Rick Minerd - Life Is A Jukebox

4:09:29 PM EDT
Hearing Paul Revere And The Raiders

              Mark Lindsay

Thanks to the technology of the internet it isn't difficult to find good radio, something not often readily available on local broadcast channels or even XM or Cirius satellite feeds.

A station in Portland, Oregon offer's an oldies show hosted by Mark Lindsay, one of my kidhood rock idols, and for a former rock and roll band front man he's pretty good.

The trend of "old" rockers getting into radio and hosting their own shows isn't new, but some of them are just riding  on their former worldwide popular name plates,  that is, they were better recorders and stage performers than they are DJ's.

But Mark sounds like he's been in this game for some time.

Of course I might be a little prejudice on this matter,  but as a guy who has listened to and studied broadcasters since emerging from my mother's womb I feel somewhat qualified to critique.

KHIT(S)  106.7 FM  is what an oldies radio station should be, and worth logging on.

Unlike some of the failed attempts locally,  these guy's have put together something that reminds me of the old WCOL 1230 AM.

Polished, creative and devoid of constant repetition of goofy songs like Hang On Sloopy and Unchained Melody,  two tunes that pierce through my ears like syringes full of rubbing alcohol when I hear them.

Maybe if I were a Buckeye football fan I could appreciate the former but to a Michigan fan like me it is ear splitting.

Back to the former  Raider lead singer, I was fortunate to meet Mark back in 1985 when he breezed through town for a concert featuring him, Tommy James, The Four Tops, Spirit and The Association.

The show was held at Veterans Memorial Auditorium and was a benefit that sent it's proceeds to the restoration of the Statue Of Liberty, or as Mark said, "all for the lady."

The first time we met was at a former Columbus restaurant called "Rocky's" where I was invited to sit, share dinner and interview him for my radio show on WCOL.

We later shared some thoughts at a press conference prior to the show.

Meeting the guy was special for me because I had been a fan of Paul Revere And The Raiders since first hearing them on a radio in 1964 while lying in a hospital bed following a tonsillectomy.

It's funny how we remember things like that, where we were and what we were doing when we first heard a song.

Shortly after that my closest friend at the time, a kid named Delmas Jeffries and I bought tickets and attended a Raiders' concert at Vets.  $4.00 per.

Next to me Delmas was the biggest Raiders fan I've ever known.

Delmas, what a cool name, I hope he is well somewhere out there.

Still a fan  I will  kick  back and listen to KHIT(S) from time to time and remember not only the music but an era that was a little more fun than this one.

And for the record Paul Revere And The Raiders are still out there performing,  as they have for nearly fifty years.

But Mark,  Drake Levin, Mike Smith and Phil Volk the original band guy's behind Paul Revere have long been gone,  and although the Raider's are still very good they were better when the weekend guy at KHIT(S)  suited up with them in his Revolutionary War soldier's uniform and three cornered hat.

His radio show is a "Good Thing." 

 Imjustrick@aol.com

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2:13:35 PM EDT
Hearing The Winstons

               Mike Adams now.

In the early 1990's I told Mike Adams that he was my radio idol,  I wasn't kidding him.

It was near the end of my radio career at WCOL-FM,  then known as "Oldies 92.3" - and  when I said it I meant it. 

I reminded him of it in 2003 when he and several other former WCOL staffer's came back to Columbus for a station reunion.

Both times I think I made him blush.

All of the WCOL rock jocks from the 1950's through the middle and late 1970's were great talent's, and I wouldn't dare lessen the importance of any of them, or the influence they all had on me by saying that Mike was someone I did crane my neck to look up to, but the fact is I wanted to be like Mike.

In the sense that I share his obvious love of radio I am a little.

Better looking of course, but I will never be able to light a candle,  much less hold one to him when comparing his radio successes to my own, and I actually did pretty well.

I was checking out the "Unofficial 1230 WCOL Fun Page" today and decided to click on the link that takes you straight to Mike's web site,  something I do often, and I clicked on his new feature,  "The Life Of Mike" and a very clever video explained in vivid detail the many reasons he is worthy of being idolized as a radio God.

