Four Corners

When FM Wasn't King

2011-12-17T08:22:00.004-05:00

You Can Set Your Mickey Mouse To That

2011-12-09T08:54:00.002-05:00

Ron Barlow of WMNI radio and the founder and owner for a time of WUCO radio in Marysville, OH.

Gone With the Wind

2011-12-05T15:52:00.017-05:00

With a final playing of Wooly Bully, WTVN morning host Bob Conners took of the headsets for the last time as a Columbus Radio host on November 30, 2011.

On October 24, 2011 at 7:45 in the morning, Bob Conners both shocked and gave the probably long expected news that he would be retiring and his last day on the air would be November 30th. In almost 47 years behind a Columbus microphone, Bob grew with Columbus. And he leaves behind many great memories.

He came to Columbus in very late 1964 to host the afternoon show vacated by Spook Beckman who was starting a new TV show called the Coffee Club. Bob received very little press on his arrival yet filled the large shoes left behind when Spook left. He maintained that spot until February of 1973 when he left for 3 short years to be morning host on WBNS 1460. Bob left WBNS in February of 1976 on the implosion of a promotion called the Perfect Partner. Whether that was the straw that broke the camels back or his return to WTVN was already in the works, Bob returned to the WTVN afternoon airwaves in March of 76 after a brief Colorado skiing vacation. Change would again happen in September of 1979 when John Fraim and WTVN management came to an impasse on scheduling issues. At first, Bob was filling in for Fraim as a vacation host. By the end of September, Fraim and WTVN couldn't come to agreement and Bob never left the morning host chair. (Scott Kahler had temporarily taken Conner's afternoon spot and shortly after 1980 arrived, Joe Waldman a former staffer had been permanently hired to fill the PM slot.) As time went on, Bob would survive several general managers and program directors, other hosts, addition of syndication to the program schedule and the final big move a transition to an all talk format on the station.

Bob also introduced us to Sammy of Sammy's Bar and Grill, the Mail Man and the always silent Jesse. He ragged on the Danger Brothers at the rally in the alley and Hiney Gate, he playfully played of Wooly Bully and made Hudson and Landry's Frontier Christmas featuring Harlowe and Red Feather a longstanding Columbus Christmas tradition.

He teased us about Monk's Corner, Nerk, samiches and the Chicken Little Day Care calling in to cancel session because of a few snowflakes. He often referred to sports teams by their city name made possessive. For example, Michigan was the Michigan's. If it hadn't been for Bob, I would have never discovered Nancy's. For many years, Bob did a shout out to the guys and gals having early morning breakfast at the popular Clintonville eatery. At one time he collected menus from out of town diners and people would send them in for addition to his collection.

In addition, he introduced us to tele-vote, the Hiney Winery that had people driving to the decaying village of Magnetic Springs in search of the fictional winery owned by Big Red and Thor. There was the Cat Lady, the late Jim from the Northwest, the imperfect perfect partner and sadly Dave from Powell.

And he was the king of graciously bowing out (my wife always said blowing off) of being asked to attend a myriad of ice cream socials, fish fries or bake sales. He even managed to do it to Governor Kasich on his last day on the air.

We knew he was born in St. Marys, Pa., his brother Dan played for San Diego and Oakland pro football teams and he gave us other glimpses of his private life periodically telling us about daughter Kathryn and wife Linda. Yet in general, Bob was a reserved man.

Bob arrived in Columbus before Eastland Mall and the I-270 outerbelt existed. I-70 only was a few miles long and ran from downtown to someplace west of Hamilton Road. Columbus for all intents and purposes ended at Bethel Road, just north of Morse Road and Hamilton Road. 161 and Brice Road were still two lane roads with dirt yet to be turned to make way for the neighborhoods that would grow up around them. Dublin was two gas stations and a traffic light. Westerville, Pickerington, Gahanna, Grove City and Hilliard were all mere villages when Bob cracked a Columbus microphone for the first time. The major tv anchors were Hugh DeMoss, Earl Green, Nick Basso, Bill Pepper and Roy Briscoe. PBS was known as NET. Channel 28 wasn't even in the planning stages for the Columbus market. Cable television was something of a pipe dream.

The Columbus mayor was Sensenbrenner, the governor was Jim Rhodes (his first of 4 terms) and LBJ was in the White House and had just won a landslide victory over Barry Goldwater.

WTVN has posted some vidoe clips on the departure of Bob Conners on their web site. Included are a couple of old air-checks including one from his days at WEEP, one from WBNS and one from WTVN circa late 60's or early 70's, a co worker salute and the final hour of Bob's show among other things. http://www.610wtvn.com/pages/farewellbc.html

In a video clip on the site, Bob relates that he knew Columbus would be home. One has to wonder what he sacrificed to do that. In the entertainment world, personalilties come and go. It's a very hard and difficult business. And to survive as long as Bob did, it took not only talent, but sacrifice and great savvy. Yet Bob seemed to always have a place. And that is amazing.

Being a fan of radio in general and Bob in particular, it would be interesting to spend some time over a cup of coffee and talk about radio, his career, his high points and yes probably some of the low points as he made Columbus someplace special.

As a side note, Bob plans to winter in Florida at his Marco Island home. He will however maintain his Eastmoor residence and will spend a great deal of the year in Columbus.

Bob turning the reins over to his heir apparent Joel Riley.

WTVN begins Countdown to Say Goodbye to BC

2011-11-23T12:02:00.010-05:00

It's the end of an era.

When Bob Conners takes off the headphones for the final time on November 30th, a radio era will have ended.

When Bob came to Columbus, the radio scene was radically different. Hired to replace Spook Beckman as afternoon host at the end of 1964 when Spook made the move to television, his competition was a far cry from what it is today.

WBNS had Irwing Early Worm Johnson in morning and Dean Lewis in afternoon drive along with CBS network programs sandwiched in between. WMNI was playing standards hosted by largely nameless record spinners but Bill Robinson, Ron Barlow and Tom George were already in the stable. WMNI hadn't even made the transition to the format it became famous, Country and Western at the time. WVKO had only about a year before made the transition from top 50 to what was then called a Negro format. Eddie Castleberry and Eddie Saunders wre the early mainstays of the format at the 1580 position. And yet, the station is several years away from having spun its last urban record.

WCOL was playing the top 40 hits. Hosts like Johnny Hill, Sonny Palmer, Mike Adams, Bob Harrington and Johnny buck were manning the microphones. Up the road at WRFD, Pop Hess and Clyde Keathley anchored farm broadcasts along with Johnny Martin (JM in the AM) and Bill Collins spinning the music platters.

Even WTVN was different. While long time mid day host Dave Logan was already in place, morings was anchored by Johnny Dollar and evenings by Jim Lohse and Dick Boyer. Bob was replacing afternoon legend, Spook Beckman. No one of those hosts still sits behind a microphone. John Fraim was doing a tour as Washington anchor for the Taft chain and Bill Patterson was a news anchor. And the Columbus FM dial was almost an after thought.

Through the years, Bob wore many hats. He did color for the Columbus Jets for the two seasons that WTVN had them in 67 and 68. He made a side trip to WBNS in 1973 to host mornings. He returned to WTVN in afternoon drive in April of 1976 and added color commentator for OSU football broadcasts when WTVN had the sole home and away broadcast rights for the market. Sometime while still afternoon host, Bob began taking calls on Saturdays. When he moved to mornings that segment moved with him and became a Columbus institution known as Saturday Morning open phones. And of course it was in September of 1979 when John Fraim had a dispute with management and left the station, Bob assumed the time slot at first temporarily and within a few weeks permanently and laid the groundwork to become the Mornning Monarch.

In those almost 47 years behind a Columbus microphone, Bob grew with Columbus.

Bob introduced us to Sammy of Sammy's Bar and Grill, the Mail Man, the always silent Jesse. He ragged on the Danger Brothers, his playful playing of Wooly Bully and making Harlowe and Red Feather starring in a Frontier Christmas a longstanding Columbus Christmas tradition. He teased us about Monk's Corner, Nerk, samiches and the Chicken Little Day Care calling in to cancel session because of a few snowflakes. If it hadn't been for Bob, I would have never discovered Nancy's. For many years, Bob did a shout out to the guys and gals having early morning breakfast at the popular Clintonville eatery.

In addition, he introduced us to tele-vote, the Hiney Winery, the Cat Lady, the late Jim from the Northwest, the imperfect perfect partner and sadly Dave from Powell.

Bob was here before Eastland Mall and the I-270 outerbelt. I-70 ran from downtown to someplace west of Hamilton Road. Columbus for all intents and purposes ended at Bethel Road, just north of Morse Road and Hamilton Road. 161 and Brice Road were still two lane roads with dirt yet to be turned to make way for the neighborhoods that would grow up around them. Dublin was two gas stations and a traffic light. Westerville, Pickerington, Gahanna, Grove City and Hilliards were all mere villages when Bob cracked a Columbus microphone for the first time. The major tv anchors were Hugh DeMoss, Earl Green, Nick Basso, Bill Pepper and Roy Briscoe. PBS was known as NET.

The Columbus mayor was Sensenbrenner, the governor was Jim Rhodes (his first of 4 terms) and LBJ was in the White House.

WTVN has posted some teaser clips on the departure of Bob Conners on their web site. A couple of old air-checks including one from his days at WEEP, one from WBNS and one from WTVN circa late 60's or early 70's.

In a video clip on the site, Bob relates that he knew Columbus would be home. One has to wonder what he sacrificed to do that. In the entertainment world, personalilties come and go. Yet Bob seemed to always have a place. And that is amazing.

Being a fan of radio in general and Bob in particular, it would be interesting to spend some time over a cup of coffee and talk about radio, his career, his high points and yes probably some of the low points as he made Columbus someplace special.

Update on WOSU

2011-11-23T12:01:00.003-05:00

I saw on a web forum that the closing date has been scheduled and WOSU-AM will cease broadcasting it's regular programming at 5:00 pm December 9, 2011. The station broadcast a series of announcements in a loop type format featuring the on air newscasters and talk show hosts telling listeners that WOSU Public Media is no longer broadcasting on 820 AM and telling them to tune to 89.7 FM to hear their favorite programs. It is reported that loop will cease at 9:00 am December 14th. It will return on or about December 20th with a new owner and program format.

And that will be another page of radio history .

Losing an Old Friend

2011-09-11T07:24:00.004-04:00

It's odd, but it's almost like divorce. A big part of my life is in the process of leaving me.

Friday evening, Ohio State University announced the sale of WOSU-AM to St. Gabriel radio.

I knew it was coming. The writing had been on the wall for a long time. Yet seeing the announcement of the sale in writing seemed untimely. Unreal.

WOSU-AM has been a part of my broadcast life since 1987. I was hired in January of that year to host the afternoon segment of Big Band Saturday. Over time as programs came and went, I was finally assigned a permanent part-time hosting spot in the rotation for the popular Bluegrass Ramble program.

But the station dates back to time even before my fathers' birth.

In 1922, WOSU's predecessor, WEAO, went on the air at a Neil and 17th avenue location. The station is one of the 10 oldest continuous operating radio stations in the country and the oldest in Columbus. WEAO, which stood for Willing Energetic Athletic Ohio, was renamed WOSU in 1933. The station had at least one other campus location until it moved into the Fawcett Center in the early 70's.

For many years, WOSU operated as a "daytime" only station meaning it was only on the air during daylight hours. In the late 80's, night authority was obtained and the station began operating between 18 and 24 hours per day, depending on funding available. It was thought at the time that by being allowed to broadcast on a regular morning time period and evening broadcasts throughout the year, the station would obtain more listeners. And for a brief time it did. But as listener habits shifted away from AM to FM, WOSU began to feel the tug of lost listeners. In January 2011, all AM programming shifted to the FM was the AM was marketed for sale.

Based on the announcement, a buyer has been found.

It is for the long term best, yet it's difficult to let go of an old radio frequency friend. May the new owners take care and nuture the station once the keys are officially turned over to them in late 2011 or 2012.

Partyline

2011-04-07T11:47:00.007-04:00

Cleveland had Dorothy Fuldheim. Cincinatti had Ruth Lyons. Columbus had Sally Flowers, Fern Sharp and Nita Hutch. All women who made their mark in programming. From the serious to the fluff, these women pioneers held forth in a medium dominated by men.

Delaware had one of these women too. Kris Keltner. Kris came to the WDLR airwaves late in 1969 or early in 1970. And although her on air career didn't last as long as the above named women, she had in 5 or 6 years developed a loyal and devoted audience.

Kris interviewed the Governor, the Attorney General, local politicians and ministers. She'd read poetry, recipes, scripture, birthdays and anniversaries.

Anniversays to folks like Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Riteous. Kris had a foil in the station engineer "Uncle Paul" Heinline. Paul loved to prank Kris on her show and more often than not the prank came off without Kris figuring it off. Off course Kris always had the last laugh. She referred to Paul as UPI for Uncle Paul Incorporated because he was a big man both in voice and size.

Kris was born Velda White. She had a twin sister Velma. The sisters sang and were featured on the old WAIU in the early mid 20's. She also was known for her singing around the county.

Kris married Wallace "Pappy" Keltner. He and his family made church and lodge furniture. For many years, Kris traveled the country representing the company and appearing on the radio. When they sold the company, they moved to town and Kris began her daily radio career.

Things changed in 1974. New owners came to town and Kris didn't fit their idea of what their were envisioning for the station. So she packed her show up and and appeared for about a year on WRFD on Sunday mornings beginning the last Sunday of September, 1974.

The sad part is Kris passed away a few years later lost and forgotten. Pappy passed away a few months before she did and she spent her last days at Sunny Vee.

Like Father, Like Son

2011-04-06T23:08:00.004-04:00

Eric Johnson joined the WBNS staff in April of 1966. He had spent the previous two years in Erie, Pa honing his skills. Newspaper accounts noted he wanted to earn his own stripes as a radio announcer.

Eric had a unique lineage. His father was the famous WBNS Early Worm, Irwin Johnson.

Eric joined the station hosting some of WBNS's evening programs. When Dean Lewis left for New York City in July of 1966, Eric was named as Dean's replacement in afternoon drive.

The promotion lasted just a short time. By November, Eric was off to the military.

I've not been able to find what became of Eric after he left to serve with Uncle Sam. When his father passed away at the end of May, 1970, the obituary listed Eric and his wife living in Savannah, Georgia. His occupation was not listed.

When his sister passed away just a few years ago, it noted that she was preceeded in death by her father, her mother, her step mother and brother Eric. It didn't note the year he passed away.

Johnny Dollar

2011-04-06T09:40:00.006-04:00

Jim Pidcock who went under the air name Johnny Dollar in 1962 as a jock at WVKO.

Dollar left WVKO when it dropped it's top 50 format to adapt a black format in early 1962. It was rumored he was going to Florida with Dave Hull, but it appears he headed north. By November he was back in Columbus and was upon to do mornings at WTVN replacing Tom George who had been let go in October.

Pluggin the Gaps in Columbus Radio History.

2011-04-05T10:06:00.005-04:00

I continue to research and dig out information about Columbus and it's radio history. The personalities and formats of stations like WTVN, WBNS, WRFD, WCOL, WMNI and WVKO.

I've blogged about some of my findings or personal memories. But I have tons of information where I haven't had the time or the creative juices to memorialize. I've got plans for to make this a long term project (and I've already devoted many hours over the past three or four years).

It's been odd. I've found tons of information. But there are times when I hit an information hole. A piece of the puzzle is missing. Some key event, change, movement, format change, call letter change, person coming or person going wasn't reported.

It appears that some stations sought publicity or gave out information more than others. Jo Bradley Reed of the Citizen Journal once replied to a reader in her column that she often relies on the stations to get information in her hands so she can report it. I believe it had to do with reporting the programs in stereo that could be listened to. Stereo radio broadcasting was a novel concept at the time as the broadcast of stereo programming was approved by the FCC in the early 60's. FM stations in Columbus with the exception of WBNS were slow to move to stereo and then for a long period of time only broadcast a few hours a day in the beginning. But that's a different topic.

In some instances, I wonder if formats didn't appeal to the radio/television reporters of the time and they didn't report what they didn't listen to. Maybe a bigger story pre-empted the planned story of the day. As television became more of a focal point, radio seemed to get shunted aside too. But in general, there's a lot of information.

I've been fortunate in that I've been able to find some of the people of those times and the gap was filled from their memories and perspectives. Bill Smith now working in Boston, Keith Curtis who now is in Florida, Bob Cosart (Vernon with a V who worked for a brief time at WTVN-FM)and retired. Pete Gabriel now in Youngstown and retired. Bob North of WNCI and WTVN who now is a busy voice talent. These and other people have been great with their stories and background.

