out from shore, a small sailboat
tacked in the soft wind from the north. I could make
out two people on the boat. A couple. They seemed
more interested in each other than in sailing.
"Sometimes, I wish I'd never become a senator," Bangor
O'Connor said in a small, sad voice. "Could it be,
perhaps, that these dervish hope to reach you through
my daughter?"
"They, whether they're actually the dervish or not,
know about her, yes. She spent a night in the
hospital following that wreck a while back."
"Ah! Could it have been your friend who called me to
tell me she was okay that night? For me to come down
and pick her up?"
I nodded. "That was J.D."
"I'd like to thank him in person one of these days."
"He's a strange one, J.D. is. I frankly can't predict
whether he'd want to be thanked or not."
"Everyone likes to be appreciated, Chuck. Even
senators."
"You'd think so. Yes. But I've got to warn you that
J.D. isn't quite like anyone else you're going to
meet. At least, not in this life."
"You're quite positive that all of this...trouble
definitely has to do with the hospital?"
"Yes, sir. My friend J.D. and I don't plan to go back
to work there. I don't think J.D. is afraid of
anything that walks the face of this earth. I might
be scared of a lot of things, but not him. However,
he didn't go to work last night and I don't think he
intends to ever go back to that hospital. I know for
sure that I'm not going back."
"I gather that this danger of which you speak, more or
less, is all associated with that hospital in one way
or another. What can you tell me about the place?"
"Some things, I just can't. The president is Braun
and he's a strange one. Pretends to be like an uncle,
but don't turn your back. His girl Friday is named
Gertrude and she may be just as bad. Maybe even
worse."
"According to my information, the survival rate of
patients at that particular hospital is somewhat out
of kilter."
"If you mean it isn't good, then I have to agree with
you," I said.
"Well, the hospital is one problem, but you and I have
another problem facing us at the moment," he said.
"How much do you know about me and my family?"
"Very little," I admitted. "I apologize for it, but
I've never been involved with politics much. What
little I know comes from watching old movies on
television and, now and then, watching the news. I've
seen you on television a couple of times."
"Doris hasn't mentioned anything about me or my wife?"
"No, sir. To be quite frank, we haven't known each
other very long."
"Long enough, according to my daughter."
"It's sort of strange," I said. "I don't understand
it, but she thinks we belong together."
"And how do you feel?"
"I'm more than just a little nervous. I don't have
any education to speak of. Not formal education
anyway. And I'm a little bit scared...you know, her
being a senator's daughter. I don't quite know just
how I would fit in. Also, everything between Doris
and me...well, it's all just a little too sudden."
Bangor O'Connor sighed. "An old family tradition,
Chuck. I met my wife on a vacation trip to Hungary
and we were married three days later. To this very
day, I've never figured how who proposed to whom. Did
Doris tell you that her mother was a gypsy?"
"A gypsy just like in the movies?"
"Precisely like in the movies."
"No. She didn't mention it."
What would you say if I told you that my own relatives
came from Ireland. County Cork, in fact."
"Nothing, I guess."
"Well, I don't suppose it's all that important anyway,
is it?"
"No, I don't suppose so."
"You can certainly rest assured," the senator said,
"that my wife and I...well, we'd would more than
likely have little to say about it. As you may have
surmised, Doris is a bit headstrong. She's perfectly
capable of making her own decision regarding who she
wants as a running mate, if I may use political
terminology for a moment. And there's probably very
little we could say or do about it."
"In other words...."
"Right. It's her call."
As if everything had been suddenly settled, we turned
and walked back across the road and up the steps to
the verandah. But I knew that absolutely nothing had
been settled. Not for an instant.
Doris and her mother had evidently been watching us as
they talked. We found them standing on the corner of
the verandah where they could watch us as well as both
directions of the road in front of the house.
"I guess we're eloping after all," I told Doris.
Her mother Jennifer O'Connor quickly hugged me, then
stepped back, her hands gripping my shouders, and
smiled.
"You've made a good choice, Chuck," she told me.
"Mother!" scolded Doris.