I strongly recommend to anyone who enjoy's   reading  or hearing about the birth and progression of radio , or anyone who is interested in history and the roles some of the people I have written about played in the broadcast pages of it to check this out.

Radio God?

Yes, according to what you take away from the video.

I'm hoping some of Mike's students at San Jose State University catch this blog entry and address him accordingly.

How much fun it must have been  through the years for those kids to have learned under the tutelage of Professor Adams.

I learned from him beginning when I was  just a toddler scooting around on my Big-Wheel with a transistor radio taped to the handle-bars.

Okay that's a stretch,  he really isn't that much older than me, but I did grow up hearing and admiring his work on "The New WCOL" from about 1963 until I was old enough to be trusted alone in a radio station control room by myself.

And by then Mike was making travel plans to head for the left coast.

To me he is still an iconic chapter from the Columbus broadcast history volumes.

Watching the video, "The Life Of Mike"  has taught even me much about his accomplishment's and fascinating experiences, and I thought I knew him well.

If not personally and socially,  as a  "kid" who grew up hearing him on the radio, buying his records, watching him on television, studying his dancing exhibitions and simply marveling at his unlimited talents.

Radio God.

The father of my own aspirations.

In the photo above Mike looks as relaxed as I strive to remain.

A pose well deserved.

I congratulate him for all he has done,  and I thank him for being the yard stick I hoped to grow as tall as.

Check out   mikeadams.org

Imjustrick@aol.com

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11:29:47 AM EDT
Hearing Mark Lindsay

The web site,  Minerd.com  has an interesting factoid this month announcing a new historical marker for the Buckeye State honoring a family connection in the town of Tontogany, in Wood County, Ohio that will be dedicated in a few weeks.

The family connection is the Custer Brothers, yes those Custers' who were without a shred of mercy cut to ribbons when General George bit off more than he could chew at the Little Big Horn.

Okay they asked for it, but brother Thomas Custer was kin, making the general also a distant  "cuz" by some strange "removed" consequence and therefore many Minerd tears have been shed through the years because of a battle plan gone awry.

Had it not been for a few military miscues  who know's how far those branches would have reached.

Some of those early Minerd girl's found their way into historic circumstances, if not shamefully decantant ones.

That is, "for the times."

*Visit Minerd.com and look for the book detailing Rebecca's connection to the Custer boy's.

It's called, "Tontongany's Deep Secret."

Mark Miner of Pittsburgh, Pa. is the engine that powers Minerd.com and through his many years of documenting the family legacy the web site is a complete history book in and of itself.

I met Mark a few years ago when he traveled to Columbus in search of information about my side of the clan living just a few clicks East of the banks of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio Rivers.

Together we traveled to the  hill's of Athens County,  near the  Wood County line to dig up some old photo's of "my" Minerd's and to speak to the few old one's still living there who at one time or another  helped care for me and my older sibs. 

Minerd's who can also trace their roots back to the Keystone State.

Aside from family I have other  "ties" to the Pittsburgh area, more on that later...

It might be worth the trip to Custer's home in Tontogany, Ohio on August 10th.

Take in the annual festival and witness the dedication of the bronze.

And of course an opportunity to see again, and hear a speech that will be delivered by the keeper of the family pages, and accomplished author, my "cousin" Mark.

By the way, that connection I mentioned that I feel for  the Steel City is born from  my undying loyalty to the worst team in major league baseball for the past decade and a half.

A die hard Pirate fan who still  "believes."

Fellow Bucko fans' know where that statement originated, and so do Baltimore Oriole fans' who's memory of it isn't as celebrated.

Imjustrick@aol.com

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1:05:45 PM EDT
Hearing The Rolling Stones

As calendars go, there are only 31 day's in this month, but for me this is July 50th.

Maybe it's a coincidence that I would rather have a 1958 Chevrolet than a 1957 Chevy, even though it seems the rest of  the car guy world covet's the earlier model.