There have been many more. All have given I've found others who knew the person or event in question and they have quickly filled in the back story.

But there are two situations that allow the information hole to continue.

One is that the people associated with the missing information have passed on. People whose memories seem like they were here yesterday, yet have been gone from us for many years.

For example, I have traced former WTVN morning personality Maurice Jackson to Oklahoma City and Phoenix only to have the trail go cold in the mid 1960's. Can't find anyone who knew him or what became of his career.

Another is Tom George who hosted at several central Ohio station in his career. Tom had worked at Wheeling's WWVA and Detroit's WJBK prior to coming to Columbus. And I don't want to forget a stint in New York City.

But his arrival in Columbus came at a time when personalities at the station he landed at (WTVN) was promoting programs and not people. So when and why did he arrive. Was he the immediate replacement for Dave Hull or did someone fill the gap? Where did he go after leaving WTVN in 63 or 64 but before arriving at WMNI to usher in their Country format in the fall of 1965. Or did he simply move to WMNI when he left WTVN? The CJ says he spent some time at WHOK in Lancaster. The Dispatch indicated he was WMNI all along playing beautiful music shortly after departing WTVN.

And then there is another gap regarding Tom. He was gone for a period of time during the late 60's at WMNI but was part of the WRFD move to country music in 1970. And then again he was gone. I found in the mid-late 70's he worked for WDLR's Marysville outreach. And the finally landed at WUCO when it went on the air in the early 80's. And that's where Tom finished his career.But again, a gap between WDLR and WUCO. Unfortunately, many who may have known of Tom are no longer with us and so history is left with a gap. Or as I call it, an information hole

Finally, there is another reason. I've found others who for whatever reason do not want to contribute. Can't explain why. They simply don't respond or won't share some of the information. Sometimes they are someone who was or still is a key player in the market. But for whatever reason(s), there is a lack of reply and interest.

WTVN After Top 40

2011-03-01T23:16:00.002-05:00

For a short period of time, WTVN experimented with a Top 40 type format. Dave Hull did mornings, Jim Runyon afternoons, Bob Ancell did evenings. The format lasted about a year and the station went to a more adult format in February of 62.

No longer were the names of announcers listed as shows in the Radio Grids in the Dispatch and Citizen Journal. Instead generic show names were used. Such as Nocturne, Serenade, Matinee. It was during this time that Dave Logan, a long time midday personality was hired. But it's been difficult to find who else was working at the station. The top 40 guys had left when the format changed.

In October of 1962, the station returned to a more personality driven format. Spook Beckman returned as afternoon host, of course Dave Logan was the midday host. Tom George who became better known as a country radio host handled mornings and Jim Lohse was the evening host. A fellow by the name of Jerry Kaye handled late night duties. But other than Spook and Dave Logan, the other hosts came sometime between the change from top 40 and the return to personality in the format. So who handled the shifts or was George, Logan, Lohse and Kaye the guys. Of course, who did Spook replace?

Wild Bill's Siege

2010-12-29T21:55:00.003-05:00

It was early on a Tuesday morning, December, 1977 just outside the town limits of Sunbury, OH. A small brick building with a tall radio tower just behind it was about to become the focal point of the days news.

Everything seemed fine in the pre-dawn of the morning. The signal of the station was broadcasting it's regular programming. The tranmission from the tall tower seemed, well normal. There was no sense that this December day at WBBY-FM would be newsworthy.

Most people in the area were just waking up. Certainly, thoughts of the upcoming Christmas holiday would be on their minds.

Silver Bells or some other holiday classic was probably being played by one radio station or the other including this one. It was only 12 days before Santa's bounty would be found under trees across the area.

Coffee pots were coming alive and warm showers were inviting residents to get ready for the work day. The commute to work would begin in earnest in the next hour or so.

Yet just outside that small brick building, a wily elderly gentleman had already began his day. He had plotted his mission. And for the next 10 hours, he had Sheriff's deputies, lawyers, the court system and most of the Columbus media covering or dealing with his exploits.

Just days before, a restraining order had been issued against him. He was the majority stockholder of the radio station housed inside the small brick building. He also built the building and tower from the ground up. Brick by brick and tower section by tower section.

But the restraining order demanded that he was not to enter the premises or be associated with the operation of the station. The same station, business and premises he had built with his own hands.

The December 9th Columbus Dispatch noted in a column the restraining order named 14 counts that said in part that the elderly gentleman had "brought ridicule and disgrace" upon the station. It further stated the elderly gentleman "has made obscene gestures, made jokes in very poor taste, disrupted businesses, insulted customers of various establishments and refused to leave when asked".

Judge Henry Shaw of the Delaware County Common Pleas Court had issued the restraining order against William "Wild Bill" Bates at the request of the other shareholders of the company. Ironically, the shareholders involved included Ken Bates, the son of elder Bates, secretary-treasurer of the corporation and manager.

Wild Bill's son Ken also brought forward on his own "nine complaints against his father". Among them was a claim that Wild Bill had "made remarks in a broadcast about the judiciary of Delaware County and other officials of Delaware County which caused embarrassment to the station". All made during the elder Bates radio show called "Wild Bills Disco".

That restraining order had never been delivered. Wild Bill had gone into hiding. Waiting for the smoke to clear. Although he remained in touch with various Columbus media outlets, the restraining order servers were unable to find him.

Wild Bill determined that the smoke had cleared enough to allow him to surface at the radio station on December 13th.

At about 5:45am, Bill's where abouts slowly became known to others when the news director of the station arrived and noticed Will Bill. Knowing that a memo a few days earlier had been distributed among employees saying the elder Bates was not to be on the property, she quickly notified the Sheriff's Office.

When law enforcement personnel arrived, Will Bill took cover and barricaded himself in his son's office. He held deputies at bay with a baseball bat. After a legnthy standoff period, deputies decided to use mace to flush him out.

Wild Bill in turn broke out windows to allow for fresh air. He then scooted around inside the building and took the station briefly off the air. He shouted obscenities and finally after 10 hours was persuaded by his attorney to lose the battle to win the war and fight again another day.

The photo shows Bates leaving the station with his legal representative. Wild Bill is the man on the left.

It took time for the whole ordeal to unravel. Wild Bill eventually lost his radio station and his family never realized the promises of the forces that worked in the shadows behind the scenes to oust the elder Bates through their hands.

It's sad. No one won. The behind the scenes forces of this action eventually gained control of WBBY only later to lose it in an FCC decision over candor to the agency.

The station was off the air for almost a decade.

I worked for Wild Bill and noted some of my experience here

Wild Bill continued on with his dancing and public appearances. Anywhere that he could gain an audience. He passed away at the age of 91 on March 20, 2003.

Probably dancing until his last breath.

More to Find

2010-11-24T18:06:00.003-05:00

One of the things of wading through all the information on Columbus radio past is once you think you've got everything nailed down, you find something new.

I found something that sent me back to 1950.

Honestly, what started as a search to solidfy my memory of radio in my pre, teen and post teen years has turned into something beyond the original scope. So that's why I'm scrolling through newspaper articles in 1950. The old Columbus Citizen before it became the hyphenated Citizen-Journal.

One familiar face was there. Jo Reed, radio and tv reporter. Same picture I believe that was used until her retirement in 1970 too! Her column was pretty much limited to the Sunday edition of the paper.

But even more interesting was the info I found.

I did know that WTVN radio was known as WHKC prior to the mid 50's.

What I didn't know was that it had an FM component at the time. WHKC FM broadcast at 98.7.

My understanding was WTVN/WHKC AM had no sister FM until WTVN FM signed on at 96.3 in late 1959. Prior to that, 96.3 was known as WLWF and appears to have simulcast Cincinnati sister station WLW radio. I'll have to go digging to see when Crosely gave up or sold the license. (UPDATE) WLWF was granted permission by the FCC to go silent on May 14, 1953 along with sister FM stations WLWA in Cincinnati and WLWB in Dayton. The Commission granted cancellation of the licenses and deletion of call letters.

But back to the 98.7 frequency. I'll have to do some digging, but it appears that it disappeared sometime in 1951 or 52. (UPDATE) WHKC-FM was granted the ability to go dark by the FCC on June 30, 1953. The station and the license ceased to exist. It was announced on July 7th.

Even more strange was WRFD-FM. No not the one at 97.9 on the dial that later became WNCI. The one on the air for what appears to be only during 1950. After that, I can find no information on it until it re-appears in 1961.

And for the record, WBNS FM was known as WELD. Carried the same programs as sister station WBNS AM and was on 97.1.

Looks like more time in the library is in my future.

WTVN Mornings-Late 50's

2010-11-12T21:01:00.005-05:00

Before Bob Conners, John Fraim, Dave Logan, Johnny Dollar, Tom George, Dave Hull and Bob Ancell (did I overlook anyone?), Maurice Jackson was the morning man at WTVN.

Maurice joined the station in the spring of 1956, having worked at WVKO in the city prior to his voyage to WTVN. Interestingly, Maurice was at WVKO prior to WVKO AM signing on the air in 1951. Of course that was at the time that FM wasn't the preferred frequency to listen to the radio and even with a daytime only signal, the arrival of WVKO AM was a big deal.

Maurice left WTVN in August of 1960. Taft broadcasting had hired Lawrence Rogers to come in and shake things up in the organization. When he landed at 610, he found a station that in his book "The History of Television" was bleeding red ink and it was in his estimation due to two "low class hot shots" Maurice Jackson and Spook Beckman.

Jackson formed his own consulting group, went to work for WHOK, later sold time at WMNI and eventually found his way to San Antonio and later Phoenix in 1966. There the trail goes cold.

(EDITED TO ADD on 04-08/11) I found a note in a column in the Citizen-Journal where Jackson sent a card to radio/tv reporter Jo Bradley Reed over the 1966 Christmas holiday that he was in Kansas City working at KUDL and was loving it. Now the trail goes dead again.

I don't ever recall hearing Maurice Jackson on the air. He departed WTVN just before I turned 5. But through the years I heard of him. If I ever mentioned WTVN mornings and the name Maurice Jackson would be spoken just as quickly as someone would say the Earlyworm or Irwin Johnson when talking about WBNS.

Mr. Ohio County DJ

2010-11-01T20:33:00.001-04:00

Jack Bartley was well known around the Xenia/Dayton area as a country radio announcer and performer. He came to WRFD in 1970 when the station converted to Country. He stayed until the station made the switch back to oldies in the spring of 1972.

Jack eventually found his way back to the Xenia/Dayton area and worked for WBZI radio doing mornings. After finishing his morning show on New Years Eve 1988, he passed away later in the day.

Jack was a great entertainer.

Anthony in the Morning

2010-11-01T20:18:00.003-04:00

Len Anthony came to Columbus and WRFD in October of 1970 replacing Jack Bartley in the morning slot. Anthony would later become program director when Bill Preston stepped down.

He would later be the program director that led the transition to an oldies or all the hits all the time format in the spring on 1972.

Was Radio Really This Laid Back

2010-11-01T19:33:00.004-04:00

Scan the AM and even to a point the FM dial today and you probably won't find a station positioning themselves as a station with music to relax to.

This was an advertisement for WBNS radio in February, 1960.

No hot talk. No Howard Stern, Bubba the Love Sponge, Mike and Mike, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Ed Schultz or Randi Rhodes.

Just a fellow by the name of Don Smith hosting an evening music to relax to.

Novel concept?

Progressive Rock 24/7

2010-10-27T15:40:00.005-04:00

While sister station WRFD was being Ohio's Country Giant, FM radio station WNCI was making moves of it's own.

By spring of 1969, the station was already moving the music toward a more hard edged sound with Bob North and Charlie Pickard handling mornings and afternoons and E. Karl hosting the Incredible Progressive Rock Circus in the evenings.

This ad appeared in the August, 1970 Columbus Dispatch announcing the station starting around the clock progressive rock. An ad in June announced the station would soon be going 24/7. DJs were Bob North, John L (Lazar), Charlie Pickard, E Karl, Dave Anthony and overnights with Gregg Campbell.

Of interest, although still located at the WRFD broadcast house, the station had just flipped on the stereo switch.

Announcing Ohio's County Giant

2010-10-24T12:13:00.002-04:00

Ad from newspaper announcing the Monday morning debut of country music on WRFD in January 1970.

As I understand it, the balance of the line up was Jack Bartley in middays and Bill Preston hosting afternoons.

I was told by a now deceased staff member George left after a personal issue and was replaced by Len Anthony.

Diane Townsley

2010-10-19T21:06:00.003-04:00

A photo from a January, 1970 edition of the old "Columbus Citizen-Journal" of WBBY radio host Diane Townsley.

Diane was not long out of high school when this article was written. At the time the station had been on the air for less than a year. Diane was hosting a weekend request show. A few months later, she was elevated to the midday slot, entertaining mid Ohio.

I was never quite sure when she left or why.

She was fun to listen to and was something unique at the time. On the air as female disc jockeys were virtually unheard of at that time and in the Central Ohio area I believe at the time she was the only one.

Hey Diane. If you see this, drop us a line someday and let us know what's going on.

Media Reporting

2010-10-15T06:33:00.008-04:00

As I cull information to refresh my memory, I am so thankful the old Columbus Citizen-Journal had an active radio-television column. In the 60's, Jo Bradley Reed was the columnist. She steppped down in March of 1970 and was replaced by Sherry Woods.

Woods had made a periodic report or two prior to taking over the column, but became the almost daily reporter with the comings and goings of local personalities and of course the gripes and concerns of local readers. And as often as I could get my hands on the paper, a must read for me.

Of course the columns didn't capture every move of every person, but they have been a nice chronicle of most of the major radio folks.

Sherry left the CJ in 1974 for Miami, Florida to take a similar job there at a Miami newspaper. From there she began writing romance novels. First under "writers" names or pseudonyms , and later under her given name Sherryl Woods. She is one of the more published novel writers and is still active to this date.

Sherry spends her time between the beaches of Virginia where she was raised and Miami in the winter all the while writing. Some day I'll have to try to make contact to get a better understanding of how she covered her beat and what did and didn't make the paper. Maybe I can even jog a memory or two to provide a missing detail on a station move or personality who came or went.

2010-09-29T14:48:00.002-04:00

It's sort of funny. When I first set out working on trying to piece together some of the radio memories from my youth and early career, my focus was entirely on about a dozen people or events.

I changed that about 4 or 5 months ago to try to catalog all the names, stations, faces and places concerning radio and radio personalities. The data bases that I am aware of don't list the comings and goings of people I listened to or in some cases worked with. So I decided to create one myself.

I started at 1970 and am currently up to September, 1977. I will go until the CJ folded and the internet has a search-able way to find the info on the internet. Once I have all that, I'll go back and do the 60's.

So what have I learned?

1) Until 1976 or 77 the Dispatch did very little coverage. Cynthia Robbins would write an article or two periodically in the early mid 70's, but it wasn't until Bud Wilkenson was hired that they wrote on a mostly daily basis.

2) The Citizen Journal did a pretty good job for some stations, but didn't always capture all the information. Examples? Jim Lohse becoming program director of WTVN in 1968, Keith Curtis replacing and then leaving about a year later Lohse on the air and Dave Parr replacing Curtis. While I have that information from memory and other sources, the paper didn't mark those events. Or WCOL, WVKO and WMNI didn't get much coverage, while WTVN, WBNS and WRFD did.

3) There was no article when WNCI dropped "The Young Sound" for progressive rock. I'm guessing it happened about the same time that WRFD went country, which was the first of the year in 1970, but can't find a sure change date. WNCI was a pioneer in this area for that kind of change.

4) Radio station WBBY had a decent amount of coverage when they first came on the air, but sort of fell off the cliff after that. A lot of memorable personalities came and went from that station and nothing was noted. For example, Scott Stevens, Rick Seiler, Jay Wayne, Bob Smith and Chris Ward. Joe Gallagher was never mentioned. Diane Townsley got some early mentions, but nothing ever mentioned when she left or where she went.

5) My interest was higher in the late 60's and early 70's time frame. That was more of my coming of age days. As I work in the later 70's, it just doesn't seem as interesting. I'll have to think about why.

4)

The Power of Advertising

2010-09-21T15:46:00.006-04:00

The little block advertisement to the left supplied wagging tongues in Columbus with a lot to chatter about as well as had many Capital City announcers wondering if they were on the chopping block.

The ad appeared in Billboard Magazine on September 13, 1975.