(to be continued)
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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Commentary
by
Claude Hall
January 19, 2004
by Claude Hall
I was doing a bit of conniving the other day in
regards to a couple of people I honestly admire...then
I suddenly realized that I'm too damned old to be
doing that sort of thing. So, I sort of got them
together, I hope, on the Internet and backed off a
distance. Frankly, I was afraid that I might say
something that would hurt someone's feelings.
Frequently, I know too damned much about too damned
many people. The inconsistencies of human nature
don't bother me that much. None of us are perfect. I
knew a great deal, for example, about L. David
Moorhead...most of it fairly piss poor. Didn't
matter; I considered him one of my best friends. I
still get a bit miffed now and then when I think about
him dying on me. Dying? What a hell of an unkind
thing to do to a friend?
You know one of my problems? Assuming, of course,
that I probably do have other problems as well, but
we'll either never discuss them or at least not until
later. I think I've loved radio much too much. Loved
the excitement when something new came along like the
hot clock, a new format, FM, quad...loved the creative
people and enjoyed being around most of them, loved a
jock who was really good (Frank Ward was one of the
very, very best when it came to on-air production and
the night he sat-in at WNEW in New York was a magical
night)...loved the growth of the industry. We--you
and I--were involved in perhaps the greatest period
that radio has ever known.
By conniving, however, I wasn't trying to bring the
old days back, I was hoping to create new days. Good
days. Maybe even great days. For I still believe in
the local medium as a phenomenal entity. And I'll be
honest with you, the conniving the other day was
damned fun for a while. Got the old blood zooming
through these ancient veins. I hope that the deal
goes through. Be great for radio. Really great!
OTHER MATTERS
Gary Allyn, gallyn@adelphia.net:
"There were some
omissions in Jay Blackburn's email to you that needs
some attention. I was here in San Diego during the Ron
Jacobs 'Recycling' period--both before and after.
People always leave out the fact that Neil Ross and I
programmed a successful couple of stations calls
XHIS-FM and XHERS-FM. We did the music and production in San
Diego, but the 200,000-watt transmitter was in Tijuana. We were
the first to play what is now called
'Classic AOR' and had very good numbers in our
targeted demos. This occurred in 1971 and 1972. Ron
was always great at coming up with a word that said it
all--all of what the station intended to do.
'Recycle' was one of those great Jacobian words. The
station did well, but not fabulous. Not as fabulous as
the print media led all to believe. The 'Recycling'
was better than the format after it settled in to just
another AOR station in the market. San Diego always
had several, KPRI being the first back in the 60s.
KDEO also was an innovator in the AOR genre. Neil and
I went on to to program Dan McKinnon's KSEA-FM, the
first Top-40 FM in San Diego. KSEA dropped the ABC
'Love' format with Jimmy Rabbitt et al for our Hit
Format. It gave KCBQ (my old radio alma mater) a good
run for their money on a very skimpy and limited
budget. We PROVED what could be done without a big
promotional or giveaway budget. We used our extensive
knowledge of the market instead of expensive,
time-consuming research. We did it the old fashioned
way...we did it with better music, more creativity,
and ear-appeal seat-of-the pants ideas and formatics.
If one is going to write about a market, get the
complete picture, not just the snapshots you
pre-select. Sometimes the backgound is more
interesting than the focal point. Thanks, Claude, for
letting me add these omissions to the record."
Great stuff, Gary. Of course, it would be impossible
to write about the full story of radio in many
markets. I always think of San Diego as Jack McCoy,
Dan McKinnon, Buzz Bennett. Then, of course, there
was Bobby Rich. I don't remember Jimmy Rabbitt in the
so-called 'Love' format...I recall Brother John,
whoever that was. And who was the ex-Marine on the
MOR station that years later came up with some nude
photos of Dr. Laura? Ah, how quickly we forget!
Great guy. Although I've always thought he should
have kept those photos for his eyes only. Very
un-Marinelike of him.