I'm not a Chevy guy,  I never have been and never will be, but I do think the '58 is one of the best looking vehicles ever built by the French.

As a matter of fact as the 1950's go, 1958 might be the best model year of all car makers for my own personal taste.

The 1958 Ford Thunderbird still get's me horny every time I see one and the '58 Fairlane with a retractable roof is as breath taking as any great American iron.

Even the Chrysler products were at their styling zenith that year, as were all of the other General Motors products.

1958 Buicks, Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs and Caddies are still high on the list of any car guy who appreciates our automotive past.

These cars from this model year always' seem to swallowup all of the trophy's and plaques at car shows in this vicinity if not also everywhere else they show up.

The music 50 years ago was also rather special.

Doo Wap was nearing the end  of  it's run as mainstream pop and the amazing 1960's were within ear-shot.

The economy in this country will never again be as comfortable as it was fifty years ago and I will never again be in a comfort zone like I enjoyed in 1958.

I was six years old.

Ahead of my time I'm sure, but still just a raggedy kid set to leave the ghetto's of the Lincoln Park Projects to move to, and make my mark on the brick street's of German Village.

50 years ago this month my Dad finally married my mother and he took his "new" family from the litter strewn alley-way's of one of Columbus' poorest neighborhoods to settle near the shaded forest that grew within Shiller Park.

Shiller became our new backyard.

Shared of course with hundreds of other baby boomers growing up on the Southside during that era.

The half dozen July's before 1958 are vague memories at best for me so I don't count them.

That makes me 50 years old this year.

Therefore I will have to start watching the Columbus South High School Alumni web  site for class of 1976 reunions and fire off an e-mail to them to take my name off the list of the class of  '70.

That wasn't me in that yearbook.

I'm 50 now.

Which means of course  that I fathered Rick Minerd Jr.,  now a Franklin County Sheriff's Sergeant when I was 13 years old.

Like I said, I was ahead of my time.

Fifty years ago this month I think I knew that I would remain a lifelong Southsider, I think I knew this because I've always' thought of myself as a visionary.

My ego has remained in tact if not every other facet of my being and personality.

And why the Hell not?

I've had some pretty good decades, probably more good ones than not-so-good ones and aside from a short detour away from this area I have managed to stay put and watch the changes that have unfolded around me.

Like the change of the seasons every few month's each one returns the following year like my 50 July's.

Aside from the people around me this is still the Southern edge of downtown Columbus, the streets are still paved with bricks and two of the three schools I attended are still standing.

Some of the names on some of the buildings have changed but most of them have survived.

Including the house I grew up in.  Still occupied by people who share my parents DNA.

There is still a Ford in the garage there and a few parked in front of the house, and a pretty good dog still barks at the neighbors and passerby's just as one has for the past half century.

I still sit on the porch that in 1958  I wasn't allowed off of after dusk.

Nescafe Coffee  (the family brew)  is still poured into  heavy ceramic cups and on  some Sunday morning's  as  Kris Kristofferson penned,  I  can  find myself still looking for my cleanest dirty shirt in the same room I looked for it in 1958.

This July marks not only my late parents 50th anniversary and fifty years that the family has stayed "home",  but it also represents something of a personal victory for me.

I really did vow to stay put and resist what has been a mass exodus from the area by nearly everyone I knew when I first got here.

Through the years the people who came into my life as friends and  who have since became just people I know have challenged my resilience and staying put power by criticizing what they thought of as just an area to launch from.

Not one worth hanging onto.

And for a few month's earlier in this year I started agreeing with that ideology and packed everything up and moved "out west" to the more serene confines of the country.

But somehow I managed to hang on to my roots and surrender to the realization that within walking distance of the Shiller Park shade trees is where I belonged, and where I should observe my 50th birthday since being brought to the neighborhood in a  Black and White 1956 Ford Customline pulling a Blue and White Gilbert trailer full of broken furniture.

A few sticks of those early furnishings  still remain within these walls, as do a few original parts  from that old Ford still living in the garage.

Time worn heirlooms from the late 1950's.