DJ chatter about the ad gave Citizen Journal Radio-TV editor David Drake enough ammo to write a column a week or so later about the ad with denials from all area program directors that they had placed it.

I'm not sure if anyone ever owned up to the advertisement. As my review of the comings and goings or radio hosts continues, maybe I'll find the article that links the ad to the smoking gun radio station.

John & Bill

2010-09-14T21:54:00.006-04:00

One of the more popular morning shows in the late 60's and through the late 70's was anchored by radio host John Fraim with news provided by Bill Patterson. Photos from a 1974 newspaper advertisement campaign.

The Beginning of the Best Buckeye Coverage

2010-09-02T21:21:00.005-04:00

Starting with the 1973 football season, Ohio State contractually had just one station to anchor statewide coverage of home games. The prior year, at least 6 local stations described the grid iron coverage to listeners.

WTVN won the rights to the games. It was the first time in many years that WTVN had carried the games.

Tom Hamlin and Dale Conquest were selected to provide play by play and color coverage. Neither had worked together prior to the announced pairing, yet they had seen and heard examples of each others work.

They promised lively coverage that wouldn't be cluttered by X's and O's.

Conquest however drew a kiss of death. In addition to his Buckeye football coverage, he was also settling in to be sports director for sister station WTVN-TV. He didn't stay long. The next year he was replaced by Marv Homan, the Sports Information Director at OSU, on the radio broadcasts. Homan and Harman would broadcast the 1974 and 1975 season for WTVN and the Ohio State Radio Network. In 1976, announcer change would happen again with neither Homan or Harmon in the booth for WTVN.
But my favorite radio station had the rights.

OSU Football

2010-09-01T19:31:00.010-04:00

Tomorrow night, Ohio State opens it's 2010 season against Marshall. The game will now be carried on television and one AM/FM combination radio station.

There was a time when just about anyone who had a microphone could carry the games from the Shoe. Prior to the 1973 season WBNS, WBBY, WVKO, WMNI, WRFD and WOSU all had play by play announcers describing the X's and O's from the Shoe's pressbox.

While the WBNS ad shows Ted Mullins, that was the first and last year for Ted broadcasting home games. Prior to Ted taking to the microphone, the calls were handled by Bill Corley with color provided by Marty DeVictor. Sherry Wood's "Citizen Journal" radio column described some of the letters she received from readers who were less than happy with Corley missing from Saturday afternoons. Corley and DeVictor as well as Irwin Johnson in the early years were probably the most listened to of all announcers.

Others who made the gridiron calls were Ed Johnson of WRFD. While Ed was known to central Ohioans as the voice of agricultural broadcasting, Ed had not stepped into the role at WRFD until after the 1972 season. For WRFD's final season to broadcast the Buckeyes, Stan Savran was brought in. By the end of the season, management had invited him to move on as WTVN was awarded exclusive home broadcast rights.

Ed also broadcast many high school basketball games on WRFD's sister station WNCI and was also sports director for both stations. I don't remember Ed on WNCI. But I simply can't picture in my mind Ed, with his rural tone and drawl, giving sports reports on a progressive rock FM station.

Back to OSU. Martin Petree manned the mic for WMNI, for the few years that WBBY carried the games it was Joe Hill and for WVKO/WSPO it was station president Bert Charles. If I recall, it was OSU sports information director Marv Holman who did the PBP by WOSU.

2010-09-01T13:28:00.001-04:00

Powerful WRFD with it's power line up.

I've lost the trail on morning man Robert W. Knight and evening host Mick Titer. Mid-day host Greg Campbell entertains the Heart of Ohio mid-days on WVNO (Mix 106) and afternoon host Len Anthony passed away several years ago while in the Atlanta area.

We Bring Back Yesterday

2010-08-25T21:45:00.006-04:00

Taken from a newspaper ad in February or March of 1971. Click on the image twice and you can enlarge it enough to ready it.

Great line up. Denny Erwin in the morning, who made a fortune later in life as a Burger King franchise owner in Central Ohio. Denny must have replaced Hugh Strider who made an appearance many times as a BBY personality before becoming widely known when the station took on jazz as Zoot Strider. Rick Seiler doing mid-days. Rick would later join future WBBY hosts Jay Wayne and bob Shaw(?)starting up WWWJ in nearby Johnstown.

What more can be said about Dianne Townsley. A young Westerville High School grad who had hosting a radio program as a career goal at a time when women platter spinners were a virtual unknown commodity. Her Sunday request show, Date with Dianne was a popular staple on the station.

Rounding out the broadcast day was a fellow I never heard of. Chris Ward. Maybe someone will clue me in as to who he is. My first recollection of an evening radio host was when Joe Gallagher hosted the show.

WBBY was also unique (or for the time, maybe not so unique)for carrying Ohio State Football. That was prior to the University bidding carriage of the games to the hightest bidder. Prior to that happeing, WBBY aired the games as well as WBNS, WRFD, WMNI AM&FM and WSPO.

The Big 104 was a unique station. A key daypart female host. One of the early stereo broadcasters in the area. An active player trying to find an audience niche when FM had yet to break free as the band to listen to. And a fun place to work.

Bob O'Brian

2010-08-12T12:09:00.003-04:00

Usually, I've spent time writing about people who were part of growing up listening to or working in radio.

Bob O'Brian was different. I was already an adult when he happened on the Columbus radio scene and working weekends at WTVN.

O'Brian arrived in October of 1977 to host afternoons at WBNS-AM. He would replace Jack Evans and Dick Zipf who were moving to mornings at the station(for the long term this time) from the afternoon drive shift.

I'm not sure what was compelling about Bob except I enjoyed listening to his show. Does there have to be a reason?

Bob also "broke" for Columbus audiences a song still remembered by many "Franklin County Woman" performed by local band Rainbow Canyon CD. You can see Bob and two members of the group in the photo in the WBNS studios when it was located at 62 East Broad Street across from the statehouse.

Bob was only around for a few years. He left in April of 1981 to return to family in the Phoenix area. He was replaced by Dennis Carter earlier in his career in the afternoon slot. When he left the station for good, he was hosting mid-days and responsible for on air production.

Yeh Boy II

2010-08-06T23:16:00.005-04:00

Sometime during the late 70's, WBNS did an advertising promotion using Dick Zipf's popular phrase YEH BOY!

I remember billboards with the phrase papered all over town. In the back of my mind, I thought it was also used in the print media. However a scan through the periodicals of the time reveal no printings of it except for a car dealer who was cross promoting with the station.

Below is some of the copy from an advertisement in the Citizen Journal from April of 1978.

2010-08-06T07:06:00.001-04:00

The Gap

2010-08-01T22:43:00.004-04:00

Earlier, I wrote of our journey to Duffield, Va to see the Natural Tunnel. To add to an already ambitious trip, it was decided to include a visit to the nearby Cumberland Gap.

The Gap was strategic in the early days of settling beyond the original colonies. It allowed passage between Virginia into what later became Kentucky and on to the Ohio River at the Falls of the Ohio and what later became Louisville. It was an important southern entrance to that region of the continent.

Originally it was thought a necessary piece of real estate in the Civil War. It changed hands three or four times before General Grant decided the condition of the roadways made it non -strategic to the Confederacy.

Certainly one of the problems of doing trips as we do is that we only get to see the highlights of the attraction and spend little time in getting a better feel for the area. But as the old saying goes, the only thing standing in our way is time and money. And at least seeing the highlights lets us determine as time and money permits what places we will return to in the future.

Below are some of the pics to share.

Natural Tunnel

2010-08-01T10:13:00.011-04:00

We enjoy so much taking our day trips.

Yesterday we got, shall we same very adventuresome. We traveled to western Virginia to see the Natural Tunnel. The Natural Tunnel, dubbed by William Jennings Bryant as the eight wonder of the world, is a naturally formed cave. A cave so large that a railroad bed was built through it. It is said to be over 200 feet wide in places and up to 80 feet tall. All naturally formed.

Although since the tunnel is an active working rail road site and visitors are not allowed actually inside of it unless escorted under special conditions, the tunnel is said to be a trove of fossils and other prehistoric evidence on the floor and walls.

It is said Daniel Boone was the first white man to see the tunnel.

The railroad first saw uses for it in the late 1800's building a rail bed in 1893. Service began in 1894, and it was largely used for passenger service. Today, it's only used to haul coal.

Although the site is primarily known for the tunnel and the beautiful state parkland that surrounds it, the area is also known for one of the great legends of men and women relationships. It is the real Lovers Leap

Tradition holds that Cherokee maiden and a Shawnee brave fell in love after they met at nearby hunting grounds. While the Indian nations were often at war, the grounds were mutually used without interference by crude treaty. The treat however still forbade intermarriage between the tribes. It is said the two lovers jumped to their deaths hoping to meet in harmony in the after life. The assumed place of their leap which is the pinnacle of the wall to the basin below is known as Lovers Leap.

Finally, we had a wonderful lunch provided by the Scott County (Virginia) Telephone Company. They were having a customer appreciation picnic, but everyone who came to the park was invited. We were among the few, and probably only if you went by the accent of those who spoke, Yankees there.

One of the more amusing moments was when a pre-teen boy who had a helium balloon was sucking in the air to make his voice sound funny. With the deep southern twang he already had, it sound was unbelievably funny.

More photos from this beautiful area are below.

Look At What You Find In The Library Archives

2010-07-29T13:31:00.002-04:00

New Kid In Town

2010-07-08T22:37:00.004-04:00

On Valentine's Day, 1977 the FM band in Columbus was rocked with the New Kid in Town.

WTVN-FM and it's beautiful music faded away and legally became WLVQ-FM with the playing of the Eagles hit "The New Kid in Town." For listeners and fans, it would just be called Q-FM-96.

I've not often written of the FM band or WLVQ. Growing up, in my world AM was the king of radio. Actually it still was in my opinion, despite the obvious slump in ratings and revenues for the past 30 years, until probably the first of this year.

The story of how the transition began is actually quite interesting. I found the below on consultant Lee Abrams blog. I've always enjoyed being a fly on the wall type of person and this is almost as good as being there. I hope he doesn't mind me sharing it.

Miami reminded me of a key career break. In 1972 I was consulting WQDR in Raleigh. We went to #1. It caught the attention of a guy named Gordon Hastings from Katz, then the leading ad rep firm. Gordon was a big believer in the commercial viability of FM which was still in the financial closet. I met Gordon and I guess I impressed him. He then talked to Carl Wagner who ran the powerful Taft Broadcasting Group. Carl was a bad ass former pro catcher. Mean--but fair and smart. Gordon set up a meeting at about midnight at the New Orleans Hilton at a convention. Taft owned 7 major FM's, most of them with big signals, Taft muscle, but kinda sitting there. Carl and I hit it off. I think he was impressed by my knowledge of baseball as much as my ideas on developing FM stations. We shook hands and he told me to wait for a call.

A week later, Carl calls and invites me to the Taft Managers Conference at the Sonesta Beach Hotel in Key Biscayne (Miami). Taft managers were an old boys club. I got the feeling that their bonuses were based more on their Golf scores than on performance. I dressed up as best I could but must have looked like an alien to these guys. At the opening cocktail party I think they thought I was brought in as an entertainer. One exec asked me if I was with the band. I told him I was in Led Zeppelin. The response was "Really? My daughter has one of your albums".

The next morning I did "the pitch". In a suite overlooking Biscayne Bay. On orders from Carl, the Managers of every Taft station were sternly told to listen to me. The pitch went fantastic, but I was still an outsider. But then after the morning meetings, there was a Tennis tournament. I loved Tennis, so I asked if they needed another entry. They put me with Ed McLaughlin who was the other non-Taft person at the meetings. Ed ran ABC RADIO and later managed Russ Limbaugh to fame. I'd known Ed for awhile since I worked for ABC at WRIF in Detroit. He and I absolutely kicked ass and WON the tournament. It was all over. Even if I looked like a drug addict to them, I proved myself on the court--the next best thing to beating them in Golf. They even invited me to appear in the Taft Company picture, though they probably airbrushed out my beard.

Within three weeks I signed WDVE Pittsburgh, WLVQ Columbus, KYYS Kansas City and WGRQ Buffalo. All four stations had huge increases and we were off to the races.

Now--I had a problem. A good one, but a problem. I had six clients. It was a business. But I had no experience in running a business of this nature. I needed capital, connections, an infrastructure, and guidance on how to maximize this thing. I'd known this guy Kent Burkhart. Most people in the business did. He was one of the FIRST Top 40 Program Directors ever...oddly enough at WQAM (my all time favorite Top 40 station) in Miami, and then went on to run the powerful Pacific and Southern group. He was a legend. He had left Pacific and Southern and started a consultancy. Every week I'd read in the trades where Burkhart signs another station. So I send Kent a proposal. Basically, I do the FM's while you do the AM's...and run the business aspects. He suggested a meeting in Minneapolis. We met at his client KSTP. We put a deal together in 30 minutes. I moved to Atlanta a week later and Burkahart/Abrams was born. Kent also turned over WYSP in Philly and WKLS Atlanta to me as they were FM's. We formally introduced the "Superstars" format. That name is kinda hokey and we NEVER used it on the air, but to station heads that were still suspicious about this underground FM thing, it was a comforting and relatable term that translated into "mass appeal".

The basics of the concept were pretty simple. To change the familiarity factor from song title to artist so instead of hearing the same songs, you’d hear the same artists, but the whole library of songs instead of just the hit single so it was familiar by ARTIST, yet interesting because you’d hear ALL of that artist. It was aimed at the vulnerable Top 40 listener. The person who listened to Top 40 but liked every 4th song. Stones and Cream--cool. Bread and Osmond’s...not cool. Eliminate the Bread and Osmond’s and focus on the artists that were defining the new "Album" movement. Then between the big names, introduce the coo new stuff so the sound was anchored in familiarity, had depth and selectively introduced new artists so they'd get enough exposure to actually get noticed. We accepted the Underground stations as a fact of life and were ore concerned about getting people to FM who found Underground radio too out there. In the process we took out a lot of the Underground Free Form stations who were simply too elite. The good ones that were focused remained important factors.

Our "position" was to be as accessible as possible without losing the progressive identity.

Breakfast News Service

2010-06-24T12:26:00.007-04:00

For a little over a year, from December 1971 to 1973, WBNS-AM instituted a morning news block called the Breakfast News Services. BNS. Get it?

Among the people involved in the program were Dick Boyer, Chet Long, Ted Mullins, and Wayne Byers. In addition, News Director Don Smith, Bob Jeffrey, Ed Ross and Bill Hamilton were involved in the all news in the morning effort.

The program ended in March of 1973 with the hiring of Bob Conners as morning host for the station.

This was during the time the station was making the transition from standards, big band and CBS network programming to a more contemporary sound.

March WBNS Line Up

2010-06-17T23:38:00.005-04:00

WBNS AM listeners had a new line up at the top of the dial as of March 5, 1973.

Well, at least in the mornings. The host line up was already in place for the rest of the daily schedule.

Long time host, and holder of the morning show duties after the morning news block known as Breakfast News Service (get it BNS), Bill Hamilton, was severely missed by his fans.

Hamilton had worked for the station since the late 50's and had handled afternoon drive duties from November 1966 until Early Worm Irwin Johnson's retirement in 1969.

Hamilton then took over mornings until the Breakfast News Service program cut into his time and then was totally out the picture when Bob Conners was hired to do morning drive as depicted in the ad.

Coffee Club

2010-06-17T23:24:00.005-04:00

Another piece of Spook Beckman information. As of January 1965, Spook took his talents back to the studios of WLW-C with a new show called Spook Beckman's Coffee Club.

Your Man Fritz

2010-06-16T23:26:00.004-04:00

Before his wild popularity as Fritz the Nite Owl, Frederick Peerenboom was known to radio fans as Your Man Fritz. And Uncle Fritz before that.

Fritz joined WBNS radio in 1963 as a production and continuity director after a brief stint doing some part-time announcing at crosstown WMNI.

Fritz hosted shows on WELD, now WBNS FM and later moved to be evening host on the AM station. As shown in the advertisement, he for a while was afternoon drive host, replacing Bill Hamilton who had moved to mornings after the retirement of Irwin Johnson.

I first heard Fritz about 1973 when he was again hosting a late evening show from 10 pm to 2 am on WBNS AM.

The girl I was dating at the time and I attended the same high school and our high school band director's nick name was Fritz. I had her convinced that the band director was moonlighting on the radio as Your Man Fritz.

