January 1990 couldn’t have been better except for the Allison thing. Turned out she decided that my friend Tom was more her style. Problem was, no one told ME until long after they hooked up. The beginning of February brought more bad news.
My phone rang about 7am. After thinking the usual "who the hell is calling me at this hour?", I found it was a Bellows Falls police officer! There's a special kind of awake that you only feel when you hear things on the other end of a phone like "I'm from the IRS" and "Officer Whoever from the Anytown Police". The kind that turns whatever you ate last night to liquid and then threatens to find the quickest escape route south of the border. I'm now that kind of awake. He told me the station had never signed on this morning (how he had my unlisted phone I’ll never know) and the reason was Mike was in an accident. Seems his car wouldn’t start so he was walking to work, and while walking he was hit by a snowplow and killed. To make things worse, his wife Marge was 7 months pregnant with their first child. We organized an on-air benefit that weekend and raised about 7000 dollars for the baby girl named Michaela who was born in early April 1990. (As I update this in late 2008, Michaela is in TN, graduated high school with honors and will be starting college.)
Mike’s death forced me to find another morning guy. After sorting through 14 million more demo tapes I hired John from the small town of Red Wing, MN. I don’t know how it happened, but I hired two of the nuttiest people I’ve ever run across in an industry known for strange people. John was not only extremely private, it turned out he was a serious drinker. I don’t know if he was gay or not, but I watched multiple attractive young women practically throw themselves at him and get nowhere. I think the worst part was when I was doing a live broadcast at a local supermarket and he showed up...more than a bit drunk and very obnoxious. Why I didn’t fire him I can’t remember, especially after he got Kayla so upset one morning she quit on the spot. Probably because I just can't get used to being happy and peppy at 5AM.
Neither he nor Neil had a drivers license. Every so often you find someone without one, but what are the odds of finding 2 people in the same small business without them? John’s may have had his revoked due to alcohol but all I knew from Neil is he had no wish to drive. Both had really weird quirks. John would arrive early every morning and clean the studio. I mean CLEAN. Vacuum, counters, everything. Neil had his routine of eating the exact same thing for breakfast at the same time every day, he even scheduled his....restroom visits at the same time each day.
Neil lived above me in the same apartment building so we’d hang out occasionally, but his thing for routine and wrestling was...disconcerting.
Despit eall the drama, there was something incredible about the way I felt then. Every time I’d flip the radio on I’d think "this is mine". I was responsible for everything that came out of the speakers. It felt great, but the bad part was I had never lived alone and it was taking some getting used to. It wasn’t long before that changed in a hurry. Thats what I mean by "the best of times, the worst of times".
I had a very good relationship with a local nightclub and frequently had special concerts or other events there, and of course we gave away tickets on air. At one show a young woman came up to me and thanked me for the tickets she had won. Love at first sight exists, my friends...make no mistake about it.
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