Every time I encounter an old friend or neighbor that has moved on I enjoy the look of surprise in their eyebrows as I explain the reasons I have stayed.

Only one other person still lives on my block who was a witness to any misbehavior I may have demonstrated in 1958.

And even though I didn't care for many of the old Germans and Italians that populated this area fifty years ago I think I miss them.

The old Italian broad who lived next door who stole my Mother's potted plants from the back porch the night we moved here, her mean husband who threatened to throw me into his well the next time my ball went into his yard, the old German pedophile across the street who offered me cookies if I would rub baby powder on his naked ass when I was nine years old and all of the other people who were as old as I am now who  cringed  with despair when a new family with three kids moved onto the block.

They're all dead and although I longed to see them that way when I was a kid I do think I miss them.

I do know that I miss 1958 and that whole era and the good people who were also here.

I still am, and in my way of thinking I see that as a personal win.

In a few day's what's left of the family that settled here with me fifty years ago will return to observe this milestone, and in the spirit of what is known as "pot-luck" they will do so with their favorite food dishes made from recipes learned from our Mother.

The house will again fill with the familiar aromas of chicken and dumplings, potato pancakes  and cigarette smoke.

For a day it will be like pushing the rewind button to return to something better.

A chance for me and my brother to find something to disagree on, perhaps slug each other like we did when we were young.

An opportunity for me to aggravate my sisters in anyway that might give our parents a reason to prove the theory of some that those we care about never really leave us.

How cool would that be?  To hear my Dad yell at my brother and me and tell us to take it outside, or to hear my Mother bribe me to leave my sisters alone?

I'll park my  collection of 1958 die cast cars on a coffee table  and dust off my Ricky Nelson records to make them feel at home.

I'll take my brother up to the bedroom we shared as kid's and remind him that it's now my room, and that tommorow when he wakes up in his he will  do so with an old woman  (his wife)  in some "strange" place, and that I,  the family snot as he used to call  me will be the only one in the family who will wake up in the friendlier confines of home.

Five decades ago I would have been beaten up for talking to him like that.

These fifty years later... although he won't verbalize it,  I know that he will agree with me.

Imjustrick@aol.com

                                 "Eye Candy"

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11:01:55 AM EDT
Hearing Three Dog Night

I received this photo in the mail from the daughter of former Central Ohio radio and television personality Bill Palmer, shown here interviewing another early TV pioneer, Virgina Graham.

Late last year I had a few e-conversations with Bill's Daughter Pam and she told me of her memories of growing up with a famous father, being able to hear him on the radio,  or see him  on television and knowing that while others around her saw him as someone special for his notoriety, she only thought of him as dad.

Even though she knew that he was someone special.

My understanding of Bill Palmer's life comes easy, having had the opportunity to have met some of his well known colleagues from the late 1950's and early 1960's who were familiar voices and faces around the Columbus media zone.

Television Guy's like, Bob Marvin (Flippo),  Spook Beckman, Jerry Razor, Earl Grene, Chuck Nuzum, Gene Fullen and countless radio personalities here.

Growing up in Columbus, as I'm sure was the case everywhere else during the era of early television programming I remember these people as being special.

Even a guy like car salesman Lex Mayer who became more famous hosting a weekly wrestling show than for selling new Bel-Air's, or used F-O-R-D's.  (He often portended to detest the FoMoCo.)

The guy refused to say the word Ford when trying to describe one for sale.

Those fortunate few who had job's sitting in front of television camera's entertaining housewives and kids during the morning and afternoon programming blocks were  bigger than life for all of us who didn't know the difference between the local celebrities and the big network guns.

Most of us didn't know,  nor would many of us have cared about the difference in their salaries from people such as Jack Paar or Arthur Godfrey.

They were stars and if we found ourselves lucky enough to be in their company, obtaining an autograph was as monumental as getting something signed by the internationally known celebs.

But to Pam,  Bill Palmer was just  "Dad."

No more special to her than my own Dad who was famous only at home, or within the brick boundaries of the Swifts Premium Packing Company was to me.