In 1974, Fritz moved to WBNS television to take a staff announcer positon. Actually, he had worked at the television station in the mid 50's doing some part-time work until the Army sent a notice that he was needed to serve his country. Upon discharge, Fritz returned to Channel 10 and took additional jobs with an advertising agency and WMNI.

The duties included doing some voice work for the late night movie, called "Nite Owl Theater". After making some witty comments and getting support from an appreciative audience, the nameless host became Fritz the Nite Owl, a position he would hold until 1991.

Fritz throughout dabbled in radio. For several years, he hosted a jazz program on WOSU, then later on CD101 and more recently on WJZA.

A man of many talents and many hats. Your Man Fritz on Radio 146.

Spooked Again

2010-06-16T23:01:00.004-04:00

Spook Beckman left WTVN radio at the end of 1965 to begin a daily television show on WLW-C. Spook had worked for the station in the early 1950's prior to joining 610 radio.

Spook's show was called the Coffee Club. It began in January, 1966. Yet by the end of March, 1968, the show was ending. According to "Citizen-Journal" radio-tv columnist Jo Bradley Reed, Spook was leaving to explore other options including a return to radio.

Maybe he saw the April 14th notice in "Billboard Magazine" that WRFD radio was looking for an afternoon personality and to contract David Drew.

Whether it was that clip or his own reputation, by April 22 of 1968, fans of "The Spook" as one listener described him knew his intentions. Spook was joining WRFD radio to once again host Bumper to Bumper time in afternoon drive between the hours of 2 and 7 pm. But instead of being at 610 on the dial where he reigned the airwaves during most of the late 50's and early 60's, Spook would move the 880 on the dial.

Spook promised to return his popular "Spookisms" like the Ambassadors of the Asphalt and his Champagne and Beans club.

The "Ambassadors of the Asphalt" were the traveling sales resp who listened to his show prior to the move to television. According to Reed, the group became so large that meetings began to be held and it became a popular networking organization.

Networking was popular in the late 60's?

Finally 24 hours

2010-06-05T18:37:00.007-04:00

It's funny how we take for granted that our entertainment world is available to us 24/7. And even that in many cases is not good enough as personal players, audio and video equipped cell phones and other devices can now play on demand much of what can heard or seen over the air.

Yet in reality it wasn't that long ago that radio and television stations would leave the air for portions of the overnight.

Such was the case with WTVN.

The station left the air at 2 in the morning only to resume broadcasting in time for the morning drive. That all changed on January 17, 1966.

Jonny Green (yes no h in the name) became the first host to sit in the overnight chair at WTVN. Green was already on staff doing some weekend work and came to Columbus to do studies at Ohio State. He had previous experience at WLEC in Sandusky.

Jo Bradley Reed in that days edition of the "Citizen-Journal" announced that the overnight hours would be staffed by Green from midnight to 5:30 am. Well that was caption under the picture. The portion of the article dedicated to announcement had Green being on air from 2 am to 5:30 am. And also from 2 am to 6 am. Proofreaders anyone?

It was the same seat I would occupy for about a year weekends on 610 some 12 years later.

Reed noted that Jonny would call his show the "Greenhouse Show" and take requests. Oh, and he had pretty red wavy hair. Yes, she noted that.

Green, according to the WTMJ website where he currently hosts afternoons, joined the Army that same year, worked on Armed Forces Radio and upon leaving the Army in 1969 moved to Milwaukee. He joined WTMJ. Besides a short stint in Florida and another station in Milwaukee, Green has been with WTMJ ever since.

He currently hosts the Green House in afternoon drive on the station.

But what happened to all the pretty red wavy hair?

The Beginning and the end

2010-05-31T13:40:00.009-04:00

A few years ago we traveled to Pittsburgh and traveled up the clog incline to the top of Mount Washington to get a view of the city. The joining of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers to form the Ohio River was a beautiful cite. A park, fountain and other amenities made it a must see destination.

Travel 981 miles down the river and the story is quite different. No lovely fountain. No beautifully maintained park, although a nice park was once at the intersection.

The birds flying in the picture were birds scared up from a viewing platform. There were hundreds of them. How long they had been there is for someone who understands the habits of the birds better than me to explain. My guess is they have been there for a while.

The park where the rivers meet is largely neglected and poorly maintained, i maintained at all.

Granted, the park seemed to have flooded recently, as standing water and muck covered much of the peninsula that made up the park. But the neglect clearly has gone on since long before the waters swept over the land in the recent past.

Notice the weeds that have grown up in the playground area near the swings. A picnic area was in the same condition.

Cairo, Illinois. Where the Ohio River meets the Mississippi. Two of the most important rivers in the nation. Yet the view is much different.

Where Pittsburgh has transformed largely from a steel town to something entirely new, Cairo has been on a decline since the civil rights era of the 1960's.

It seems the races simply couldn't find a way to get along. And now the city has been on a several decade decline.

Large stretches of the city are largely in decay or abandoned.

An assistant at the Illinois Welcome Center noted that the city had at one time been considered as important as Chicago in the world of commerce.

No longer.

First, Foremost and Factual

2010-05-21T23:46:00.002-04:00

Your Little Buckeye Buddy

2010-05-03T23:47:00.006-04:00

Along with Laverne down at the truck stop on Route 23 and Wirt* the WRFD Janitor, the Real Bob James in the Morning made mornings fun at WRFD for a little over a year.

Lot's of production, energy, fast talking, great jingles and Moooooosic, Bob created a winner at Mooooosic 88, WRFD.

The Real Bob is now Professor Bob at Middle Tennessee State in Murfeeboro, Tn.

I always wondered if Wirt was really Adam Stover brought back as a comedic artist.

Be Careful What You Portray Because It Can Come Back And Bite You

2010-05-02T15:18:00.007-04:00

Probably one of the few newspaper articles that really impacted how I viewed things was printed on February 13, 1973. And a follow up piece just one week later.

It first was a puff piece on radio written by Sherry Woods of the Citizen Journal about WTVN radio. And when I say puff piece, I'm not suggesting it should have been written differently. There was simply nothing negative in the story. And for the most part, probably for good reason.

The headline read "WTVN radio has made its mark" with a sub headline of "A formula for success."

When I first read it, I beamed with pride as this was my favorite station. And I dreamed I would someday work on air there. With these hosts in place and be part of this team.

In a way, it was confirmation and justification of a seventeen year olds thought process.

Ms. Wood's story went on to tell about the success of the station and why it was at that time a ratings leader in Columbus.

One key to that success was the fact the station had a stable talent base, especially in key dayparts. These hosts knew their listeners and they knew Columbus.

Most had been on the station for many years. Two had been in there for longer than 10 years. Both Dave Logan and John Fraim had been with the station over 10 years. the same for news director Bill Patterson. Afternoon host Bob Conners was there just over 7, having joined in January, 1966. A solid bedrock situation.

Except all that was going to change and soon.

One week later, Sherry's column had the headline "Bob Conners joining WBNS Radio."

Readers learned that Bob Conners notified management at the end of his air shift the previous Saturday evening that he was leaving for cross dial rival WBNS and would begin hosting mornings on that station effective March 5th, 1973.

Two things happened with that second headline. The first and probably not so significant was I lost my favorite afternoon host to a station I seldom listened to, as the non daytime signal of WBNS simply couldn't be heard where I grew up.

But more importantly, it left me with the perception never to crow about your situation. In my mind, that article had WTVN bragging about the stability of their hosts which was a big factor in their success. In a weeks time, that bragging point withered away.

Radio is a constantly changeing business. Formats change and hosts come and go.

But since that time, I've always been gun shy about blowing my own horn as lifes situations change. And as that series of events demonstrated, something could and usually does change.

Good Morning Morning People

2010-04-27T09:47:00.009-04:00

Nancy Bugbee was morning host on local radio station WDLR in Delaware for a short period of time in 1974.

She served a number of purposes. First, she was halfway decent on the air. Second, she had ties to nearby Marysville which had ad dollars available. And finally, a female disc jockey was something of an anomoly during that time.

She would often open with the line Good Morning Morning People.

An earlier attempt at wooing Marysville Business in July of 1964.

For a Time It was Ohio's Country Giant

2010-04-22T06:10:00.017-04:00

New Years 1970.

A new decade and a new format for an old friend.

The week between Christmas and New Years day is sort of an awkward time. And it's also prime time for radio stations to change formats and the hosts behind the microphones.

And so it was for WRFD radio.

Although the news of the day in one edition of that weeks Citizen Journal was that WNCI, WRFD's sister FM station was going to make the switch, that wasn't the real story.

That was corrected the following day, although WNCI was also going to get a formatic face-lift too! But that's a story for another day.

So in the new year and new decade of 1970, WRFD made the transition from standards and MOR music to Country and Western music. No longer would Herb Alpert, Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey and Doris Day flow through the speakers of Columbus radio at 880 on the dial. At least for the next 6 years.

And no longer would Columbus wake up to Johnny Martin and drive home with Spook Beckman, at least at 880 on the dial. Johnny would later explain in a letter to the CJ that he was joining Lew Davis, former WRFD farm director at a financial services company and Spook Beckman asked to return to selling air time.

Instead the twang of Buck Owens and the voices of Uncle Tom George, Bill Preston and Jack Bartley among others would now be the daily diet of audio on the frequency.

George had recently come over from WMNI who themselves had made the move to country in 1965. I'm not sure about Bartley and Preston. Maybe someone will be able to fill me in.

So why the change? I'm not really sure. My guess is station or corporate leadership felt that with WRFD's extensive farm programming, it was a natural fit. Or that WRFD's still popular MOR/Standards blend was waning in popularity and a change was needed.

But maybe Country wasn't the right choice. By the spring of 1972, the station was in transition again. This time away from slide guitars and to the do wops of oldies. Len Anthony, brought in from Cleveland/Akron during the country years, was now in charge of the transition to oldies with the help of sister station WGAR.

Len was part of the team who hired me in May of 1973 to spin the church tapes and mow the front lawn. By time I was on board, Len was gone to Denver.

I just found that Len later migrated from Denver through South Dakota and finally landed in Atlanta where he had a successful career as one of the cities radio entertainers (he hated the term disc jockey). But a career that was cut short by a heart attack at the age of 52 in 1999.

In the years beyond that, WRFD left the oldies format in 1977 and returned to adult standards with it's Unrock format. With that format, Spook Beckman returned to the airwaves. His midday show along with the farm revenue began to make things look up at the station.

But Spook was wooed to bigger things at WCOL and WRFD once again returned to trying to find it's place among the radio listening and more importantly advertising audience. (My Sunday show wasn't strong enough to save the day.)

The Unrock format died without ceremony and for a time an adult contemporary format was in place. There was even talk for a while of returning to county as it believed that done right, WMNI was vulnerable.

But that was not to be.

Enter Salem Media of Ohio who purchased the station in the early 80's with a rapid switch to religious programming. It's true. Not only can God save souls; it appears that with WRFD's current success, He can save radio stations.

Bill Smith Says Goodbye Columbus

2010-04-21T00:13:00.007-04:00

WTVN radio has brought me the best of times and the worst of times.

The best of times for some of the great programming that I so wanted to be a part of growing up.

The worst of times in two instances. The first was when I was let go by the station after having only worked there a little over a year. And mostly through my own actions. (ok, so I wasn't grown up at the time.) The second was when they let Bill Smith slip through their fingers.

Anyone who follows this blog knows that I am a huge fan on Bill Smith. I remember listening to the station during the summer of 1974 and Smith wasn't on the air. Mid July and no Bill Smith. A day, then two and then a week went by and no Smith holding down the evening shift. I was needing a fix. And it wasn't coming.

On July 18th, I knew why.

David Drake of the old Citizen Journal wrote in his morning column that Bill and station management couldn't come to an agreement on salary. Bill had quit. Drake had noted that WTVN's ratings were at their highest in that time period with Bill at the helm.

But that was to be no more. That summer turned out to be one of the longest summers ever.

About a month later, Drake again in the CJ told central Ohio listeners that Smith had landed a part time gig at WBZ in Boston. A station even more of a legend that WTVN.

But it meant that I could only hear Bill when the sun went down in the winter months and you could hear the waning moments of his Sunday show or when he filled in for someone in a late shift. I remember more than once listening to him on the way home from a shift at WBBY as he was filling in for weekend overnighter Robin Young or some of the periodic Sunday shows during early sundown. It was almost as good as the old days.

Then things got worse. Well maybe not for Bill but for me. Bill began working for FM stations in the Boston market. No more sky wave hit skip from a 50kw flame thrower to bring great tunes and a master spinning them my way. For almost 35 years, no Bill Smith drifting through the night skies entertaining us.

In recent days I've been exchanging emails with Bill. He's shared some of how he began his broadcast career and other insights.

He's one of the best!

On Parr

2010-04-20T15:38:00.006-04:00

A veteran of five years in radio, Mr. Parr joined the staff at WRTA in the spring of 1965,coming here from WKVA in Lewistown. He has also worked at WPAM in Pollsville and
WBUT in Butler, where he served as program director.

A native of Pittsburgh where he went to school with and later married the former Donna Warner, Mr. Parr and his family, now reside at 2609 Wren Ave.

The couple has two children, Dana, 2 and Dari, 7 months.

A graduate of Capital University, Columbus, Ohio, he was affiliated with radio stations in Pittsburgh and Lewiston prior to coming to WRTA last June, 1965.

So read the newspapers in Dave's homestate of Pennsylvania prior to him coming back to Columbus.

I first became aware of Dave when he was music director and evening host for WTVN in the early 70's. Maybe even the late 60's.

Dave later moved to host afternoon drive on the station when Bob Conners left for WBNS in 1973. About a year later, he was replaced by Phil Whitelaw as Dave moved to host mornings and become responsible for programming beautiful music WTVN-FM.

I briefly worked for Dave hosting overnight Saturday-Sunday mornings on WTVN-FM. The sounds of the Hollywood Strings, George Melachrino, Frank DeVol among others were played from large reel to reel tapes. And the one liner I remember was the ever popular "At FM 96 the difference is the music."

I was only on the station for a short time as I was moved back to hosting the overnights on 610. I remember Dave as just a nice, easy going guy.

When WTVN-FM became Q-FM-96 Dave came back to the AM side as sports director and later once again music director.

If I recall, he spent some time at Channel 6. Later he was the press box announcer for many years at Ohio Stadium. A quite different job from the more colorful play by play task. Got to see every play of OSU when playing at home. The Columbus Dispatch did a nice column on Dave and his press box work in 1991.

Whatever Became Of?

2010-04-17T09:17:00.003-04:00

As I reminiscence through my old radio logs (memory), I realize there are so many people I haven't taken the time to write about.

Now there are several reasons for that.

One is I try to back up my memory with factual information. In most cases I'm going back 30 or 40 years trying to piece together the whens, whos and whats. They say the second thing to go is the memory, and I've forgotten the first.

I've found the newspaper archives at the library and on line searches to be helpful with that. There is nothing more fun than to watch the microfilm go by on the reader at the library. I think at the end of the day my optometrist will probably chastise me for watching the combination of light, film and images whiz by as I go looking for the sections of the paper I know contain the morsels of information I'm looking to find. Sometimes I remember approximate months or dates. Other times, it's like throwing a dart at the dart board. Thankfully the Citizen Journal had a radio-tv column (the Dispatch early on did not) that did a fairly good job of keeping track of the comings and goings of local media folks. I remember David Drake of course, but my new friend is his predecessor Jo Bradley Reed. She has columns going back to the early 60's (that's as far as I've looked). Her columns have more than once sparked another memory to track down.

Second is I try to maintain the positive side of things. Sure, I've written about someone being fired or a pairing of personalities that has gone south. You can't write about WBBY without including Wild Bill and some of the things that took place during those times or Bob Conners and the Perfect Partner that wasn't so perfect. So my objective is to share these memories and not cause harm to someone.

Finally, it's time. Time is an evil foe. There's only so much time to devote to this. Inspiration also comes into play. I feel for those writers who have to mass produce on a deadline. I simply couldn't do it. This is a labor of love and fun to do.

Finally, I just can't piece together all the people to write about. There are about a half a dozen works that are in various stages of how to present them. People like Bill Corley of WBNS, Dave Logan of WTVN, Phil Whitelaw of WTVN, Fred Anderle of WTVN and WOSU, Gene Warman and John Potter of WTVN. There are some additional people from WRFD that are in the early stages of jotting down memories. Uncle Tom George, Handsome Howard Hewes, Jeffrey P Morgan and Jack Bartley among them. Or WLW's Music Professor, Bob Beasley, Jockey Joe Kelly and JFPO.

