One
of my friends, Bobby Dee, hosts a weekend radio show called “Bobby Dee’s Rock
‘n Roll Caravan,” which airs on WNHN and features songs mostly from the 1950s
and ‘60s. He often asks me if I’d like to be a guest on the show sometime.
So
far, I haven’t given him a definite answer, even though I must confess I really
do enjoy being on the air. In fact, I once had, many years ago, a regular stint
on WJJY Radio in Concord, NH, where I interpreted people’s dreams live on the
air.
One
day, after I’d finished my usual hour of dream interpreting on WJYY, Suzanne
Foxx, half of the morning team on the Kevin Hilley Morning Wake-Up Show at the
station, announced she was going to be taking a week-long vacation. Kevin, saying he already felt lost without
an on-air partner, asked me if I’d like to fill in for her.
It
sounded like a fun idea, but a couple things made me hesitate. For one thing, filling in for Suzanne meant
I’d have to be at the station around 6 a.m., which also meant I’d have to crawl
out of bed at about 4:30 a.m. – the time I usually went to bed. Secondly, I knew that trying to fill the
shoes of a talented person like Suzanne would be a real challenge for anyone,
especially for someone old enough to be her mother. But the worst part was that I, from the generation of the
Beatles, Elvis and Herman’s Hermits, would be co-hosting a radio show that
played songs by such bands as the Goo Goo Dolls, Matchbox 20 and Smash
Mouth. I was pretty sure I’d have no
idea what I was doing.
So
of course I accepted the invitation.
I’ll
admit I was slightly apprehensive. “How can I possibly talk for three whole
hours on the radio every day for a whole week?” I said to one of my friends.
She
actually laughed. “You? The original
motor mouth? Believe me, you’ll have no
trouble at all!”
I
didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted.
I
arrived half-asleep at the radio station on that first morning. Kevin was so full of energy, however, just
watching him made me wake up.
The
first thing he said to me was, “Hey, let’s call that ‘Who Wants to be a
Millionaire?’ TV quiz show and see if we can qualify to be contestants! Imagine
winning a million dollars? We can take the test live, right on the air!”
The words “a million dollars,” made me temporarily forget
I could end up making a complete fool of myself.
So
I agreed.
Kevin
dialed the phone number. A recorded
message explained we’d have only 10 seconds to answer each question by punching
numbers into the phone. Our first
question was, “Put these dress sizes in order, smallest to largest: S, XL, XS, and XX.” Kevin rapidly pushed the phone’s buttons and
was correct! We did well on the next
questions and honestly thought we were going to ace the quiz…that is, until we
came to, “Put the following styles of art in order, starting with the oldest:
Rococo, Baroque, Cubism, and Renaissance.”
Kevin
and I just stared blankly at each other.
“I thought Rococo was something you drink at bedtime,” he joked.
“And
Baroque is what my wallet is right before payday,” I added.
“And
isn’t Cubism something you learn in geometry class?” Kevin continued.
Needless
to say, we failed the qualifying test.
No sooner did we hang up, did the studio phone ring. A young girl’s voice proudly announced, “I’m
only a freshman in high school and I knew the answer to that art question!”
Nobody
likes a show-off.
Unfortunately,
on that particular day, Laura, the station’s newscaster, was showing two
communications students from Pinkerton Academy the fine art of radio
broadcasting. As the two teenagers stood wide-eyed in the studio and watched
Kevin playing with a talking Austin Powers doll, poor Laura launched
into her newscast. With every headline
she read, Kevin would comically act it out with the doll, as if he were playing
charades. The teen girls tried to
stifle their giggles, while Laura miraculously remained completely
composed. I really had to admire a
woman like that.
The
second day, Kevin told me, “You might not get rich being in broadcasting, but
one thing you’ll never lack is food, coffee…or T-shirts with logos on
them.” No sooner did he utter the words
did a man from the bakery next door come walking in and hand a boxed apple
strudel to me and an entire pound-cake to Kevin. And a few minutes after that, coffee arrived, compliments of an
employee from a nearby convenience store.
I was thinking I really could get used to that sort of treatment.
If
I thought Kevin had a zany sense of humor, Rob, the station’s meteorologist,
turned out to be just as zany. Knowing
this, Kevin always had a humorous news item or topic ready to feed to Rob to
get him rolling.
One
news item – and I swear this was an actual press release – stated that someone
had just invented air-bag underpants for the elderly. According to the press release, the pants contained a sensor that
could tell when a person was falling, making the pants instantly inflate,
preventing hip fractures. Rob and Kevin had a field day with that one.
“Can
you imagine what those pants would sound like when they deflate?” Rob joked, making
loud, gaseous noises into the microphone.
“Or
imagine if the pants inflated while they were swimming?” Kevin added.
“Yeah!”
Rob cut in, laughing. “The poor old people would go bottoms up, just like
ducks, with their feet sticking up in the air!”
I
spent most of my time laughing on the air.
I must have sounded like some kind of giddy kid.
Another
thing I learned about being on the radio was that if you ask a question or make
a comment, the phones will ring. For
example, Kevin often played a song called “Scar Tissue” (such a romantic title)
by a band called the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
To me, the chorus sounded as if they were singing, “with the frozen shed,
there’s a lonely view.”
I
finally asked Kevin on the air, “Why are they singing about a frozen shed with
a lonely view? Did they write the song
while sitting in an outhouse or something?”
Even
though 90 percent of the show’s listeners were way too young to even know what
an outhouse was, the phones lit up. “The band is singing, ‘with the birds I’ll
share this lonely view,’” I was informed more than once.
Goes
to show you how great my hearing was, even back then.
I
actually was sorry to see my stint on the radio come to an end, even though it
meant I could sleep until noon again.
Still,
who knows, maybe I’ll seriously consider being on my friend Bobby Dee’s show
sometime. For one thing, it airs at night.
And
I definitely could use some free apple strudel.
# #
#
Sally Breslin is an
award-winning humor columnist and the author of “There’s a Tick in my
Underwear!” “Heed the Predictor” and “The Common-Sense Approach to Dream
Interpretation." Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
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