50 years after Bill's run through  local radio and television studios many of his fans and admirers are gone, and the rest of us  can only scrounge for old black and white photo's or Google his name and those of his colleagues and hope to find stories on the web about them to recharge our memories.

Like the photo above.

For me looking at it is like looking at the small black and white television screen that I stared at as a kid.

Especially seeing the simple set of the vintage studio from where Bill hosted his morning TV show, and the now archaic looking television camera zooming in on him and Ms. Graham. 

I still prefer the colorless visuals  of not only  TV,  but of movies and photographs that are the examples of what  I remember as quality over quantity and substance of character in the content of programming and entertainment.

Something as simple as this picture is more interesting to me than would be the most vivid,  lifelike color shot of someone like Jay Leno interviewing someone like Katie Couric.

Early radio and television photographs are now historic documentation not unlike  other historical photo's from earlier centuries.

As odd as that might sound consider the fact that there was no such thing as old photo's of the industry when my generation was seeing this stuff during the years of it's early existence.

These early "pioneers" probably didn't know they were pioneers, nor could they have imagined how much less impressive their work would seem to the generations  that would watch and listen to those who would follow in their footsteps.

Most of them couldn't read or learn from any history about broadcasting because there wasn't any, some of these people drew up the blue prints for what today's broadcasters are mandated to perform by.

As good at their craft as people like Jym Ganahl or Cabot Rea are, they probably won't be as fondly remembered fifty years after they sign off as those who first signed on doing virtually the same type of work.

The attarctive females who now grace the digital,  high definition color screens of today's local television programming won't be as warmly remembered as the plain Janes like Sally Flowers and the others who came before them.

Future blogs about what made this generations of "stars" special might be more difficult to find then this one.

Even the presiders over mega automotive dealerships like  Fred Ricart or the Germain brothers, with their millions of dollars spent on colorful and glitzy advertising won't have a spot in broadcast history like the crusty and often cynical personality of Lex Mayer.

I'd take one old black and white photo of Lex over the entire library of choreographed and rehearsed film showing those now hawking cars on the airwaves.

And I'm a Ford man.

Imjustrick@aol.com

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11:50:28 AM EDT
Hearing Pilot

  

At last week's 50th anniversary of the North American Broadcasting Company's venture into Columbus radio I spent a little time hanging out with an old friend who has been with the company for more than two decades.

Greg Mobius and I only worked together for a few short month's back in the late 1980's,  when I returned to NABCO as a part-time DJ.

Having completed several month's of training at the Franklin County Sheriff's Academy and with my boots solidly planted as a Deputy Sheriff I was offered an opportunity to  "come home" for a few hours of fun and frolic each week on what was then known as WMGG-Magic-99.

Greg was one of those personalities that seemed so immersed in radio life that nothing could upset him.  He was always' in a good mood.

Always' smiling and enthusiastic about his work.

After twenty one years he still is.

Now the company's director of promotions, and I would guess all things public affairs related, Greg has become one of those NABCO fixtures that reminds me of the pink rabbit who pounds the drums and  keeps on going.

Like Nick Reed the company money tracker who has been there since the mid 1960's.

When people  familiar with the often revolving door that radio is  meet these guy's  for the first time and hear of their tenure  with the same station they might wonder how it's possible.

Greg and Nick are not rare specimens within the NABCO family.

There's something about that place that makes people want to stay,  and if they can survive the other trials of ratings,  programming changes and personality conflicts that infect all work places from time to time, many do.

Then there are those who see greener hues on the lawns on the other side of the fences.

Guy's like me.

Not that I am, or ever was a wander luster, I was more of the impulsive dare taker that even if I was completely happy in my environment I needed challenged, my cup needed to runneth over or I simply wanted to experience new people,  places and surroundings.

Going from radio studios to police cruiser's was the most glowing example of that.

But as I continue data basing my experiences in Columbus radio I continually bump into, or hear from people who made my own transitions from station to station all worth it in these years since.

A few day's ago I received a crypto quote like e-mail from yet another interesting talker from my past.