And there are so many people I've not been able to find a lot of information on. Marcy Rodgers of WBBY, Dianne Townsley of WBBY, Rick Seiler of WBBY and WWWJ. John L of WNCI. John Canterbury of WNCI or Sean McKay. Whatever became of some of these and other folks? Anyone who can help?

And then there are the WCOL folks. They have been pretty well covered in Rick Minerd's books and Mike Adams WCOL history site.

Bill Corley and That Good Double BNS Music

2010-04-09T10:19:00.002-04:00

More to Come.

Whitelaw and Friends

2010-04-09T10:18:00.006-04:00

More to come

Your Midday Friend

2010-04-09T10:18:00.005-04:00

More to come.

New Morning Host Would Become #1 and Unseat Earlyworm

2010-04-07T21:14:00.008-04:00

On December 6th, 1965 a familiar voice changed microphones. It wasn't a move across the street or uptown. But rather from one studio to another.

John Fraim had been named the morning host of WTVN radio. Citizen Journal reporter Jo Reed reported in that mornings paper that the 38 year old former news director for the station would now be "a platter spinner and disc jockey conversationalist".

Fraim replaced interim morning host Dave Logan who had in turn replaced a handful of hosts since 1960 that included Maurice Jackson, Dave Hull and Johnnie Dollar.

Fraim had an interesting background. Besides being a news reporter/director for such stations as Cincinatti's WSAI, he was interested in exploring underground caves, even needing to be rescued Eureka cave in Kentucky when he and others in his group became disoriented. The rescue was even reported in a 1959 edition of Newsweek Magazine.

From that December 6th morning in 1965 until sometime late in 1979, Fraim would begin a reign to be the top rated morning host in the Columbus market, and during that time unseated longtime morning kingpin, Irwin Johnson. Johnson, known to his fans as the Earlyworm, had hosted mornings on across the dial WBNS for many years. Johnson had been a WBNS host since the 1940's and had developed a loyal following.

Fraim would later join WRFD for a short time after leaving WTVN and soon after be wooed by WCOL to host mornings on that station.

WCOL gave Fraim a birdseye view of the city when he broadcast from the former observation deck of the Leveque Tower downtown. After a few years there, he was news director for WBBY until that station was closed by the FCC as an indirect outgrowth of the Wild Bill incident and the character issues of the owner as seen by the FCC.

Fraim now resides near Laurelville, OH.

The Perfect Partner and I'm Outta Here

2010-03-13T23:18:00.003-05:00

I teased this story several months ago when writing about WTVN radio host Bill Smith.

Long before e-Harmony.com and Match.com, there was a much more "exotic" way to find the Perfect Partner.

One radio station in Columbus decided to do it the old fashioned way in 1976 because that was the only way to do it back then.

A little history.

Popular Columbus radio personality Bob Conners had left WTVN in early 1973 to take a coveted morning gig at cross the dial rival WBNS-AM in Columbus. At first, his ratings actually improved over the previous hosts ratings. But as time went on, they had began to wane back to previous levels.

To many, the move from WTVN where Conners had held forth in the afternoon drive slot when he arrived in Columbus in 1965 to the morning slot at WBNS seemed to constrain him. At WTVN, he had developed characters in his show. Two remembered by me were Sammy from Sammy's Bar & Grill and the Mailman. There was also a third character. The ever silent Jesse. The speaking characters visited daily. All were left behind when Conners jumped to BNS. Conners also had an opening and closing theme song for his show. That too was abandoned with the move to WBNS.

I remember listening to Bob's first show on WBNS. It was anything but easy. First, the WBNS signal was a voice in the static at my house about 10 miles north and west of Dublin. Even though I grew up on the other side of Dublin, the BNS signal was so weak that until the day signal kicked in, Bob and BNS was a voice among many voices.

WBNS also aired their news at 25 and 55 billing it as news 5 minutes sooner. As the newscast ended, WBNS played a closing sounder and a top or bottom of the hour legal ID. The music started cold. Bob's first song was a song I never really enjoyed. Roger Miller's "Engine, Engine #9". No theme song, no Sammy, Mailman or Jesse. Just Bob and Roger Miller and a jingle after back announcing the song but before the commercial. Backwards from the way it was normally done.

When listening to Bob at WTVN, you knew he had seen the latest movie, had gone to the latest live performance, had visited the hottest spots in Columbus, had an in depth knowledge of sports and seemed to have read all the major daily newspapers of record. Bob always sounded like the go to guy for all things regarding the cool and current events.

At WBNS that all seemed to be gone. The show seemed more constrained and too tightly formatted. Bob never quite seemed to be what he used to be over at WTVN. Cool and hip while on an adult music based radio program.

Just shy of three years at being at WBNS, all was about to change.

A new general manager had ridden into town in October of 75 to take over the reins of the radio enterprise. The radio stations were overseen by the head of the co-owned but not co-located television station, Gene DeAngelo. Many in the industry thought the new hire was a final admission that DeAngelo had been spreading himself too thin and the radio stations needed someone on site and more involved.

Enter from Denver, Colorado a gentleman by the name of Mike Jorgensen.

Jorgenson apparently also believed there was something missing from the morning show and he decided to fix it with.....a contest.

A contest to in 30 days find Bob Conners a perfect partner to livin up the show. Someone from the everyday world could interact with Conners about music, community events and leisure interests of the target audience. To the left is a scan of a post card that was mailed to the people who responded to the on air promotion. Sort of a picture yourself next to Bob as his perfect partner. It was reported that more than 3000 people from every walk of life applied for the position. As encouraged by the promotion, people needed to respond before this opportunity was Gone With The Wind.

Over 1000 were interviewed in blocks of 6 in 15 minute increments. People were quickly weeded out, but a Central Ohio homemaker survived and had a 15 minute meeting with Conners.

According to area homemaker Dee Barrows, she thought the interview would never go any further. She told Columbus Monthly magazine a few months later that she was "sure he hated me." But she survived that round and eventually made a tape with Conners. And then another taping on January 29, 1976. An hour later, she got a call from Jorgensen announcing she had the job and debuted two mornings later on a Saturday morning dry run.

The following Monday, the show made its official debut. It seemed on the air to be rocky from the start.

Apparently behind the scenes the rockiness was also an issue. Barrows commented in reports that Conners would be sympathetic to her and helpful or withdrawn from her depending on the day. .

The morning duo show concept lasted all of three weeks.

By Saturday the end of the third week, Conners, no longer smiling as in the picture, decided that he had had enough. Tired of daily debriefings after each show, Conners walking into manager Jorgensen's office with resignation papers in hand.

He then headed off to Aspen for a two week respite and skiing trip.

Clearly Bob wasted little time during his discomfort with the the addition of a morning coffee mate and submission of his walking papers. Within a few days of the announcement of his departure, David Drake's Citizen Journal media column headlined that Bob was headed back to WTVN where his personality and characters would once again be used.

And with that, the concept of the Perfect Partner was indeed.........gone with the wind.

As a footnote to non Columbus readers, Bob remains at WTVN and is fondly called the Morning Monarch. He returned to his old afternoon slot for just a few years and by 1979 was appointed host of the morning drive show with the departure of John Fraim. He has held that slot since that time and often maintains the status of Columbus's most listened to radio host.

Growing up, Bob Conners was one of the radio hosts who made an impression on a young man growing up in Central Ohio.

Things I've Learned with this Blog

2010-03-11T22:19:00.003-05:00

I often look to see the posts that are visited and the location of the visitors of this blog.

The two most popular pages are the one where I write about former WTVN Columbus radio host Bill Smith who is now working in the Boston market and the post about the Bluegrass Story Teller, bluegrass artist James King. Usually the web search for King centers on the lyrics from his recording Echo Mountain.

Not so far behind those two articles is the one I wrote about long ago WBNS radio host Irwin Johnson, also known as the Early Worm.

Johnson hasn't been heard on Columbus radio since 1969, yet this blog has received over 25 hits with people reading about the Early Worm.

It's also funny that some of the stories I posted have received few if any visits. I thought for sure the article on The Perfect Partner and Bob Conners would be remembered and a often hit page. It isn't.

I sometimes wonder why visitors seldom leave a message. I would love to know why they visited and what they thought.

From Here to There

2010-02-28T17:27:00.009-05:00

I thought I was the only one that wondered where roads began and where they ended. And of course what was in between. I've spent hours over the years turning page after page following various highways from state to state.

I was reading the travel section of the paper this morning. Steve Stephens was relating that he too often wonders where highways go and end. Link

I've been at the begining of I-75 and at it's end in south Florida. Same for I-10 which begins in Jacksonville, Florida and ends in Los Angeles. Or I-80 as it begins just shy of the George Washington Bridge in New Jersey and crosses the country to San Francisco. I-71 is much easier as it begins in Cleveland and ends in Louisville. And of course I-4 from Daytona to Tampa is a simple and relatively short drive.

Of course there are the standard highways too. I don't know how many highways I've come across through the years that I've traced from beginning to end in an atlas and envisioned the sights and sounds along the way.

In my area, as an example, US Route 62 starts in Niagara Falls, New York and ends in El Paso, Texas. While the highway travels through Columbus, I would never use that route to get to either city. It would simply take too long.

Or US Route 40. It starts near the casinos and boardwalk of Atlantic City, New Jersey and continues west to Park City, Utah. Yet at one time, it made it all the way to San Francisco. The now truncated highway at one time did go from coast to coast.

Route 23 starts way up north at the Mackinac Bridge and ends in usually warm (and sometimes humidly hot) downtown Jacksonville, Florida. I been to both extremes of this highway, but never the entire length of it. It is at it's most beautiful in Eastern Kentucky, Eastern Tennessee and Eastern, North Carolina just north of Asheville.

Or the other major US Highway, Route 33 which begins in Elkhart, Indiana and ends in Richmond, VA. I've followed US 33 from I-81 in Virginia to Columbus. It passes through some of the most scenic areas along the Virginia/West Virginia border.

But in the end, wouldn't it be fun to be able to simply pick up and explore all the places along the roads that pass through your neighborhood?

But in the end, I guess it's nice to know I'm not the only one who traces the origins and endings of highways.

That's the Stupidest Thing I Ever Heard!

2010-02-22T23:43:00.003-05:00

It was the late 70's or early 80's when I first heard Bruce Williams. I believe it was on WLW. Bruce, Sally Jesse Raphael and Dr. Bernard Metzler were the talkers on the old Talknet radio network.

As radio began to cut back on local talent, these talkers, based out of NYC were syndicated across the nation. You could virtually drive anywhere and hear these voices.

Bruce specialized in financial things. People would call about buying cars, having wills prepared, investing in businesses and Bruce's all time favorite, buying time shares. The key to calling Bruce was never, ever ask if buying a time share was a good idea. I don't know how many times someone would call about buying a timeshare only to have Bruce tell them that it was the stupidest thing he had ever heard.

Bruce was salty. Bruce would flirt or or be condescending with the ladies. Bruce was interesting to listen to.

Bruce was a business man, mayor of a small New Jersey town and once survived a small plane crash (he was a pilot).

Several years ago, an article was written about Bruce's show. The author likened listening to Bruce's show was like being a child listening around the corner as your father gave his wrath to one of your brothers or sisters. Yes, you enjoyed hearing them get it, but you were just as glad it wasn't you.

Bruce announced today that he was hanging up his headphones and ending his shoe in early March.

So Long JM in the AM

2010-02-21T22:07:00.005-05:00

I received a phone call yesterday from my friend Mark telling me that long ago former morning host at WRFD Johnny Martin had passed away. Said he saw it in an article in the Dispatch. Johnny was 87.

JM in the AM as the show was called was a blend of standards, instrumentals, big band classics, farm market reports and Johnny Martin weaving it all together to make mornings a little better. And as the ad from the old Columbus Citizen indicates, he did some midday country music too.

Johnny sat behind the WRFD morning microphone from 1957 until about 1970. My recollections are he left the station when it dropped its standards format to become Ohio's County Giant.

After a brief stint running a bank, Johnny returned to the Columbus area to work for the Ohio Farm Bureau.

Although I'm unsure what his specific duties were, Johnny would do analysis and commentary during and as a part of WRFD's midday farm hour from the OFB's offices.

Johnny was a big band music fan and I had the opportunity to chat with him a couple of times when he called me on the air at WOSU when I was hosting Big Band Saturday and Moonlight Swing.

During our conversation I asked if the Dispatch had done an article or if it was just an obit. Mark replied that it was an article, but that so much of what Johnny was involved in was left out. But as we chatted, we both realized that it had been 40 years since Johnny was waking up Columbus and central Ohio. Many of the people who were JM in the AM fans likely are no longer with us either.

Johnny is probably now sitting behind an old Western Electric mixing board with an old Altec bird cage microphone on a boom with a couple of washing machine sized turntables playing Glenn Miller's "In The Mood" for thousands of angels.

Niagara Falls

2010-02-16T11:37:00.005-05:00

This weekend, Diana and I enjoyed a weekend away at Niagara Falls.

I can't express how much fun we have together going off and exploring all the neat things in our neck of the woods. And with an unbelieveable co-pilot.

One of my greatest joys is sharing our journeys together.

Another Passing? BC Hangs up the Headphones on Saturday Morning Open Phones

2010-02-07T17:51:00.005-05:00

I didn't actually hear it. But according to some reports, WTVN morning host Bob Conners announced he was giving up his popular Saturday Morning Open Phones program. He still plans to host his Monday through Friday morning gig.

Saturday Morning Open Phones began as something of an anomaly and until this weekend remained one. The former reason was at the time, WTVN was for the most part playing music when this show began. The latter one is that largely the callers could have their say without much moderation.

Indulge here while I stroll down memory lane for just a moment to give some background.

Sure, WTVN had began to make the transformation to talk radio (other than the Speakout public affairs program that aired Sunday evenings)in the late 70's when Dale Ulmer , just released from WBNS was named evening host at the station. Dale was to begin blending music and chat. Ulmer stuck around for a few months and returned to his native Minnesota. He was replaced by Paul Davidson, who was overnight host of the station at the time. Paul was a nice guy. He wasn't cut out to be a talk show host. Talk radio didn't really take hold at the station until Steve Cannon came south from Akron to host the evening show at WTVN about 1979 to begin playing phonograph records and to share fancy patter. Cannon, then using trivia and star interviews instead of politics struck a chord with Columbus audiences. For an evening radio show, Steve brought the station a lot of attention.

Sometime after that Bob began opening the phones to Central Ohio on his Saturday morning show. I can't remember for sure, but my guess is sometime around Desert Storm.

What came after that was a eclectic collection of callers and listeners. Callers promoting everything from the latest from the John Birch Society to the Cat Lady with pets to adopt to someone promoting a local ice cream social, spaghetti dinner, church yard sale or community festival. Politically it was libertarian/fringe in terms of tone, however there were more people from both sides using the show to "showcase" their political leanings.

All came on, all had their say and were largely left unchallenged. Even those who were talking events on the political fringe. It actually became something of the charm of the show.

Fast forward to today. Bob was one of the few major market talents still holding down a 6 day per week shift. Old timers like me will remember that the man who held the morning show shift, John Fraim, exited WTVN in part because his demand to only work a 5 day week was pushed back. (Maybe Bob figured the dust had settled after more than 30 years and he could finally get the day off!)

Listeners reportedly heard Bob say he could now take his wife out to dinner Friday night like most others do without having to worry about getting up early Saturday to make the show by letting the Saturday show go.

Now well into his 70's maybe Rockin Robbin and Don Howard as Bob was known in his days in Pittsburg at WEEP and KQV is slowly beginning to hand over the reins of the morning show. If so, then so be it. Columbus loses what is possibly one of its most identifiable radio personalities when that happens. Bob has became our Walter Cronkite and Paul Harvey all rolled into one.

Bob has created a legacy here in Columbus. As entertainment and radio especially begin to become more of a homogenized commodity, standout local personalities/entertainers like Bob will become fewer and fewer.

Bob, all the best in whatever lies in your future.

I Now Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans

2009-12-02T22:59:00.002-05:00

Don't have time to post some of the pics, but we did a whirlwind of New Orleans. Stayed just around the corner from Bourbon Street. Pricelined a great hotel room for only $44.00. 30 feet and we were on the street of night life in NO.

My first thought was New Orleans reminded me of the photos of Havana, Cuba I've seen over the years in their entertainment district, only the 1950's vintage autos are year 2000+ in New Orleans.

Only found one club playing Dixieland Jazz, but it was great to hear the music of the Big Easy in a small intimate club. We enjoyed it so much, we stayed til closing, which is unusual for us.