My first contact with San Diego radio, as I recall
from this position of years, was with Dan McKinnon,
who owned KSON and took it country music back in a day
when very, very few of anyone admitted publicly to
being a country music fan, including I surmise a lot
of people working in country radio. Real country
music people were indeed a rare breed. Maybe Bill
Ward, who was cowboy from the word giddyup; maybe Bill
Drake, who, like me, loved bluegrass and didn't care
who knew it. Everyone else? Even Dan McKinnon wasn't
really country. He was the son of a very popular and
very influential senator; they owned a slice of
Mission Bay (mucho dinero), which Dan and his father
sold eventually, but kept a penthouse in the high rise
that was constructed there. Dan also owned a
"ranch"
of about 200 acres just outside of San Diego. Two
hundred acres may not seem like much dirt, but I've
visited with my kids when Dan was still married to
Virginia and there was a spring on the place and it
was surrounded by an Indian reservation which Dan had
leased. These days, I would surmise there are casinos
all over the place. And probably someone else owns
it.
Anyway, Dan promoted country music and he promoted it
hard in both Washington and on Madison Avenue and he
probably deserves a heap of the credit for bringing
the genre mainstream...at least in regards to the ad
bucks. He was good at conniving. A lot of people
will never know what we did to establish country music
radio in those days. Me, Paul Ackerman, Hal Cook, and
a myriad of people like Dan McKinnon.
I was with Dan the day we walked down to the street in
Nashville and he bought an acoustic country music
guitar for $300 at a shop nor far from Tootsie's
Orchid Lounge. So, I believe Dan took country music
seriously by this time, not just as a methodology for
making money. But he began to make good money out of
KSON. The only flaw I found was that the station
would promote country music concerts and even though
these were sold out starring acts such as Kitty Wells,
the radio station was reluctant to play her records.
I always thought this was a rather dumb incongruity.
But even the publicity behind these concerts was
fabulous. Dan would tux some people up in the crowd,
shoot pictures, print a brochure and you'd soon find
that brochure on the desk of some ad executive on
Madison Avenue in his effort to prove that everyone
liked country music. Virginia and Dan parted after a
while. I don't know why. Always figured that they
should have done everything possible to keep that
marriage going. Guess the station was sold
eventually. Dan became head of the CAB or something
similar under Ronald Reagan, then president, with the
purpose of doing away with the office. Which he did.
I think he was probably the only person to succeed in
Reagan's promise to reduce the size of the government.
I heard Dan ended up operating a charter air service
(he was a former combat pilot) in Washington and has
done well. Always liked Dan even though we haven't
been in touch in more than two dozen years I guess.
But that's radio.
Jay Blackburn, radiojdb@satx.rr.com:
"I was talking to
Art (Holt) last friday and we were remembering our
first meeting. John Walton had hired Art to consult
his stations and I had just been hired as KBUYs PD.
Roy Lemons was the GM, Mike Bradly the station
manager. This was the first week in April 1970. I was
really stoked, the big time at last, a 50,000 watter
in a major market. Anyway us KBUY guys loaded up to
meet the new consultant. We had lunch at Arthur's
hotel. Art and I spent the lunch talking Marshall
McLuhan, the tribal drum and the history and future of
communication. Lemons and Bradly had no idea of what
we were talking about. Two hours later I was working
for Art. Two weeks after that I introduced BME (Bruce
Miller Earle) to Art. There you have it, both Ron
Jacobs and McLuhan on a pedestal. Thus began the
BME/JDB show. The night we delivered the case of Wild
Turkey to your suite I believe Bruce held the room in
thrall as he told the story of being escorted back
across the border by the Federales simply because he
was rebuilding 150,000-watt XELO, later XEROK. Every
time BME would get bored or pissed because we were
rebuilding some little pissant AM or FM for Art to
sell I always knew I could find him at the nearest
high-power AM."
Art Holt, HoltMedia@aol.com:
"No spam blocker here...I
leave the door open for everybody who wants to stop by
for a visit. What a funny thing to grow up to be an
ostrich. Honestly though, not much choice in my line
of work. I have to allow total access since about
half my business is with people I never knew till they
contacted me needing something. Another great source
of new and novel ways to perceive reality was
international media symposia and conventions. I spent
a number of years on the International Committee of
the NAB before it was fashionable. Before that I was
a US guy for the InterAmerican Broadcasting
Association. Best of all was the all-time champion
organization: the International Institute of
Communications. Hungover delegates from 96 nations,
all being lectured to by an intellectual from Gabon
about the layers of meaning in verbal media. The IIC
did world conventions every two years and discussed
the distortions of cultural impact from transborder
communications twenty years before the internet blew
through and made moot their musings.