I would have expected nothing less from former WNCI radio man Mike Raub who  is still in the game in New York.

Mike sent me a note and without telling me who he was I instantly knew.

Although he and I never  worked at WNCI at the same time we did know each other in our bearded, long haired youth.

And in 1976 he was employed as the school administrator for the International Broadcasting School and thought well enough of me to hire me as an instructor there.

His recent communication to me slightly referenced that winter without mentioning either radio or the means that some took to enter that business.

But I remembered how Mike's mind worked so deciphering his words was as easy as picking up on a conversation I had with Grag Mobius a few decades after we last saw each other.

Back to NABCO and  Magic-99.7-FM,  through it's morph's from simply being known as WMNI-FM,  the station's call letter's have been uttered as WRMZ, WMGG, WBZX and now WRKZ.  

Whatever it is it still represents something that endures for those of us who spent time playing with, or competing against for name recognition and "perks" that we all enjoyed at one time or another, regardless of the generation we were a part of.

When I listen to WRKZ I can hear personalities and similarities not foreign to the people who were there and elsewhere on the dial through the decades that I've paid attention to radio.

In a monologue delivered by one of the family owners of the station at last week's celebration,  Matt Mnich  articulated the company's history and explained that in spite of the many alternatives for portable entertainment, radio is far from extinct.

It in fact thrives and still earns lot's of money.

More for the owners and managers than for it's  "stars"  but everyone in it is there for reasons not unlike mine when I was having fun with it.

It's not magic,  it isn't complicated,  and like people such as Mike Raub and so many other former colleagues of mine who still find way's to survive in it I do understand what Matt was saying.

I still hear radio people talk about the mythical bug that injects the business into the blood streams of those who choose that forum of money making,  but I contend that the reasons people hang around it, even old burn-out's and retired talkers like myself, is because we just like it.

As hard as I try sometimes to convince myself and other's that I don't miss being paid to make station owners and managers richer, I still enjoy writing and talking about the magicians who have made it their life's work to stay plugged into whatever it is that has kept companies like NABCO committed for decades, and for some stations just fourteen years shy of a century.

In 2022 radio itself will be 100 years old.

Another of my former play grounds, WCOL will share that milestone.

I'm planning my comeback then.

Imjustrick@aol.com

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11:54:59 PM EDT
Hearing Waylon Jennings

More than thirty years ago when I left WRFD for a job at WMNI I wasn't sure that I would fit in with the  "Country Gentlemen"  as the WMNI  DJ's  were known, and I wasn't sure that I was making the right career move when I met most of the staff there.

I'm sure most of them wondered the same.

My appearance certainly didn't fit the persona of a Country Music DJ for that era.

I was a skinny kid with long hair and my attitude was something far different than that of a gentleman of any genre.

But me and the station took a chance on each other and the result was nearly eight of the best years I had in broadcasting.

The studio's were located on the seventh floor of the Great Southern Hotel, or as we were mandated to say at the top of each hour,  "Studio's in the traditionally elegant Southern Hotel."

Sometimes it was a challenge to say that with a straight face because at the time that building was in need of a makeover.

Elegant in history back then,  but old and showing it's age physically.

Not any more.

The Southern Hotel might now be the most elegant of it's kind in terms of old world charm anywhere in the country.

What it has become was unfathomable for me thirty years ago.

I didn't know it at the the time but I was going to work for a relatively new radio station.  It just happened to be in an old building.

 At the time of my hire it was a mere 18 years old,  signing on in April of 1958.

For whatever reason I thought WMNI was one of the oldest stations in town at the time and when I first sat in the studio's I was sure that it was.

Those studio's were like a Norman Rockwell painting of a 1950's radio station and being in an old hotel  it offered a feeling of nostalgia similar to what one might feel while watching a 1940's black and white movie.

Everything was "old school" compared to the three radio stations I had worked at previously, WRFD, WNCI and WTVN.

Especially WTVN and WNCI.  Those stations  spared little expense in equipment upgrades through the years.