Had some great food. Rode the streetcar. Heard some great rock and roll music by cover bands that sounded like the real groups they were playing the songbooks of.

Diana was shocked at some of the clubs in the French Quarter. Adult themed. I saw a Hustler Club that had as its motto, "Relax. It's only sex." While we got no further than the sidewalk, maybe they do have a point.

Walked over the Mississippi River this morning and watched some of the boat traffic.

Throwing Rolls At You

2009-11-30T21:22:00.003-05:00

I first heard of a restaurant that threw rolls to their patrons on the Sonny Bloch financial show in the 1990's. He was talking to a listener somewhere in Missouri and the topic of a diner that threw your rolls to you came up. Based on that conversation I knew I had to go there someday.

We made it to their Foley, Alabama location tonight. And loved it.

Lambert's is famous for their thrown rolls. Rolls fresh from the oven were brought down aisles and tossed to waiting patrons.

But the food was something else. Generous portions, fair prices and friendly service in a clean place to eat. Who could ask for more.

Another unique feature is they walk around with bowls of fried okra, pan fried potatoes, pinto beans, mac and tomatoes and cabbage. All you cared to eat. And with an abundant meal.

I had the hog jowls. Diana settled for a cheese burger. The hog jowls tasted like pan fried ham.

No one can ever claim to walk away from Lambert's with an empty stomach. They see to that.

All in all, a great experience and a highly recommended place.

Stars Fell on Alabama

2009-11-29T10:25:00.003-05:00

The song mentioned in the title was written in 1934 by Frank Perkins and the lyrics were written by Mitchell Parrish. One of the first known recordings was by Guy Lombardo orchestra, with his brother Carmen doing a vocal. This version was recorded on August 27, 1934 and issued by Decca Records

The song was later performed by over 100 artists. Among them are: Lee Wiley, Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong; Jack Teagarden; Jimmy Buffett; Billie Holiday; Anita O'Day; Dean Martin; Kay Starr; Frank Sinatra; Doris Day; Frankie Laine; Erroll Garner; Kate Smith; Mel Torme; Renee Olstead; Ricky Nelson; Stan Getz; Ben Webster; the Radcliffe Pitches; and Cannonball Adderley.

On our way to Gulf Shores, we stopped in Montgomery. It was only 6:00 pm local time, but the sky was dark and starry. We captured some of the historic downtown, including the first Confederate White House, the state house and the church where Martin Luther King pastored in the late 50's in pictures as the stars fell on us in Alabama.

It's Almost Time for the Annual Fight to Keep Christ in Christmas

2009-11-25T20:10:00.007-05:00

Sometimes those who are trying to maintain a great tradition too often sound and look like the caracature in the cartoon. Sad, isn't it?

I actually saw a similar situation in a department store a few years ago. A lady let rip on a store clerk that didn't say have a great Christmas. The words used from the "Christ in Christmas" ambassador were more colorful than the cartoon.

What wonderful ambassadors we sometimes are.

Sometimes I believe Dan Merchant's book Lord, Save Us From Your Followers: Why is the Gospel of Love Dividing America? is spot on.

From a more commercial perspective.

Children and Saturday

2009-11-24T22:48:00.006-05:00

This one is a little late in getting posted.

Two weekends ago Diana and I had her grandchildren over night. On Saturday we decided since the weather was nice this late into fall, we needed to get out and explore!

After running some errands we were off to Blendon Woods Metro Park to walk some of teh trails and get some last minute leaf playing in before dampness killed the fun.

But the jackpot portion of the day was a trip to Marion.

Friday evening Renee had said that she would like to see the big Lincoln statue. We told here that it's located in Washington DC and that Diana and I had gone there before and had seen it. I loaded the pictures up on the computer and showed her our pics and also showed here where we saw the Lincoln tomb in Springfield, Illinois over Labor Day weekend.

Renee said she would love to see that too!

Putting my thinking cap on, I quickly thought we could head off to Marion and show Renee and Dylan the Harding Memorial and tomb.

So off we went.

What was neat was to see these kids light up when they saw the memorial. They really thought it was neat to see where a President was buried and the beauty of the facility. Most impressive to them was an area that told of the monument being built and that children had saved their pennies to make the memorial a reality.

We wrapped up the day with a quick stop at the Harding home also in Marion.

Sarah or Palinized

2009-11-22T01:30:00.003-05:00

Sarah Palin came to Columbus for a book signing Friday evening.

Although not a huge fan, I thought if it were possible to get a book signed by the former Governor and current toast of all things to the right of Rush Limbaugh, I figured what the heck. Maybe she would even kiss it with her pit bull/soccer mom lipstick and leave an imprint.

So we headed up to Dublin to check out the scene.

When we arrived, we found a large line snaking out of the bookstore and down the sidewalk past several store fronts. Although I have no true experience estimating crowd size, my best guess was there were somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 people attempting to get a chance to meet their hero and get a book signed.

Standing at the end of the long line, I decided to actually walk into the store and find out what the deal was.

Palin had agreed to sign 500 books between 6 and 9 pm. Wrist bands were distributed on a first come, first serve basis when the store openned. My chance to see and get a book signed was quickly estimated to be somewhere between nil and zero.

So I thought I'd get a shot of the Palin bus, a few shots of the crowd and a picture of the signs (and I was surprised there were so few either supporting or not supporting her). The only exchange I witnessed was between the two sign holders and each respectfully advanced their views without yelling or taunting. That was pretty neat.

The guy selling buttons wasn't doing much business for some reason.

Me At WRFD

2009-11-22T01:18:00.002-05:00

Found a picture of me at WRFD taken in 1978. More hair and fewer pounds back then. Station was playing the Unrock format. Photo was taken by John (Jack) Phillips.

More on Green Acres aka WRFD

2009-11-14T08:44:00.004-05:00

Found the below as I was looking through some old publications. In the early 70's and possibly even beginning in the late 60's, WRFD left the Middle of The Road and became a foreground country music station becoming known as Ohio's Country Giant. The attempt was to tie in the agricultural portion of the programming with the music portion. I really can't say if it worked or not, as the format only remained in place a few years. Did it not work well because of the image of Country at the time? You know. Being Country when Country wasn't cool? Or was the fact that daytime only stations were quickly facing death financially no matter the format?

I do remember hearing people say they used to listen to the station before it went Country, so that could have been an indication as to why Country didn't remain on teh station long.

Also find a clip from Billboard Magazine featuring program director Len Anthony and Robert W. Knight when the station made the transition to oldies.

I had also forgotten that Ed Johnson, the farm broadcaster was at one time one of the voices of the football Buckeyes. More on him some time later.

Mississippi Beginnings

2009-11-13T20:02:00.003-05:00

Ever wondered what the origins of the Mississippi River look like? We're standing where the Mighty Mississippi begins.

Beginnings

2009-11-11T20:19:00.010-05:00

My rememberances of events that were meaningful to me in radio could never be complete without the inclusion of WDLR in Delaware.

Ted Baxter used to say on the Mary Tyler Moore show "It all started in a 5,000-watt radio station in Fresno, California. With just a $50-a-week paycheck and a dream".

Actually Ted's start was much better than mine. My start was at a 500 watt radio station in Delaware, Ohio working for free and a dream. Free. I begged local manager Jim Lloyd to allow me to have some airtime and I would be willing to do so for free. My first day on the radio was Tuesday May 8, 1973. I was on the air between 7 and 8:45 pm. Working for free.

In just a few weeks, I was hired to handle Saturday's between the hours of 2 until sign-off which was 8:45 in May and extended to 9:00 pm in June. For $1.85/hour. I was thrilled and panicked. For 7 hours I was I was in a cinder block building, all by myself. I honestly believe one of the reasons I am comfortable by myself is that I learned to do so on those Saturdays.

But like Ted, I still had my dream.

WDLR began it's on air life on January 18, 1961 at 12 noon. It was scheduled to operate between the hours of 6 am until Delaware sunset which ranged from 5 pm in December to 8 pm EST in June and July. From a picture and an advertisement in the January 16th Delaware Gazette, here is the exterior of the studios and the announcement of programming actities. The station was to program a format aimed at young married and middle aged people, with lots of local news, farm news, markets and sports.

When I began in 1973 the stations line up included Dan Green doing mornings and news (he left soon after my arrival and was replaced by Ron Culp), John Phillips in the afternoon, Dan Allender Saturday morning and me Saturday afternoon. I was hired to replace a gentleman by the name of Hugh Hannah. Hugh was African-American and was leaving to join a black programmed station in Xenia.

Others at the station were Kris Keltner who was Delaware's version of Ruth Lyons. She hosted for lack of a better term a variety show.

Paul Heinlein who doubled as chief engineer handled evenings during the spring and summer allowing the haywire automation system which never worked right run the show. Uncle Paul as we called him was also responsible for an all religious pay for play preacher Sunday lineup. We teasingly called the Sunday line up "The Sunday Screamers", as they were mostly well meaning self appointed fundamentalist preachers willing to pluck down the $30 for a half hour of radio time to yell, rant and scream into the microphone about salvation and hell. Old time religion.

One preacherman, Barney Sheritt who ran the grain mill in Ostrander, had for lack of a better term religious turrets disease. While delivering his message with strong fervor, he would let slip curse words or strong sexual words. Yet when finished, he was a kind and soft spoken gentleman. Barney was doing risque radio long before it became cool ala Howard Stern.

Mark Litton, who I've remained friends with all these years joined the station a few weeks after I began hosting a top 40 countdown. He also did other sundry work including fill ins.

Mark filled in for Paul one Sunday. While Brother Barney was on the air referred to Mark as a long haired, hippified son of a bitch. On the air. Yet when he was finished, he handed Mark his $30 for his air time, thanked him for engineering the show and said he wished him a great week and would see him next Sunday if he was filling in for Paul.

Mark became one of the more successful of our WDLR graduating class as he has gone on to station ownership in Ohio and briefly Illinois.

Kris and Paul were old timers in the business. Kris and her twin sister sang on the the old WHKC (now WTVN) sometime in the long ago past. Kris read poetry, gave household tips, sang standards or religious songs, and gave anniversary and birthday greetings. Kris was in her 70's and yet had firery red hair and had a type A personality to match. She was a tough woman who had seen it all. She would often bring her husband along with her. Pappy as he was called was her polar opposite. Quiet and never without his pipe, Pappy would tamp and smoke away in quiet amusement as Kris did her thing. Looking back, he often reminded me of Pa Kettle. Actually he was a accomplished but retired business man who had built a business making church furniture that was widely respected.

Paul was her nemesis. Paul was a large man with a pencil thin mustache and gap toothed smile. Put him in german dirndl dress ans he would have fit perfectly at a beer hall in Bavaria. He also had a huge cynical and ironic sense of humor.

Kris said he was so big that he had to be incorporated. She nick named him UPI for Uncle Paul Incorporated.

Paul loved to play practical jokes. Kris had a 3x5 card file of birthdays and anniversaries. Paul would insert cards with the names of fake people. Such as Mr. and Mrs. Authur Rightous celebrating an aniversary. The card would keep appearing every few months and Kris would read it and then comment that it just seemed not so long ago that they had celebrated and anniversary.

One of Kris's sponsors was a cemetary. It was managed by a man named Dan. Kris discused on the air that she was looking for some sort of hook or line to use with her commercials for the cemetary. From behind her in the studio he said to "See Digger Dan for his lay away plan."

The station was sold in early 1974 and the new owners came in and cleaned the place up. While I wasn't allowed to do much on the air, the overall effect was a much improved station. But as I noted in the beginngs of this article, I had a dream and running an automation system was not part of that dream. I left in May of 74.

Oddly, I've worked off and on for the station for the next several years and until the year 2001. I hosted music shows, called play by play sports (which for me is a stretch, as I know next to nothing about the positions and strategies of sports), did a local talk show, hosted candidate interviews and more.

The station now has a satellite fed Mexican based format.

The station looks like this today.

Spook

2009-11-08T00:33:00.010-05:00

Spook Beckman in his famous WCOL AM "Bumper Room".

What can you say about Spook Beckman? He was at the top. He was at the bottom. His fans loved him no matter what. His detractors had no love for him.

Spook came to Columbus, Ohio from Florida. He was born Frederick Beckman, but earned the moniker Spook because of his then shock of whitish blond hair. He spent time in the 50's at WLW-C television, hamming it up on local shows. He later became the afternoon host of WTVN radio, worked briefly at WVKO and soon back at WTVN.

He returned to WLW-C with a mid morning variety show called Spook Beckman's Coffee Club in January 1965. When the show ended in 1968, he returned to radio. His new radio home was WRFD where he hosted afternoons briefly and then worked in radio sales.

That began a bottom period. When Spook left WRFD, he worked the dinner theater circuit at the Columbus-Springfield Dinner Theater, sold cars for a Westerville Ford dealer and then began a radio come back. Slowly.

Spook was brought into WBNS radio briefly to host a Saturday afternoon show. Later, when radio station WRFD, searching for a format to return to it's former greatness, brought Spook in to WRFD to host a Sunday afternoon show featuring Big Band music. When Spook was brought on full time, I replaced him long term on the Sunday shift when my WTVN gig ended.

Spook's return to WRFD was in a word great. He brought a ready made audience. He also brought something even more important. A pocket full of ready and willing advertisers. While the WRFD program log often looked like a blanket of snow page after page, during Spook's show the page was full of advertisements to be aired. Often with Spook ad libbing the entire commercial from memory and with his personal touch. Spook's show was the corner stone of the radio's format, then known as the Unrock Station. Unrock was for the standards by Frank, Bing and Tony that were played hour after hour with Glenn, Benny and Artie and their big bands sprinkled in between. Spook was back to the glory years.

As a station promotion, a picnic was held on the spacious studio grounds. It was packed with Beckman fans. He created a fan club called the Years, Tears and Beers club. Something about the years for the memories, tears for the tough times and the beers for the good times.

Sadly for WRFD, Spook's return lasted only a few years. He was called away by WCOL radio who itself was going through a metamorphosis. When Spook left, the stations program log once again returned to looking like a blizzard had hit page after page.

WCOL offered him a showcase studio on East Broad Street that became known as the Bumper Room. Spook often refereed to his afternoon drive radio show as bumper to bumper time, capitalizing on bumper to bumper traffic in the afternoon.

When first arriving at WCOL, Spook's show consisted of playing contemporary music. What we often called chicken rock. Enough of today’s music to be current, but with the rockier, edgier songs absent from the play list. Spook fit that format,,,,,,well let's put it this way. Johnny Cochran couldn't have defended Spook and the music being played as a good fit.

That format however was on its way out, and Spook once again was in his element as the station moved the Music of Your Life Format. Where WRFD had tried with its Unrock version of the format, WCOL went with the Music of Your Life product. It was more complete in scope and depth, wasn't being played from scratchy records but rather recordings of the once famous and great songs and had a complete package to make it a viable format during those times.

To further its image in the market, WCOL employed some of Columbus once great radio personalities to anchor the disc jockey lineup. Coming from WTVN and later WRFD John Fraim anchored mornings from high atop the Leveque Tower, Joe Cunningham held forth in mid-days much as he did at WBNS. Beckman was in the Bumper Room with his unique flavor of entertainment and folksy charm and former WCOL morning man when the station was in its Top Forty heyday, Wes Hopkins, rounded out the line up in the evenings. While it lasted, it was the true stars of music coming to play on a station anchored by once heavy weight radio personalities.

I was never quite sure why the station moved from the format. Although never huge in audience, it was still quite widely accepted and had its fair share of the radio advertising pie. Maybe it simply cost too much to maintain, but the station pulled the plug and moved to a mostly syndicated talk format in the mid-80.

Beckman moved to country formatted WMNI. That move never felt like a good fit. Beckman seemed to be at his finest element at WRFD playing the Unrock and at WCOL with the Music of Your Life. Country music just wasn’t' Spook. But being the always professional broadcaster, Spook and his loyal fans re-emerged together at 920 on the dial where Spook remained until illness and death took him from us in November of 1986.

Looking back, it seems almost unimaginable that Spook's voice hasn't graced Columbus microphones in over 20 years. It seems just like yesterday hearing the microphone open and a commercial begins with the familiar "Hi folks, this is Spook for.......Know them for a lifetime".

Spooks generosity as well as creativity was also evidenced by his heavy involvement in local charities. Spook began the Secret Santa project in the 1950's to provide toys for children often left off Santa's list. He also was an avid paper seller for Charitie Newsies manning a post at James and Livingston for years.