Fun...absoluutely!"
Ted Marvelle, shazam@mvdsl.com:
I'm happy to see that
you, too, have come to Las Vegas. What lured you to
our den of iniquity? I came here back in the early
80s when it was an entirely different town. Vegas
really was a small town then, only 300K or so. I
didn't realize how small, at least in nature, until I
started getting calls from various city, county and
state officials who had heard something on my news
they felt worthy of comment. My newsbeat used to
include the governor, who actually answered his own
phone, as did almost all of them. A comment about the
quality, or lack there of, of the buffet at Circus
Circus prompted a call from its owner, Bill Bennett.
A story about a street closing to keep the riff raff
out of a wealthy neighborhood apparently deserved a
call from a very high county official who told me
that while some of his neighbors might be rich,
including a judge or two, he certainly wasn't, even
though he came with old money with Hollywood
connections. Benny Binnion the venerated Texas
gambler who built Binnion's Horseshoe with a no-limit
policy, rented the entire Thomas and Mack, where the
Runnin' Rebels played, to have his birthday party, had
three or four major country acts, including Willy and
Hank Jr. performing full-stage shows while he sat on
stage in an overstuffed chair, feet up on an ottoman
loving every minute of it. Admission was free to all,
food was free for all and, naturally, all the booze at
all the concession stands was free. It was one hell
of a night. One thing I do remember clearly about
that night was the girl in black leather and waist
long black hair who made her way up the stairs, past
me, at least every other song to get another libation,
and for some reason, paused long enough to plant a
lingering kiss on my lips on the way up, and on the
way down. The more libations, the longer the linger.
We got an early taste of what corporate bean counting
mentality would do to a good thing like radio when
corporations began to take over the town. What has
now happened to radio, happened then, to Las Vegas.
All the soul is gone and the warmth and fun, unless
you consider forking over dollars to unfeeling
machines, fun. Despite the changes, I still love the
place and it has become my first real home since I
left the place where I was raised. Welcome and may you
enjoy at least as many years here as I have."
Ted, see note below to Ken Reeth.
Carole and Terrell Metheny have moved to Arkansas and
the new email, as of Jan. 15, is:
tncmetheny@sbcglobal.net.
Michael J. Miranda (aka Mike Sheridan),
mike704@carolina.rr.com:
"I had to write and let you
know how much I enjoy reading your website. Naturally
I read Vox Jox for many years to keep up with what was
going on in radio, you and later Rollye did an
excellent job. Back to the present, I find your
website fills in some missing information, background
if you will on people that I either worked for, with
or perhaps read about. My interest in radio started
quite young while living in Buffalo and listening to
the antics of Joey Reynolds on WKBW. Recently, I saw
the name Harvey Glascock mentioned on your website and
recalled I was interviewed by his widow some years
after his death for a position at his station which
she was running by that time WSTU. It was a very
impressive station for such a small market, but
unfortunately we just couldn't agree on the money.
Mrs. Glasscock and the P.D. were very gracious, even
taking me to lunch when I came to talk with them. One
of the stations I was fortunate enough to work at
early in my career was WFTL, Fort Lauderdale, owned at
the time by Mr. Joe Amaturo. Michael O'Shea had just
arrived from KLIF to program WFTL; it was my good
fortune to work for him. I don't remember O'Shea ever
critiquing anyone by hotline. His way was classier.
I received a typed note which always started and ended
with a positive comment. In the middle there might be
some critical point that he wanted me to work on.
Even after I caught on to this 'O'Shea method' I
always appreciated he had enough respect for the air
staff that he never came down on us too hard. After
all, he wanted the air staff to sound up and happy.
He helped make WFTL a happy place for everyone no
matter what they did for the station. WFTL was
probably the best station in my twenty-two year
career. There were some that are more recognizable
and certainly more powerful, but I learned quite early
it takes more than a powerful signal to make a great
radio station. Still, I must say it was fun sitting
up all night playing oldies on 50-KW WBT here in
Charlotte. I had listeners from Miami to Montreal, no
preplanned list and lots of freedom on the air. As a
listener I really miss the passing of what we used to
refer to as 'Full Service' radio stations. At those
stations there was news every hour and we had the
freedom to stop the music in the event of a major
local or national news event. Radio today is little
more than a bunch of MP3's in a computer mixed with
lots of commercials. It may sound like I'm complaining
as most of us do about the condition of radio today.
