I had an incredibly happy childhood. Family, friends. A support group that many don’t have today. Hunting, fishing, Boy Scouts, it was All American! Best of all, I had a father I could look up to. Big, strong, and a combat veteran of D-DAY. His name was Aaron, nicknamed, ‘Big A’. Since I was seen with him everywhere, I became, ‘Little A’. I’ve got a sister that I admire and my Mom was every bit as strong as my Dad, a beautiful woman who made a great impression on me. My Mother would tell you, I would announce my next anticipated diaper change into a cucumber, fresh from our garden. I talked to the little farm animals through my ‘microphone stick’. I began listening to the guy who first got me interested in talking into something other than a vegetable, Rick Shultz (‘Rockin’ Rick’) host of the the Sunday Session on WHEE Radio, AM 1370 Martinsville, Virginia.Thanks for all the memories Rick. You get the blame/credit for inflicting me on thousands of listeners!
(Rick Shultz)
My First Gig..
I was working at The American Furniture Company full time, and that radio bug just kept gnawing at me. I finally screwed up the courage to approach the General Manager of a radio station outside the listening range of my hometown. Why? I didn’t want my friends and family to hear me on the air–yet. I knew I would suck. I was hired as a part time radio personality at WYTI Rocky Mt., Virginia. I’m grinning as I write this because our slogan was ‘The Mighty Whitey’. How do you think that would fly today in our ‘PC’ world? One Sunday afternoon, the owner of a small radio station in Collinsville, Virginia entered my studio and offered me a full time position. Hot damn! One hundred fifty a week! Call the local BMW dealership! I knew WLS will be the next stop. Right. I almost blew it before my career really got off the ground. Here it comes…
My First Bad Word..
My first full time job was great, if you consider that I was working on air from one p.m. until sign off (Ha! Believe it! AM radio stations did sign off at sun down, depending on where you were geographically in the United States) -that would be 8:45 in the summer months, and then going on the air that midnight at WLOE/Eden,N.C. Off the air at six a.m, a little sleep and back in Collinsville, Va. by one p.m. Did I mention the famous incident in which a rancid piece of meat hit me in the face causing me to drop my first F-BOMB on the air? Well, settle in for a really fun story! Greg Wells, one of our personalities, liked to keep his hamburgers warm by placing them in a ‘cart machine’. There is a pinch roller inside that turns the tape at the proper speed. Our radio station was infested with rats and evidently one of them climbed inside for a tasty snack, thereby getting a piece of the meat entwined in the mechanism. At six a.m, I hit my jingle, which went something like–“GET UP AND GET GOING”–a musical bed at that point for me to say something like “GET YOUR CRACK OUTTA THE SACK!”–followed by the jingle singers and our call letters. What the listeners heard was…the jingle..and me saying..’“GOOD MORNING!” (Wham! the meat hits! ) “IT’S ….WELL F#@$ ME!!”, ending, of course, with the jingle singers right on cue! GOD! I still don’t know how I got away with that one. I did get a call about it, just one, and the guy says, “I know you didn’t say what I thought you did!” Thankfully, he had been out drinking the night before. Can I get a big amen for Mr. Jack Daniels?? (Anyone for a nice, bit, fat, juicy, rat burger??