But WMNI's on air sound was richer and fuller than some of the others in Columbus and as I have often stated,  whatever the engineers did to compress the sound- it was something that made some of us announcer's sound  better than our normal speaking voices off air.

At least it made mine sound better.

Comparing old tapes of different radio shows I hosted through the years I find that my own voice was deeper  and sounded more mature as it went over the 920 AM frequency,  and as the late station owner Bill Mnich once described it,  less of a castrada sound.

Ouch.

WMNI was a good run for me and as time has tested it became like a home still inhabited by  what seems like my extended family.

This evening as I walked through the Main Street door's of The Southern Hotel and got onto the elevator to the second floor ballroom for a celebration of the stations  50th anniversary I came very close to becoming overwhelmed with emotion.

The station has long been gone from it's original Main and High Street location, but almost out of instinct I reached for the button for the 7th floor.

As fate would have it the guy next to me was Mark Jividen , WMNI's Vice President and General Manager. A guy who when I first met him was a skinny kid like me who was working there as an engineer.

When I walked into the ballroom I was met by another station big wig, one of the owners, Matt Mnich who is now occupying the biggest seat in the house-carrying on the legacy of his father.

When I first met Matt he too was a skinny high school kid  who worked there part-time and was the guy who showed me some ropes to properly operate the control room during Ohio State Basketball games which were carried by the station then.

As I strolled the ballroom looking for other familiar faces I soon realized there weren't many there. Time and geography have a way of scattering radio people.

But although many of my old friends weren't in attendance I swear I could feel the presence of some, helped by the many nostalgic photo's displayed throughout the room and from vintage radio's wired to play old WMNI jingles.

Also on display were period microphones used by the station from the 1950's through the 1970's,  the original station transmitter and an original working  broadcasting tower light.

As the evening progressed it dawned on me that the last time I was in the company of that many Mnich's was in December,  1981.

On the 17th day of that month I got married in the court house across the street from the hotel and was subsequently offered the honeymoon suite for the night by Mr. Mnich who also happened to own the building.

That evening was also the night of our annual staff Christmas party and a great deal of it was sharing drinks with a few Mnich's and some other staffers.

I thought about that too this evening. It was the last time I would see or speak to Bill Mnich, he passed away the following morning.

WMNI was the radio station where I met and maintained some of the most important friendships I've ever enjoyed.

Some of those people have since passed away and many others have traveled far away from the area, but  I  kept thinking tonight how cool it would have been to see  the faces of some of them. 

What I would have said to people like Larry Trimmer, Bob Rader,  Larry Ramey, Steve Berger, Kenny Pugh,  Tom Allen or Martin Petree.

To see Carl Wendelken,  Bill Weber, Cherokee, Mike Taylor or Ron Barlowe would have truly made the event a family reunion.

I thought of a few who didn't stick around long enough to share my time there like Joe Higman, Joe Maxwell and John Brandon.

And Tim Rowe, Jim Davis, Grant Marshall, Gary Shaefer and Bill McCauley.

Through the years the WMNI extended family was  heavily populated by some pretty good people, and like every other radio station in America it saw it's share of renegades best forgotten.

But I probably would have enjoyed seeing them too, if only for a minute.

There were so many people who rode that elevator to the seventh floor that I can't begin to remember them all,  but tonight nearly all of the names I have mentioned here were brought up in passing conversations.

But what a good feeling it was to have been remembered and respected enough to have been invited back to share if only for a few hours a place that filled my memory bank with vignettes I could write about for years to come.

Throughout my various journals I have written about some of the people and events from my time as a WMNI  DJ,  but I could never impart all of the stories in a public forum such as this.

So much of my life unfolded under the roof of that old hotel and  a lot of what could be shared would be downright embarrassing at this late stage of life.

But those who worked there, whether I knew them or not know what I mean.

Those I knew could also pen some embarrassing stories.

And some could write essays that would be heart wrenching.

Radio has a way of unwrapping the best and the worst of those of us who were a part of it before the day's of high tech and ghost studios that in today's world are often manned by machines instead of personalities.