Actually I just want to say how glad I am that I was
able to first listen to radio and later work in it
while it was still a fun and vibrant medium. In 2004
it will be 10 years that I have been out of radio. I
never thought I would say that. I had expected to
work in radio for life but came to the realization it
was time to do something else. I still love hearing
all the stories both past and present. Please excuse
all my rambling and thanks again for your website."
Rollye, eh? That girl has become a one-name entity.
Like Elvis. Just say Rollye and everyone knows who
you're talking about. Good on you, Rollye!
If often wondered if it was Rollye who used to call me
at Billboard and start the conversation with "You male
chauvenist pig!" That always got me laughing.
Whoever it was, I hope the lady is doing well. She
was always fun.
Robert Pyle, winfield@hotmail.com:
"I don't know if
you remember me??!! Thanks to you, I was a guest
speaker several times at SUNY at Brockport back in the
1980s. You are responsible for me ending up in higher
education (that's a blessing and/or curse *smile*).
My mind took an odd turn yesterday, I was thinking
about you. So I did a Google search, and damn did I
find a bunch of stuff about Claude Hall!!! I am glad
you are still writing about your passion. I spent
some time reading your Billboard articles as well as
your on-line column and vicariously lived many
memories about the grand days of format radio and pop
music. I hope all is well with you. For me,
I
landed at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC. I
teach broadcast communications and television
production. I will be leaving my position after ten
years, seeking greener pastures. I will add your
online work to my favorites list and be a regular
counter click on your cyber site. Till later."
I could never forget you, of course, Bob! Oft
wondered what had happened to you and thought about
checking the faculty lists at various Indiana
univerities just for the heck of it. Don't lose
touch! You reached me though a website given to me by
Larry Shannon down in Ft. Worth. He operates
www.radiodailynews.com
and,on the side, provides
websites for me, John Rook, and Chuck Dunaway. Why, I
don't know. Never figured that out. But I'm grateful.
Barbara and I are retired in Las Vegas. A small
townhome in a complex. I've been writing novels which
I can't get published. My oldest son is a lawyer in
Los Angeles. My middle son has finally joined NA in
San Diego and has a year and a half clean. My
youngest son is Andy Hall, the poet, who teaches as an
adjunct at UNLV and is currently working on his second
master's at Antioch in LA. Andy does slam poetry (no,
I do not understand it either) and has read at various
cities, including NYC and has just been invited to
read in Austin, TX, where relatives will no doubt hear
him and be properly apalled!
I also wondered where Ken Reeth had disappeared.
Ken Reeth, barken7@hotmail.com:
"Right here, pal. I
spent the holidays moving from San Diego to Vegas and
was without the Internet for a while. No special
reason for the move, just something I've always wanted
to do. So here I am, too old to sin and living in Sin
City. Thanks for forwarding the info. (By the way,
it's spelled 'Reeth', my mistake). Take care."
Hey! Great, Ken. Whole bunch of radio and music guys
around that ought to get together one of the these
days. Be nice on the patio in about six or seven
weeks. Maybe I'll see if anyone wants to drop by
about that time. Tea, coffee, Diet Pepsi. Anyone
wish to join us? Send me a note.
I'd written Ken about one of his radio fans trying to
reach him. Somehow, this Commentary has become a
virtual watering hole for radio. Terry Provance,
nprovance@cox.net, wrote:
"Hi, I am a long time fan of
Ken Reeth from when he was with WAMO-FM in Pittsburgh,
PA. I moved to San Diego a few years ago and when I
tried to find information on 'Brother Love' from WAMO,
I found that Ken had moved to Carlsbad, CA, just up
the coast from here. I tried his hotmail email
address (barken7) but it bounced back. Do you, by
chance, have a current email address for Ken? If you
are wary of giving it out, could you at least forward
this email to him, so that if he was willing to
communicate with me, he could do so. I would
certainly appreciate it."