Spook was always larger than life. His booming baritone voice, his fun personality, his ability to literally have listeners and advertisers eat out of the palm of his hand was a talent most radio hosts could only dream of.

Hamburger Inn

2009-11-07T23:57:00.005-05:00

It may be called a greasy spoon. It may be called a hole in the wall. To me, it's small town diner heaven. And it's long overdue for it's place on this blog.

The Hamburger Inn has been a Delaware Institution since the 1930's. Located on the main drag (Sandusky Street) in downtown Delaware, this is a great place to nail some great chow at a great price.

The hamburger buns are baked fresh on the premisis. Same for the carmel icing covered cinnamon rolls. French fries are fresh cut and fried as is the same for the home fries. And breakfast is great.

The Hamburger Inn is also a great place to meet some of Delaware's notables and quoteables. Everyone from OWU students, local politicos and even some of the towns more colorful figures can be found at the counter seating only Hamburger Inn.

The famous back entrance is a neat way to see the whole place.

Interior shots.

Jib Jab

2009-11-07T23:26:00.004-05:00

To most people, when they hear the words Jib Jab, they think of the political comedy spoofs streaming periodically on the internet. And while I am very aware of and enjoy their work, to me Jib Jab means a great place to get a hot dog.

While heading to Niles to see the McKinley museum, we took a detour to Girrard, Ohio to Jib Jab Hot Dogs. Having been there late last spring, we looked forward to the return visit.

I've already chronicled another great hot dog place here. And while Jib Jab doesn't have the ambieance that Hillbilly Hotdogs has, it does have hot dogs with great taste. And a neat feature is the hot sauces made available (see last photo) to spice up your dogs.

If you're up Youngstown way, make Jib Jab a stop.

Best Steak

2009-11-01T14:09:00.003-05:00

Diana and I stopped at a place on the Illinois/Indiana border Labor Day weekend for dinner. The funny thing is, Diana literally went into the place kicking and screaming not to. It has become a favorite.

This past weekend, we traveled to Indianapolis to visit Diana's daughter Heather and decided to treat her to this great place.

It's called the Beef House and it's located in Covington, Indiana at exit 3.

It's modestly priced for the food you get and in a word it's great. If you're in the area, be sure to try it.

One Fall Sunday In Columbus

2009-10-27T20:31:00.004-04:00

Random photos from a Sunday afternoon in Columbus. Including the Jeffrey Mansion, the parkland that surrounds it, the first Wendy's in the US being gutted to become a part of Catholic Charities, the gavel near the Ohio Supreme Court or the Columbus version of the Empire State Building, the Leveque Tower.

Are Our Holidays Becoming Too Blended

2009-10-24T17:47:00.004-04:00

I was in an area K-Mart this morning and came across this combination.

Totally Ghoul Christmas Trees?

Green Acres AKA WRFD

2009-10-17T09:21:00.009-04:00

Green Acres conjures up thoughts of the 1960’s television show about a New York City lawyer who pursues his dream of owning a farm. The only problem is his dream isn’t well researched and he ends up with a dump and non productive farm land known as the Haney place.

Such was not the case with Green Meadows, which was anchored by among other things WRFD radio. The link between Green Acres and Green Meadows was agriculture. And there’s where it ended.

Green Meadows at its prime was a combination restaurant, upscale motel, summer playhouse, a series of agricultural test plots, a picnic park and all that was anchored by radio station WRFD.

Green Meadows became a destination point in the 50's and early 60's. The accommodations were for the time upscale, the restaurant among central Ohio's best and the radio station was known for quality programming. They were showplaces as much as destination points.

As mentioned the centerpiece was WRFD. It was a unique radio station. Started by the Ohio Farm Bureau to broadcast agricultural news and entertainment of interest to rural families, the station became one of the most profitable daytime only stations in the nation. Advertisers were drawn to the stations statewide signal that covered 66 of Ohio’s 88 counties with a quality signal along with the listeners it attracted. Those listeners were seen as traditional families with solid nuclear family values. On the downside, the station was limited to operate from sunrise to sunset since it was located on a clear channel frequency (880 AM) that is and was dominated by WCBS in New York City.

The WRFD broadcast house was at one time a palace. A large colonial brick structure built at the intersection of Powell Road and US Route 23 in what was then the virtual end of the civilized world as far as Columbus was concerned. The exterior of the station was similar to what you’d find at any Virginia plantation. The interior at the time it was built contained large modern studios designed for live performances.

I remember listening to the station with my father growing up. When the station signed off at sunset, it would advise listeners that additional programming was available on co-owned WRFD-FM, now contemporary powerhouse WNCI.

I was hired by WRFD in 1973, not quite yet out of high school to a multifaceted job requiring many skills. I was to run the church programs, mow the giant lawn and clean the interior office. In exchange I was paid a little over $2.00 per hour and given a 15 minute show from 6-6:15 on Sunday morning. I had made Columbus radio……until sign on advanced to 6:30 in September.

My interview at WRFD happened sometime in April or early May and the interview was done with general manager at the time Dick Via and program director at the time Len Anthony. Via’s office was large and at one end of the building. I had never seen such a large office at the time. It had a fireplace and a sofa. Although beginning to show some wear, to a still 17 year old, it was quite impressive.

I don’t remember how I was hired, but I started the first weekend of June and reported to new program director Michael O’Malley as Anthony had left to return to country formatted radio and move to do so in Denver. O’Malley would later gain greater fame as the popular morning host at WNCI and later 92X in Columbus. He along with his wife now are involved in real estate in the Grandview area.

Besides O’Malley and Anthony, many other radio greats passed by the microphones of WRFD. Jeffrey P. Morgan was the morning host when I was there. Jeff was a young radio prodigy at the time. Morgan was christened Jeff Detrow and was raised in Wooster, Ohio where he began working in radio at a very young age. He was hired just out of high school to host the morning program at WRFD. It was a plum assignment. Jeff was gifted with a wonderful baritone voice and a playful personality. He created the humorous Return to Pataskala Place as one of his ongoing radio spoofs. Jeff has had a long and successful radio career and until recently was co-host of one of San Diego’s venerable morning shows.

O’Malley meanwhile handled mid mornings. Early afternoons was hosted by Lancaster native Chris King (real last name Joos) who later left for WVBF in Boston at the invitation of Bill Smith who was written about in this blog earlier. Rounding out line up roster was evening man Howard Hewes. “Handsome Howard” lived the WKRP theme song living town to town and up and down the dial. He had worked for WFLA in Tampa before coming to WRFD and returned to Tampa and WFLA when he left a few years later. Hewes was hip, fun and dangerous.

Rounding out the music host airstaff were weekend hosts Dan Donovan (Green) and Bruce Edwards. Donovan had to be the inspiration for Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP. There couldn’t have been anyone else.

News people were Gregg Campbell who now hosts middays on WVNO in Mansfield, Mary Marshall who left for WBNS radio and now is lost to me as is then evening news anchor Carl Dickens.

I also noted other hosts who graced the microphones. Among those were 1960’s morning man Johnny Martin, mid 70’s morning host Bob James (now Dr. Bob Pondello), Farm Broadcasters Ed Johnson (who we’ll write about later), Bob Zieglar (known as Ziggy’s Piggys on WLW in the 80’s) as well as long time Columbus Radio and Television personality Spook Beckman who too will later be profiled.

I left WRFD in February of 1975 to join WBBY and Wild Bill. I returned after I was dismissed from WTVN in April 1978.

The station had changed quite a bit by that time, having dropped its oldies format for adult standards using the handle The Unrock a them and variation of 7-UP’s popular at the time advertising campaign using the word uncola.

I was hired to host a big band based program on Sunday afternoons that I remained with until 1980. Other notable hosts were Bill Stewart, Damon Sheridan (who also doubled as program directors) Corey Dietz who now hosts a morning program and writes about radio for web page About.com, Pam Fultz (now known on air as Pam Spencer who later worked for WBNS, WCOL, WSNY and later as a traffic reporter for the Columbus Clear Channel Cluster)and of course Columbus mainstays Spook Beckman and John Fraim.

As AM radio fell out of favor and daytime AM stations were hit even harder, WRFD finally succumbed to the market forces and could no longer exist as a non niche formatted radio station. It was sold to religious broadcaster Salem Media who converted the station to a teaching and preaching station. The station had for lack of a better term, an altar call and accepted God's programming as it's financial savior.

Back to Green Meadows. The farm test plots now have been developed into home, shopping, office space and retail/warehouse combos. The radio station broadcast house now is home to another company and a now abandoned bank building was built on the former spacious front lawn. And the hotel and restaurant is now home to Nationwide Insurance's training facility.

New York City. It's Still One Hell of a Town.

2009-10-13T21:09:00.008-04:00

That was the opening line to a parody commercial for the New York Telephone Company done by Rod Serling in the late 60's or early 70's. Most people in radio had a copy of this "gem" or wished they did. Through the internet, that desire is now easily a reality.

Over the weekend, Diana and I hightailed it to the Big Apple, New York City to celebrate our 7th anniversary. And New York City is still one hell of a town.

Like all tourists, we hit the non cultural highlights. China Town. Rode the subway, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, rode the Staten Island Ferry (btw, the best deal in NYC. Nice boat ride through the harbor, great view of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and the lower end of Manhattan), Central Park, the Stores, Ground Zero, and much more.

We walked our tails off and had the time of our life. Below are some of the photo highlights.

Here by the way is a link to the spoof radio spot. Note that there is adult language content in the audio.

Saturday 9-19

2009-09-19T22:56:00.009-04:00

A fall Saturday along the Ohio River, mostly on the West Virginia side. Interesting place to eat?

Always fun to watch the barges make the turn from the Kahawah to the Ohio.

A collection of Ohio County hats at Bob Evans in Rio Grande.

The Ultimate Galivant

2009-09-12T11:20:00.004-04:00

Over Labor Day weekend, we logged over 3400 miles in a quest to explore places we've never been or are on our bucket list.

I've long had a desire to see the origins of the Mississippi River. I also in the past few years have made it a goal to see all 50 states in the US before I'm looking up at the daisies.

We began our journey the Friday afternoon before the weekend. After dinner in Effingham, Illinois we settled in for the night in St. Louis.

While St. Louis is known for the Arch, officially welcoming people to the west, it has much more to see do and learn in and around the city.

Another interesting structure is the Old Courthouse that held the famous Dred Scott trial.

We've decided another trip to St. Louis would be in order to get a better feeling for the city and area.

We continued on with our journey and headed westward through Missiour along I-70. We came upon the Fulton exit and found that Winston Churchill had made his famous speech about the Iron Curtain that was going to seperate Eastern Soviet influenced Europe from Western Europe

St. Louis is also where we first crossed the Mississippi River on our trip.

Unfortunately, this was the only day we experienced rain and we didn't leave the car to explore these and other treats in the city as they should be. Plus we had a huge day in front of us as you'll soon learn.

Why I Do This

2009-08-06T08:08:00.003-04:00

This morning while eating breakfast, I found a back copy of the "Reynoldburg News". I don't live in Reynoldsburg, but I enjoy reading about what's happening in the suburbs that surround my area. I'm also for lack of a better term, a dumpster diver. I found the paper in the recycle bin where I ate.

Now what does eating breakfast, reading a discarded newspaper and this blog have in common? A simple column of commentary.

Columnist Chris Miles wrote about how he began a life long love of baseball. And broadcaster/play by play announcer Ernie Harwell was a huge part of it.

He went on to share that he was able to go to a Harwell speaking engagement and took his young daughter with him. There is nothing neater to me than sharing with your child something that was near and dear to you as a child growing up.

What Chris wrote in that column is exactly what I've tried to capture here as I have written about those who I listened to as a child, teen and adult on the radio. Chris captured the magic of what radio is all about. Communication of the event being covered and connection with the listener. And that's what I've tried to capure as I've written about Irwin Johnson, John Fraim, Dave Logan (who I've yet to write about), Bob Conners, Bill Smith and others were people who I listened to through the years and gave me a life long love of broadcasting.

I really enjoyed Chris's column. And he put into words so much better than I could ever do something that touched his life and then memorializing it in words.

Date Night

2009-07-30T22:05:00.004-04:00

We really need to do this more often.

Diana and I met for a date tonight. We toured the Columbus Museum of Art. And the price was right too. During July and August, the gallery is free to the public.

I saw my first Monet, Matise, Renoir and actual Norman Rockwell works.

In addition, the museum had exhibits by George Tooker and Kojo a local photographer who has had numerous photos published.

These two exhibits were my favorites. Kojo's work featured photos in both color and black and white and focused mostly on Columbus scenes. Many depicted as aspect of African American life in the city. Man of the scenes were of Columbus in days gone by.

Tooker had a collection of several works from the various "periods" of efforts. Tookers work focused on a subliminal aspect of the human condition. The link to The Waiting Room is a good example. Tooker painted using egg yolk thickened slightly with water and then adding powdered pigment, a medium that was quick drying. The quick drying medium was not always easy to work with and the results were usually permanent.

One of the most interesting and shall I say almost real looking was Evan Perry's "Back of Kelly" Kelly looks almost real.

We capped the evening with dinner at the always great Top Steakhouse.

More spots to visit

2009-07-27T14:08:00.002-04:00

As this blog often points out, we love to travel. As a matter of fact, I've got tons of writing to do about our travels to post on the blog. Beside our usual Ohio and neighboring states adventures (last weekend I was standing in three states at one time) a trip to Florida, Michigan, Washington DC and many other places have been visited over the past year.

Over Labor Day weekend we'll be traveling to the origins of the Mississippi River. I first became fascinated with this point some years ago when I read a newspaper article about it. At that time, I had never seen the river. Since that time, I've crossed and viewed the river at St. Louis, Memphis and in Minneapolis.

Another goal of mine is to have visited all 50 states before I die. With Alaska and Hawaii out of the way, that really shouldn't be all that hard to do. And with the way we're routing this trip, I'll knock of Nebraska, Kansas and North Dakota on the origins trip.

I Know Jack

2009-07-05T18:10:00.008-04:00

Anyone who has followed this blog knows of my interest in broadcast radio. When I first got my drivers license, I began to become more active in my interest. By active, I'm speaking of going and meeting local radio people at the stations that broadcast their programs.

One of those I met was John Phillips. John (Jack as he would later become known) was employed by WDLR, a Delaware, Ohio based radio station. But John was located in my home county seat at a remote studio located in Marysville.

Now compared to my dream station of WTVN, WDLR was something of, well shall we say a dump. As my son Brian would note in the late 1980's, it was the junky radio station. But by far, the Delaware main studio was the Taj Mahal compared to the remote Marysville location.

The Marysville studio was located in the former Isaly ice cream shop. Phillips worked there gathering news by calling the local police and fire departments, he read the weather and he would play music on a program called the Marysville Matinee. Every weekday afternoon, Phillips was spending the afternoon with the wives of Marysville according to a want ad placed daily in the local newspaper as the station sought to promote itself and build a listening audience.

The program today would not survive long, as Phillips only had one turntable and fed the Marysville feed back to Delaware where the transmitter was located via a regular telephone line. Literally, Phillips would unscrew the microphone portion of the telephone handset and alligator clip the the feed from the mixer to the phone. It sounded like music being played over a telephone. High fidelity? Old 78 RPM recordings of the Big Bands played over a Victrola often had better fidelity.

I met Phillips sometime in 1972 at the Marysville studio. Prior to the Isaly Shop the station had been located at several addresses. The former Isaly shop location was opened in January, 1971 with Gene Kirby at the helm. That location ended sometime in in late 1972 or early 1973 when Phillips was moved to Delaware to broadcast his show. Other than remotes at the Union County Fair or at an advertiser's location, WDLR no longer would maintain a remote studio in Maryvsille after Phillips was relocated to Delaware.

I began working at the station in May of 1973 and worked with Phillips until he left after the station was sold to another owner. Subsequently, he worked for WNCI, WBBY and WRFD using the name Jack Phillips. The last two stations were jobs that I was able to assist in getting him on the air as they were looking for help and he was available. At WBBY he even became the morning host for a period of time.

He left the business to pursue a career as a respiratory therapist.

Back to our time at WBBY we even shared an apartment. He was working the morning shift at the radio station while I was working evenings while holding a real job at Capital City Products and then spending my evenings at the WBBY studios in Sunbury.

For a period of time he dated Marcie Rogers the program director of the station. That relationship didn't last forever and Jack moved on to another relationship. He subsequently married the new person and moved to Florida. My last contact was a few years ago when he was living in Pennsylvania.

Yes for a period of time, I could indeed say I know Jack.