For anyone reading this entry who knows exactly what I'm talking about,  that is,  any WMNI alumni who didn't make it to the celebration,  you were certainly missed.

                    Imjustrick@aol.com

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10:51:27 AM EDT
Hearing The Beach Boy's

Sometimes I find myself awake entirely too early for my own good, and for a few moments I'm glad I'm up.

But then reality sets in and I begin to realize that before the sun sets again I will be exhausted.

Hearing the morning birds as they stir around reminds me of the summer morning's when the old body and weathered spirit needed less maintenance and repair than is now required.

Getting old kind of sucks,  but I haven't yet figured a way to slow it down.

Having lived a long life as a nocturnal I prefer to be aware of what's happening around me when it's late at night while some around me are not, except of course the bad guy's who sleep late  in the day in order to be wide awake to take advantage of others inattentiveness.

I like playing security guard for my own life and for my property when the thugs are out there prowling around in the dark  with possible hopes of catching me off guard .

Catching one as he tries to disrupt my life in the middle of the night is a fantasy that exceeds any other I may have envisioned and I wouldn't have such an opportunity if I were in a deep sleep.

Getting up early seems like something more apropos for old geezers, school kids and for people forced out into the work world.

I am supposed to be retired and loosely needed by others.

But it's been a long summer already and I haven't really even seen much of it.

Anyone who has checked this journal on a semi regular basis may have noticed that I have taken something of a breather from it,  not by design as much as  for a lack of time available.

For the past several weeks I have been busy with something of a bucket list, that is, things that needed to be done, mostly by choice but some from necessity.

I am finally finding a little time to slow down from the rigors of semi-retirement and hopefully positioning myself once again for full blown retirement.

The details of my trials and tribs are less than interesting to anyone besides myself, but it's been an amazing spring/summer for me in terms of doing things I would have never imagined just a few years ago.

So now that summer is finally here, and being another one that get's me closer to the last one I am in search of the  means to make it memorable, and the time to enjoy it.

Recently I have embarked on an interest in the life of James Thurber, a writer and humorists who I've always admired but never took the time to really study or understand.

Much of Thurber's life it turns out was spent living within walking distance of my own and although I was just nine years old when he died I'm feeling as I study him  that I sort of knew him, or should have.

I do know that if he were living today I would make it a point to walk over to his house on Jefferson Avenue and ring his door bell.

Recently I went into the Jefferson House, now an arts center and museum and I instantly felt what so many others have  claimed,  a sense of ghostly spirits.

It isn't difficult to imagine him setting at an easel or at a typewriter creating his works, or evento hear his screams as the arrow that took out his eye went through his face.

Especially this time of year.

The shaded streets and yards of his old neighborhood remind me of the environment I grew up in which again was just a few blocks from his.

On a recent summer day while walking his block it dawned on me that I need to return to my old roots before it gets much later in my own life.

So here I am, back in the city.

Back in the area that allows my memory to revisit what were truly endless summers of my youth. When summer vacations from school were endless until they ended.

Like life.

The morning birds on Columbus' Southside sound different than those in the country where I spent the entire spring.

They are familiar, their chirps are similar to me in the delight of the sounds of not so distant trains that I listened to for years as I did attempt  reaching the sleep zone late at night. 

And the water that comes through the same pipes that Thurber drank from is sweeter on the palates than the fowl  taste and smell of well water that I drank while "staying" out in the sticks.

I am truly a city guy.

Two moving day's in three months and I think Thurber is to blame.

Studying  James Thurber won't become another passion for me, but I do think  his life will become something of a text book on my shelf of self learning.

Self learning is my college degree that somehow was never printed on a paper document.

Through life I have managed to learn more about it than could ever have been explained in class room settings.

Not that I'm proud of the fact that my oldest son has more degrees than I, but studying people like Thurber has kept me competitive, and immolating others has kept not only my summers endless, but my education and my abilities ongoing.

I've learned much this year about myself and about what is on my own horizon and the more I learn the more confident I become.

The rest of it should be interesting.

Imjustrick@aol.com

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