I wrote Terry that I was sorry, I had the same
address, but he might check in at some point. And he
did. Good on you, Ken!
Bob Skurzewski, BfloOffAir@aol.com:
"Claude, I read
Larry Shannon's newsletter daily and find it
entertaining. In reading about your take on music I
saw the name Dick Carr listed. If this is the same
Dick Carr who spent time in Buffalo, New York, at WBNY
AM, I'd like to get in touch with him. Lucky Pierre,
another Top 40 jock of that station, told me they were
good friends from back then and would like to get in
touch with Carr also. Any help would be appreciated."
I forwarded Bob's email on to Dick.
Hal Smith, halsmith@starstream.net:
"Just a note to
tell you how much I enjoy reading your material on
the internet. Please keep it up."
Dale Sommers, Truckin' Bozo Radio Network, Cincinnati,
Bozo@One.Net: "I have
read and admired your work for
many years and for some months I have been receiving
your email letters by accident, but I wanted to share
some memories with you that might strike a chord with
some of my peers. My radio career started in 1959 in
Cincinnati, while I was still attending Colerain High
School. I was only sixteen at the time and had moved
to Cincinnati just two years earlier and I had a very
pronounced southern accent. But by altering my voice
I was able to convince Al Fishman that I was 18 and
had worked at a station prior to WAEF-FM and that I
had experience in radio. He gave me a job that paid a
dollar and a quarter and I worked five nights a week
from 7 till midnight and played big band music. I was
in hog heaven and lovin' it. I didn't care that the
station wasn't in stereo while every other FM signal
within earshot of Cincinnati had already gone stereo.
Prior to actually getting started in radio I had
worked with Rex Dale who was running the 'Imagination
Ballroom' on WCKY and he lived just up the street from
my mom and dad. My dad had hoped for an engineering
career for his son so I had all kinds of electronic
equipment that I would spend hours working on and
assembling and disassembling. One night, Rex needed
someone to provide some equipment for him as he had a
record hop to attend and his equipment was on the
fritz. His son told him that he might want to talk to
me as I had lots of equipment. Rex paid me ten bucks
for the night and had me go along because he could not
figure out how to run my Rube Goldberg masterpiece,
but it worked and a fire had been built in my soul.
This was 1957. From that day forward, I would hang out
at any radio station that would allow it and I found
the old WSAI-1360 an easy place to explore. The
studios were in the old Sinton Hotel in downtown
Cincinnati and after business hours many of us would
venture into the hallways of the Sinton and find our
way to the WSAI studios. This was where Tom Clay had
worked and Stan Scott was now working and I found Stan
to be a very nice man and easy to converse with. The
studio didn't have a board as we would now know it,
but the operation was completely stand up and there
were four or five turntables and a rack full of the
old Magnecord tape decks and what appeared to be
millions of 3-inch reels of tape lying about and the
reels held the produced commercials that ran on WSAI.
Each of the turn tables had a slide pot built into the
turntable cabinet and when you moved the pot it would
start the platter and also bring the volume up as you
move the pot forward. The jocks would use a Lavaliere
microphone and I was like a kid in a candy store. Yes,
there really was a voice behind that speaker. An
entire generation of Americans grew up loving that
radio and those guys (no offense ladies, but the women
only did news on the Top 40 stations of that era) who
played an integral role in our day-to-day lives. In
Cincinnati it was WSAI and in Memphis it was WHBQ or
WMPS. In Chicago it was WLS, and so it went, all
across the land. Kids of the baby boom were growing
up with a transistor radio in hand. A few years later
I moved on to WJPS-1330 in Evansville, Indiana, and
was doing the 7 to midnight trick. We had an old Gates
Yard (as it was called back then) and three brand new
Harris cart decks. It was beautiful. No longer would
we have to cue up everything on 3-inch tape reels. We
had CARTS! I had used the Spotmaster cart machines
before that but the oldtimers remember how they would
eat a cart in 2 second flat and you were scurrying
around to find the master of the spot so you could
redub it onto another cart while a record played. I
especially remember one night when one of my two RCA
turntables (pre-1950) with the 16-inch platters
decided to die on me and I was left with only one
turntable. Pretty hard to run a music show with just
one turntable, so I recalled seeing an old Magnecord
tape deck on the engineers workbench and I knew the
rewind motor ran at 1800 rpm, so I ripped the motor
out of the Magnecord tape deck and then managed to get
the sleeve over the driveshaft of the motor and
installed it in the RCA turntable. In the past, the
old RCA table would make a farting sound from the
rubber puck slipping on the sleeve as it started, so
we all learned that when we hit the switch to start
either of the turn tables, we spoke up or turned away
from the turntables or you would have farting sounds
on the air. The Magnecord motor was twice the power of
the old RCA motor and when it started it let out this
atrocious roar that you could hear all the way down
the hall, but our engineer got on the line and
contacted a supplier of pucks and he installed one of
those new Red Rubber pucks and the farting sounds on
WJPS ended. It's funny at times how in those days we
could repair something when it broke on you. Now, you
must call an engineer or an IT person when something
breaks. I just wanted to share those memories with
you. I am celebrating my 20th anniversary at
WLW-Cincinnati as of March 26. I am now 60 and one
third of my life has been at WLW, and to think it all
started with a little lie about my age when I was only
16."