I'm Roy Harvey------WCOL News

2009-06-05T22:08:00.004-04:00

I think my first experience of really listening to the radio was probably 1966. During that summer I was making the transition from 10 to the grand old age of 11.

It was a golden time.

It was the summer of that year and we had a annual pass to the Plain City swimming pool (known as Pastime Pool). Over the loud speaker system, they played the sounds of the New WCOL 1230 am radio. It was the top 40 station in our neck of the woods and frequently at the top of the ratings heap. Lou Henry, Mike Adams and others kept us entertained with the latest music and recurrents on Golden Weekends.

But it was newman Roy Harvey who informed us with the news. I'm not sure if WCOL had switched to the 20/20 news format by that time. I simply can't remember. But I do remember they still punctuated every story with dateline beeps. Three beeps with every story change. It gave each story the sound of urgency.

Roy Harvey had a Ted Baxter type voice. Deep and baritone. Only unlike Baxter, Harvey's voice had authority. No bumbling Ted Baxter was Roy Harvey.

And of course he closed every newscast with "I'm Roy Harvey...........WCOL news!"

As a footnote and as I was writing this, another memeory resurfaced. During this same time there was young lady from Plain City who was for me a tweens dream. Pretty, outgoing, friendly and just enough tomboy to be cool.

Her name was Connie Converse. Connie lived on all streets, Converse Drive in Plain City.

Afer that summer, I never saw Connie again. I did caddy for her father a few times a few years later and he would say she was doing fine.

I read a few years later that she had died. In 1974 I believe in a car accident. For serveral years after her passing, her father would run an in memorium obit in the newspaper. I remember reading of her fathers passing not so many years later.

Connie was never what you would call a girlfriend. At that age a girl who was a friend was just someone neat. And she was that type of friend. And for that she will forever be memorable.

Like Roy Harvey and those WCOL jocks heard over the loud speaker at the swimming pool, Connie will forever be one of those great memories that will never be forgotten.

Remembering Dr. Bop

2009-06-04T18:54:00.001-04:00

Local blogger/writer had an interesting piece on Dr. Bop a few weeks ago. For some reason, Minerd chose to archive his blog and it's no longer available for public consumption. His blog inspired me to search out Bop's final resting place and rehonor a great radio talent from radios past.

In the mid 50's through the early 60's Columbus was abuzz with the music and dj talents of Hoyt R. Locke, known to his WCOL (and for a short period of time WMNI) listeners as Dr. Bop.

The good Dr. set up shop in Milwaukee after leaving Columbus and remained there until his death. He is buried in Columbus at Greenlawn Cemetary.

The Friendly Giant Was Anchored By A Fraim

2009-06-02T22:02:00.005-04:00

For about a decade, John Fraim was the morning host for WTVN radio in Columbus.

Since Columbus radio was my broadcast reference point, and WTVN was the strongest of signals in my neck of the woods, I cut my teeth on Fraim's morning show. I first became aware of Fraim probably about 1968. My understanding was Fraim came to Columbus in the early 60's, maybe around 1961 from Indiana. His first job was in the news department and prior to becoming a music host he was news director. I believe the change to morning host started around 1965 taking over for Maurice Jackson. (Edited update: Jackson left the morning show in August of 1960 and a number of people filled the slot between Jackson's departure and Fraim's taking over in the morning. As more information is found, it will be posted either here or elsewhere on the blog.) Someone with more information or a better memory may have fimrer information. I also seem to recall at one time, Fraim was involved in racing cars. The type escapes me.

I would often brag on Fraim's popularity in Columbus, but was often told that JP McCarthy of WJR and Wally Phillips on WGN were far better personalities. You can have your favorites; Fraim at the time was mine.

I always enjoyed the Special Reports (short piece usually written by Fraim discussing a news item or other information pieces) and his The Way They Were segements featuring a song by a Big Band artist complete with background information about the piece or the artist. Fraim also bantered with news director Bill Patterson after the 6:30 news segment, usually ending the segment with a joke or pun that segued into a jingle and back to music.

In 1976 I had the honor to be hired by WTVN hosting the overnight weekend shifts. I handled Friday night from midnight until 6 am Saturday morning, Saturday night from midnight to 9 am Sunday morning and Sunday night from midnight until 5:30 Monday morning. I would be the first person to welcome Fraim to the studio on Saturday and Monday mornings. (I've often wondered if he felt welcomed by this young radio rube!)

Fraim had the reputation among the air staff of being difficult. Many of those before and after me in the overnight slots would often find negative ways to portray him. Personally, either I was a fool and never noticed it or because I went out of my way to be decent to him, he returned the favor.

I also worked with him at the time his wife was dying from cancer. On more than one occasion, he would phone from his White Oak farm stating he would be late because his wife had been ill or needed his attention. What a thrill it was to do a half hour or so of his show with his numerous listeners. Yet I knew his heart was aching as he watched his wife lose her life.

In 1978, I was let go by WTVN and migrated to WRFD to host a big band show. A year or so later Fraim too left WTVN over a reported tiff with management over working Saturday mornings. At that time, many major market hosts were beginning to only work 5 day work weeks instead of the previous normal six day load. Fraim too landed at WRFD as morning host and general manager. While I was only a weekend staffer, Fraim would pop into the station to catch up on paperwork. He would stop by the studio, express some pleasantries and then be off to his work.

Fraim's tenure at WRFD wasn't long as he left to join WCOL as morning host, broadcasting from the former observation deck of the Lincoln Leveque tower that had been converted into an apartment for him. After a few years, he joined WBBY as news director and even later owned a radio station between Logan and Athens, Ohio.

The last I heard of Fraim was that he was living in the rural Laurelville area and doing some free lance writing.

During his many years at WTVN, he was our morning friend.

More Than a Name on a Wall

2009-05-30T07:21:00.005-04:00

This past Memorial Day weekend, we visited Virginia. One of the side trips was an afternoon spent in Washington DC. We went to Arlington Cemetery and journeyed across the Potomac to see the White House and the eastern third of the Mall.

Washington DC is a history buffs dream come true. It contains in one setting probably the largest collections of tributes and memorials to our country's heritage and history.

From the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, from the Jefferson to the White House to Capital Hill, it's all there and more.

One of the more touching places on the mall is the Vietnam Memorial. The memorial is essentially a wall containing the names of United States men and women who gave their lives during the time the United States was engaged in Vietnam. The wall contains the names of 58,261 men and women.

The US engagement in Vietnam became at the time one of the more divisive events in our history and certainly in my lifetime. When the Memorial was first proposed and building began, there was a lot of chin music as to why it was necessary, cost and such.

Since it's completion, the memorial has been one of the healing places where people come to remember or for closure.

Bake Sales

2009-05-22T05:08:00.005-04:00

It was 16 years ago today that probably the world's largest bake sale took place. Possibly 50 or more thousand people descended to Fort Collins,
Colorado for Dan's Bake sale to see Rush Limbaugh and help Dan get enough money to buy a subscription to Rush's Limbaugh letter.

I wonder if listeners would respond to Rush's call in the same numbers today?

And what ever happened to Dan Kay of Dan's Bake Sale Fame?

Dave Ramsey's Town Hall for Hope Can Now be Viewed Here

2009-05-16T11:33:00.002-04:00

Dave Ramsey's Town Hall for Hope. Check it out.

Dave Ramsey - Town Hall for Hope 2009 from Central FPU on Vimeo.

Old Man's Cave Winter

2009-05-11T17:16:00.002-04:00

Just below this article, I wrote about a recent trip to Old Man's Cave in the Hocking Hills. I commented on the beauty that we experienced and the enjoyment of the trip.

A year ago last winter (January to be specific), we took a similar trip right after a spell of very cold temperatures.

The area was again beautiful, but just in a different way. It's too bad I couldn't replicate the exact places the pictures were taken to allow for comparison.

Anyhow, enjoy the views.

Old Man's Cave

2009-05-09T00:16:00.008-04:00

Sunday, Diana and I took some time and went to the Hocking Hills. For those who have never heard of the area, it is one of the prettiest areas in Ohio for natural wonders.

Although often overlooked as a destination place for scenic areas, Ohio has many areas of great beauty. Sure, in general we don't compete with the Grand Canyon area, the canyons of Utah, the mountains of New England or the coastal cliffs along the Pacific shoreline, but we do have some areas that are still breathtaking.

We've been to old mans cave a number of times, yet we both agreeded we've never found it to be so peaceful and beautiful as we did this trip.

The rest of this post is a collection of snap shots that show portions of our tour from the upper to the lower falls. I only wish I could capture in the camera what I actually see in person. If you only get a fraction of the beauty and peace we enjoyed this past Sunday, you'll understand how we felt standing in the valley of the canyon. Enjoy.

My Weekend--Flint Ridge and Black Hand Gorge

2009-05-08T23:31:00.007-04:00

Here it is, a new weekend already and I've not chronicled my last weekend.

Late Saturday I ventured over to Flint Ridge and Black Hand Gorge.

What you're seeing is an outcropping of flint. The flint that was used by native Indians to make weapons, arrowheads and strikers. In later years, the flint was quarried at this site, although now it is a state park.

As you can see by the path, the flint is everywhere here. Look closely at the path between the two outcroppings. As I said all over the place.

A bit further up the road is Black Hand Gorge. Nestled along the north branch of the Licking River, this wall is supposed to have a black hand like appearance. As I do with fine art, I simply don't see it. Maybe you do.

I did find the trail cut through the rock to be pretty and interesting. It appears there must have been a railroad that once went through this area and they carved a path through the rock.

Missed It By That Much

2009-04-21T08:42:00.004-04:00

In the 1960's there was a popular television program called "Get Smart". Actor Don Adams portrayed a bumbling government spy known as Control Agent Maxwell Smart Agent 86. Max had a line for when something he did didn't make the mark. "Missed it by that much."

It appears we missed it by that much a few years ago.

While vacationing in Colorado, we decided to head off to the only place in the United States where the boundaries of four states come together. The Four Corners. We snapped pictures of us placing a foot on the exact mark that allowed us to be standing in 4 states at one time. A marvelous feat, if you'll pardon the pun.

I blogged about the visit HERE.

Imagine my surprise when I'm reading the paper this morning and find out that I really never have stepped foot in 4 states at once. Turns out that the survey is off and the actual site is some 2.5 miles east of the point where we stood.

As you can tell, this blog is named after that survey point. Hopefully we are accurate in our information that is presented here.

Nancy's Announces Closing

2009-04-11T09:36:00.016-04:00

Losing old friends is never easy. Yet when I was scanning the Dispatch this morning (Saturday) I learned one of my favorite places to eat has announced that closing was on the menu.

Nancy's is a one of the great institutions in Columbus. And it soon will be a lost but remembered institution. Located along North High Street in Clintonville, it was best described as a small stool type establishment. And yes, in reality it was at it's heart a classic greasy spoon or hole in the wall. But like most places like Nancy's the place had its own unique character that even 5 star places cannot duplicate. That character was probably best described as heart.

I first became aware of the place in the late 80's or early 90's. At the time, every morning on WTVN radio, morning host Bob Conners would do a shout out to people and places. Nancy's was one of his shout outs. And because of that daily shout out, I had to give it a try. (Sadly, Bob no longer does that anymore. It was a neat feature on his show!)

Famous for their breakfasts, my usual stop was for lunch. Everyday there was a daily feature or two. And that's it. Take it or leave it. A simple menu of couple of items. Yet the price was right, the plate was full and the food was good. Here's a photo of my favorite. Chicken and Noodles. And always $5.00 or less to eat.

One day I took a friend from work for lunch. We sat at the counter and was finally waited on. The friend asked what was on the menu for the day. The reply was meatloaf. The friend asked if there was anything else. The reply was "yes, meatloaf". Either you liked meatloaf that day or you went somewhere else. But at Nancy's it didn't matter. The place was normally packed with people along the wall waiting for a stool to open.

Nancy's was a community place. Young and old. Rich and poor. All were welcomed. All sat together. All quickly became frineds as the meal was consumed.

It was not unusual to be told to check yourself out if the staff was busy. Literally you would go to the cash register, pay your tab and make your own change. No one would flinch seeing someone doing that. That simply doesn't happen anywhere else. Honestly, the first time I went there and saw that happen, I simply couldn't believe that business could be done that way. The cash register was full and yet people were honestly paying their bills and making their own change.

I went for lunch one day on a particularly bad winter day a few years ago. Owner Cindy King insisted that since I was such a loyal customer she couldn't charge me for lunch that day because I had braved the elements to eat with her. I was given a hug and told thanks for my patronage. While I ate there maybe once or twice a month at the time, there were certainly daily customers who deserved the royal treatment I got that day.

Ms. King is said to be closing the place due to ill health, mounting health bills and an economy that has began to catch up with her and effectively doing business.

Yet, thankfully as of this writing, there are about 2 months of time left to get a final meal or two.

The Dispatch article is here

Edited to add: Diana and I went tonight to enjoy Chicken and Noodles. Unfortunately, a flat tire tried to get in our way. We arrived just in time to get the last two meals they had......but unfortunately, not chicken and noooles but a delicious pot roast. It was truly a treat.

Now isn't it sad when a great pot roast just doesn't hit the spot when your heart is set on Nancy's chicken and noodles. Thursday is once again Chicken and Noodles day and we'll be there!

Top of the World

2009-03-23T21:33:00.002-04:00

In Bellefontaine, Ohio you'll find a couple of Ohio treasures. The first concrete street in the US as well as what has been described as the shortest street in the US.

The latest treasure explored was Campbell Hill, the highest point in the Buckeye State. At 1549 feet above sea level, a small marker and a historical sign are what marks the top of the world in Ohio.

No, it's not like a beautiful snow capped mountain peak or as famous as Pikes Peak or the peaks in the state of Washington or Alaska. But it's the closest peak to me.

Campbell Hill is on the campus of the aptly named Hi-Point Career Center.

Scioto Endings

2009-03-23T20:41:00.013-04:00

Last November a road trip took us to Auglaize County in western central Ohio to the origins of the Scioto River.

Saturday, our road trip took us to Portsmouth where the river empties and ends in the Ohio River.

The Scioto enters from the right center of the picture and joins the Ohio to flow under the bridge toward Cincinnati and finally to the Mississippi River.

It was a pretty early spring day (the second day of spring). We arrived in the early evening. The rush of the winter thaw had long since passed and both the Ohio and the Scioto were gently flowing. No swift currents were noted.

The new bridge that carries Route 23 across the Ohio into northern Kentucky is a beautiful marvel. Sort of reminds me of the bridge in Boston that crosses the Charles River and is used as a backdrop when politicians from that area are interviewed on the national cable infotainment shows.

We were also treated to a empty coal barge returning from one of the down river electric generation plants or possibly the coal dock in Cincinnati. It was swiftly moving up river possibly to be filled once again with coal from the Eastern Kentucky or Western West Virgina coal fields.

Olentangy Origins

2009-03-23T20:21:00.007-04:00

The Olentangy River flows into Columbus from the north. It is fed from it's origin in Morrow County near the Richland County line and flows into Crawford County, the city of Galion, then back into Morrow County, Delaware County and finally Franklin County and Columbus where it empties into the Scioto River near downtown Columbus at Confluence Park.

Sunday we traced the river to what we believe is it's origin. Near the village of Blooming Grove, it appears the river begins as a combination of run off and possibly a spring in a farm field near Blooming Grove Road near Route 97. We believe the pool of water in the left of the photo is a spring, while the sunken area in the center of the photo is the beginning of the field run off.It crosses under Blooming Grove road and from there, it meanders in a mostly northern and western direction through farm fields and finally crosses under Route 97 as it heads toward Galion.

Finding the origins of rivers, since they are prominent landmarks in Columbus, is interesting in a different way. Earlier last fall, we found the marked origins of the Scioto River. We hope to one day to take the trip to Minnesota and find the origins of the Mississippi.

Job Searching

2009-02-26T09:15:00.005-05:00

Over three thousand people turned out at the Columbus Zoo the other day for a job fair. Looking at a picture, there was one thing that stood out. I can't find one example where someone while networking seems to be exchanging personal information. A card, a piece of paper, a handshake....anything.

In the world we live in today, networking is the key to finding opportunity.

Many in that line probably drilled a dry hole with companies they interviewed with.

But how many people in that line might get hired in the future and remembered talking to a really neat person who could fill a role in a company but they have no idea that person was or how to contact them.

Or what if someone in the that line comes up with their own business idea and needs the talent of the person they just spent two hours in line with and have no idea who they are.

Always, always, always exchange information and stay in touch. That chance meeting could turn out to be the opportunity of a lifetime.