Thirty Years...Imagine

Before breaking news phone aps, the Internet or even, Twitter alerts (or before all that, the next day’s newspaper), for instantaneous details on urgent local, national or global events most Americans turned to cable news or the radio.

 

I never worked in newspaper or television and my on-the-air days in radio, though many were hardly noteworthy. But intersecting with several of the more noteworthy moments of the late twentieth century, they’re noteworthy enough. (Note the word ‘noteworthy’ appears three times in two sentences. Could be a new record. And why I never wrote for a newspaper).

 

-January 28, 1986; Dateline, Cape Canaveral, Florida; explosion of Space Shuttle Challenger

-December 21, 1988; Dateline, Lockerbie, Scotland; downing of the Pan Am Flight 103

-January 16, 1991: Dateline, Baghdad, Iraq; start of the first Gulf War

-April 19, 1993, Dateline, Waco, Texas; the burning of the Branch Davidian’s compound

-April 19, 1995: Dateline, Oklahoma City; the Murrah Building Bombing

-April 20, 1999; Dateline, Littleton, Colorado; Columbine High School mass shootings

 

While working at KNCO in Grass Valley, my air shifts were in progress as each of these items crossed the wires and flashed across the nation, and the world. And each time, it was never easy ‘returning to our regular programming” afterwards.

 

The shooting down of a commercial passenger plane over the Sea of Japan, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, happened during the overnight hours, local time, on September 1, 1983. And news of the plane’s disappearance didn’t reach the United States for many more hours after, nearly half a day. But as my shift began at KPND-FM at 5:00 on the morning of September 1, 1983, details of what really happened, that it’d been shot down by the Soviet Union, which could’ve ignited a World War (nice way to start the day), had exploded across the newswires and the latest reports were the first words out of my mouth when I signed on. Then I was told to do updates at each break throughout the morning. And KPND wasn’t even a news station; we were an album rock music station.

 

Not quite as dramatic, a couple of American icons departed from the stage during my watch too. On August 16, 1977, I was manning the board at KEBR in Sacramento the afternoon Elvis Presley died. But Family Radio KEBR took its signal from Family Radio headquarters in Oakland and the on-air studio in Sacramento didn’t actually have a live mic to make announcements with. So somebody – but not me- had to go into the production studio and cut a short message to play at the next ID break (45 minutes after the fact) informing KEBR’s few listeners that that Elvis had, indeed, left the building.

 

But couple years later, on June 11, 1979, I was in the middle of a three hour shift running God tapes at KZUN-AM in Spokane when the news broke that legendary actor John Wayne had died. Extremely ill for weeks, though, “The Duke’s” passing was hardly unexpected. In fact, when (not if) it happened, the p.d. had posted a memo in both the AM & FM studios days before reminding all on-air people to break in immediately. I just happened to be the one on duty that evening when the urgent bells went off on the teletype. It was about a quarter past 7 and I did as I was told. I broke in. But I got scolded by a little old lady in Dishman who called to to rag on me for intruding on "Brother Falwell."  

 

Rev. Jerry Falwell’s “Old Time Gospel Hour” was airing, which by itself is a funny title for a program that ran only a half hour; but, at the time was only half way done. So I caught some grief from the one of the probably two people listening, for cutting in. Big deal. Like nobody ever called a radio station to complain. I got paid for following directions. So who cares? And frankly,  reading John Wayne’s obituary for 38 seconds would seem to have far more entertainment value than letting Jerry Falwell’s 30 minute tape played straight through. On any day.

 

But I think the most memorable of these real world "interruptions" happened 30 years ago tonight, December 8, 1980, when John Lennon was assassinated in New York. By then I was at Spokane's KGA. Usually on overnights, that night I’d been bumped down to fill in for the evening dude.

With the day crew all gone home, it was a kick-back laid-back Monday night. My FM counterpart and I were the only two people still working, both sharing a pizza and watching Monday Night Football. I saw more of the game than Kevin, though, because the TV set was in the news booth, a tiny glassed-in room adjacent to the KGA on-air studio. All I had to do was turn my head. But with the FM studio on the opposite side of the programming wing, Kevin had to put a lot more effort into his viewing enjoyment. But KDRK was live-assist, so he could just put it in automation and let it run. On KGA, I had to talk after each song.