Roosevelt "Rick" Wright, Jr., Ph.D., Captain, USNR,
Radio Professor S. I. Newhouse School of Public
Communcations Syracuse University Syracuse, New York
13244, 315-443-9244, 315-472-9797--Clear Channel
Radio, rrwright@syr.edu:
"You are a most incredible
person! The field of Radio Broadcasting and Mass
Communications is most blessed by having your
fantastic historical input 'Keeping the Ship of Radio
Broadcasting Afloat and on the proper course' as we
attempt to reach the Port of Success and Happiness. I
truly enjoy our friendship and the wonderful years of
sharing stories about the greatest of
inventions...Radio Broadcasting. Well I am in my 28th
year as a professor of Radio,Television, and Film in
the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at
Syracuse University. I have been truly blessed in
having the opportunity to train some of our 'Top
Radio Broadcast Professionals in the World'. But much
remains to be done in this our lifetime. Gosh the
industry has...changed!...and not for the better, but
I am still trying to make a difference. I am
presently working to setup a Center for the Advance
Study of Radio Broadcasting here at Syracuse
University. I am hoping that the Center can serve as
the synergy for the development of Radio for the next
century, and train some truly innovated
professionals...that can bring some solid creativity
to the worlds' greatest field of
communications...Radio Broadcasting! I would love to
hear your thoughts about the proposed center...and as
a favor from an old friend...spread the word to the
industry that I am seeking input and help in the
development of this Center for the Advance Study of
Radio Broadcasting. By the way, I am On-The-Air with
'Old School Sunday',"every Sunday from 12noon - 6pm
over WPHR-FM, 106.9 mhz, Clear Channel Radio Syracuse,
50KW-ERP, with a show featuring the greatest of R&B
Classics, and guest DJs that represents just about
every 'career andorganization' that I can find in
Central New York. It's' basic Old School Radio...a
combination of all of our great DJs and their programs
from the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s...it's live, and I am
trying to demonstrate in this 'voice track era'...that
this is still the way to
go...Live...Local...entertaining Radio that reaches
out to the community. The telephones are ringing off
the hook, and I receive many excellent comments on the
show on a daily bases. By the way the studio
telephone number when I am on the air is
315-428-1069...I would love to interview you,
Claude...so call anytime on Sundays from 12noon to
6pm...the 3-4pm hour would be perfect. Claude...got
to run...have to check the final exam papers for my
radio Industry course, and listen to the final Air
Check/audition tapes for my Broadcast Performance
Course. Please my best to your wonderful lady Barbara
and your family. Tell her that I am still reading
'This Business of Radio Programming'...Wow!...what a
classic book! Take Care for Now...and I truly enjoy
the Magnificence of Our Friendship and Our Love for
the Field of Radio Broadcasting."
Rick, I don't do much phone these days. Why don't you
contact Joey Reynolds, WOR, New York, and have him
call you? He's better than me at this sort of thing
(so's everybody, when you get right down to it). His
email is: G1boney@aol.com.
Joey probably has a ton of
fans around Syracuse.
Ah, here I go conniving again!
Claude Hall
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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