Category Archives: Friends

Contact Sheet

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The images below were scanned from an old (1973-74?) contact sheet. Pretty sure the photos were were taken by Larry Thomason at one of the frequent poker nights he held in a small house (think “man cave”) in his parent’s back yard. Larry printed a few shots from this particular night but most of these never made it off the contact sheet. I’ve left them in that format because 1) I like it and 2) it was Larry’s call as to what he wanted to print and he’s gone now and I can’t ask him.

Charlie’s Mix-Tape

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charlie-mixtape
Want to take your music with you? Then you’re gonna have to work for it. This is Charlie making a mix-tape back in 1974. Amp on the left. Turntable in the middle. Two-deck cassette recorder on the right. When the cassette if full, there was a “high speed” dubbing mode so you could crank out extras for friends.

Bob Priddy honored

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bob-steve-clyde-A
Bob Priddy is the best journalist I ever met and one of the best people I’ve known. He was the guest of honor last night at an event in Columbia, MO. Bob is retiring in a month or so, after 40 years as the news director of The Missourinet.

The event was cooked up Senator Claire McCaskill and Clyde Lear, the guy that started the company Bob worked for and it was, as they say, a special night. There was a great tribute video that I hope makes it to YouTube so I can share it here.

I started working with Bob and Clyde in 1984 and was very proud to do so, as you can see from this photo. I had just come from a small town radio station and getting to work with Bob Priddy at “the network” was my idea of making it.

Clyde_Bob

I (sort of) tried to recreate that photo last night but in the excitement of the evening, I got the order wrong. No matter. Still proud to call these two men my friends.

Charlie Peters

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charlie-petersCharlie Peters died this morning. Cancer got him. It got him and wouldn’t let go. Today he escaped. He was 53. Charlie and I worked together for almost 30 years. We didn’t socialize but I thought of him as a friend. A whole bunch of folks thought of Charlie as a friend. There’s probably somebody, somewhere that didn’t like Charlie but I never encountered that person. Charlie was the kind of person most people want to be. I guess I can’t really say that. He was the kind of person I would like to be.

Someday all the people that knew and loved Charlie will be gone. He — like the rest of us — will become a twig on a family tree somewhere. If some early 22nd century artificial intelligence stumbles upon this post, what would I like for it to know about Charlie? (I’m assuming smart machines of the future will eradicate every trace of Facebook)

Charlie was smart. The kind of smart that can understand and fix just about anything with parts. For most of the last 30 years he was in charge of engineering and technical service at the company we worked for. He was a huge factor in the success of the company.

He had fighter pilot nerves. I never saw him panic, even when the situation clearly called for panic. Charlie had that inherent confidence that he could fix just about any technical problem. And he could.

Charlie was quiet. He knew how to listen without offering an opinion. But when he did speak it was usually direct. Straight to the point. He’d just say what the rest of us had been tip-toeing around. Plop! Right in the middle of the conference table.

Charlie’s rock put a lot of warm, gentle ripples in the pond.

Charlie remembers The Big Dish Drop (video)
Game Day 2005, following completion of new sports operations area (3 min)

Gaylon Watson’s interview with Rocky Marciano

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Most radio guys (I’m talking pre-1990) have lots of “Brush With Near Greatness” stories. I know I do. Some famous or almost-famous celebrity or performer they interviewed back-stage or who came by the station. Shoot, it’s a big part of why most of us got into radio. My new pal Gaylon Watson recalled interviewing Rocky Marciano.

Marciano was the World Heavyweight Champion from September 23, 1952, to April 27, 1956. Marciano is the only person to hold the heavyweight title and go untied and undefeated throughout his career. I find this story noteworthy because Marciano was reduced to refereeing cheesy professional wrestling matches at the VFW in Kennett, MO. I can only assume he beat the shit out of his agent.