It was around 8:30 and I'd just started a 3 and a half minute Ray Price tune (which was akin to 3 and a half minutes in hell), which gave me 3 and a half un-interrupted minutes to listen to the football game. We got loud and clear audio into the AM control room by leaving the TV volume turned up high, a news room mic left ‘open’ and the news output on the AM board, left in “cue”. The only time Kevin or I couldn’t hear the TV was when my mic was on. Kevin had returned to do whatever he was supposed to be doing in the FM studio, so I was by myself when I brought the TV sound back up just as Howard Cosell finished saying something about John Lennon.

Huh? What does John Lennon have to do with a Monday Night Football game?

Back then there was no TIVO to back up and replay the live picture. However almost instantly alarms bells had started going off on the Associated Press teletype machine in the news booth. Something important had happened, that was for sure. It sounded like World War 3 had broken out.

The first bulletin to cross the wire was sparse and to the point.

*** BULLETIN*** (New York)

Obit:: Lennon

Former Beatle John Lennon is dead. 

AP
8:37 pm PST

***

Running back from the news booth, I punched up our network affiliate on the board, ABC Radio, and listened in cue to see what was coming down from there. They were sending alert tones down the line, advising stations to stand by for a news flash coming up in one minute…in :30 seconds....in :20 seconds....in :10 seconds....at the exact time, I dumped out of sleepy 'ol Ray Price as a grave sounding news anchor broke in…

"This is a bulletin from ABC News..." He continued with a brief update then did a quick recap. "Repeating. Former Beatle John Lennon was shot and killed tonight outside his New York City apartment. Stay tuned to this ABC station for further developments." Now running full speed on a sudden jolt of adrenaline, I started another song and called my boss to ask how to proceed.  “What we should do?” I knew it was a major story; I’m sure Tom Newman did too. But I was disappointed in his answer. "Nothing. Let ABC handle it. We're a country music station. Nobody cares about John Lennon."  

He was right, of course. But I was excited. Energized. My ordinary Monday night had just become anything but. And with 50,000 clear channel watts at my disposal, whatever we were going to do, I thought we should do it up BIG. But Tom’s measured instructions reeled me in and cooled my jets. Doing ‘nothing’ didn’t mean ignore the story. It meant stay focused; relax; be a professional. Do your job. Update as necessary, otherwise the rest of the shift should be status quo. “But if we got any calls”, he added before hanging up, “roll tape on them. We'll use some of it in the morning".  No worries, there: we got calls. They began coming in shortly after the first bulletin and didn't really let up the rest of the evening. Have you heard about John Lennon? Some folks were even crying.

However, as per Tom’s instructions, KGA didn't disrupt its normal format. I pretty much knew we couldn’t have anyway. On a traditional country station owned by a most un-progressive old timer like Del Cody, you can bet your last dime there wasn’t a Beatles record anywhere on the premises; or within five miles of the premises. But I did read updates from time to time the rest of the evening, and it was the lead story each hour on the ABC newscasts.

However, it was a much different story on the top 40 stations around town. The events of December 8, 1980 were a big deal and before the night was over KJRB had gone wall-to-wall Beatles music and stayed that way for the next two days. KREM was that way by morning. As was album rock, KREM-FM. KHQ-FM, though automated had managed to tweak their tape rotation so that a Beatles song played once out of every 5 songs or so. And even stodgy middle of the road KXLY went with a good dose of Fab 4 tunes the next day as well. December 8, 1980 was certainly a big deal

At lunch the other day, Dad mentioned how he didn’t get all the hoo-ha over the 30 year anniversary of this event. He doesn’t understand its significance. Neither does the lovely Amy. Dad’s too old and Amy's too young, I guess, for the date to mean anything. In Dad’s case, Beatles music was never appealing and Lennon's assassination nothing more than a brief interruption to a football game. And though Amy knows who the Beatles are, she was born after they split up and has little interest in their music, or John Lennon at all.

So that leaves me, sort of between both extremes. I was a child during Beatlemania, when the band was revolutionizing pop music and culture, and a young adult when the first member of the group passed into eternity. And like him or not (and from my point of view, John Lennon is the least likable Beatle) for those of us who grew up and lived through and during those times, his death remains a watershed event; not just in music history but in our lives. 

Not to mention, a pretty big footnote in my very puny radio career.