Gaylon Watson

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Gaylon Watson and smays
Yesterday I drove to the little town of Piedmont, in southeast Missouri, to meet Gaylon Watson. Gaylon worked at KBOA back in the fifties and I have long wanted to meet him and capture some oral history from those early days of the station where my father and I once worked. Gaylon’s eighty now but healthy and sharp as a tack. His 28 years in broadcasting covered a lot of ground and we only captured some of it in this recording.
Gaylon’s eighty now but healthy and sharp as a tack. His 28 years in broadcasting covered a lot of ground and we only captured some of it in this recording. We had to leave some on the editing room floor because of the noisy restaurant. After lunch Gaylon gave me the “Chamber of Commerce” tour of Piedmont (where he was mayor for 16 years) and then took me to meet his three dogs who live in splendor on 20 beautiful acres in the Missouri Ozarks.

Misty Blue: Don and Suzy Akers

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Last night Barb and I drove down to the Lake of the Ozarks to listen to some long-time friends perform. We first met Don and Suzy Akers when their bar band performed at a honky tonk in the little town where we lived (Kennett, MO). They work mostly as a duo now, dividing their time between the Florida and Missouri. For 40+ years Don and Suzy have been making a living performing in small venues. Watching them, it’s obvious they’re still very much in love. And love what they’re doing. [Here’s a minute of Suzy belting out I’ll Stand by You]

Tom Colvin

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Tom Colvin died last night. He was one of a handful of people who thought I was amusing. We co-hosted a daily, hour-long talk show on a little radio station during the 70’s. The Grapevine was one from one until two each weekday afternoon and featured interviews, listener calls and such. But on most days we just shot the shit and it was great fun (for us). Tom had a really infectous laugh and it wasn’t difficult to get one from him. And he was a good sport. One year we drove a golf cart in the fall festival parade, dressed as Laurel and Hardy. We tossed out hundreds of photos (below) that almost nobody picked up.

Stan_Ollie

Once a month (more often?) we spent our hour of airtime playing trivia with listeners. This was pre-internet so you had to know your stuff and Tom did. The guy watched a LOT of television. Here we are with the other members of our team. L-R: Jeff Wheeler, John Robison (seated), Tom, and me.

KBOA_trivia_bowl

Tom was a hard-working radio news guy and loved doing play-by-play sports as well. I left the station in 1984 and Tom shortly thereafter, as I recall. He worked in a number of small markets in Missouri before failing health forced him to retire. I went to see him last September at his home in Rolla. Must have been 20 or 25 years since we’d seen each other. I’m glad I knew him. I’m glad I got to work with him.

Walkin’ the J-Walk

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The first mission of the 2014 Soldier of Fortune Tour took us to sunny Arizona. It was 32 degrees and snowing when I left St. Louis… 90 when we landed in Phoenix where I rented a car and headed for Tucson to meet John Walkenbach (known to one and all as J-Walk).

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I first heard of John Walkenbach some years ago when I clicked a link somewhere and found myself on the J-Walk Blog. I was immediately hooked. John was a prolific blogger with a taste for the bizarre. And always funny. And he had a huge following.

I didn’t know much about John until I spotted him on Google+ shortly after that service launched. There, too, he posted frequently and got lots of comments. Apparently many of the readers of his blog had followed him to Google+ and I found myself adding people from his circles to mine.

After I retired (12/31/12) and started talking about taking some trips, John invited me to visit him. Last Friday I hopped on a plane and flew to Phoenix, rented a car, and headed for Tucson. (It was 30 degrees and snowing when I left St. Louis and 90 when I got to Arizona) The scenery on the drive to John’s home was pretty exotic for a boy from the midwest.

cactus

I knew he and his partner Pamn had nice digs from photos John had shared but I fear I went a little Gomer Pyle as they showed me around. I leave it to John to share more, except to say there were guitars and banjos everywhere you looked. Gonna be a hell of a yard sale when John goes to that big hoedown in the sky. The view from their patio (?) was… well, it was a goddamn vista is what it was.

sunset

John took me to a great vegetarian restaurant for lunch, followed by a jam session with some of his old time music pals.

Back at Rancho Walkenbach, Pamn had prepared the best vegetarian meal I have ever eaten.

John let me ask endless questions about his past; how he started writing books; his music… I think he has a PhD in Experimental Psychology! That can’t be right.

It was a great day spent with two interesting people who get a gold star for hospitality.