Hacked Off

My Facebook profile was recently hacked.

The hacker was very ingenious. Worming into the Instant Messaging program, he or she sent bogus IM's under my profile with links to two or three salacious websites that offered messages like, "Hey, you looked real cute in these pictures".  

 However, even while chatting I never saw them going out. Had I, I would've stopped talking- and maybe even looked, to see what I was missing-but then certainly would’ve quickly logged off to discontinue whatever filth my friend was “receiving” from me. But these surprises were invisible from my end. I didn't even have to be on-line. Automated, these "messages" kept periodically popping up to random people in my contact list, whether I was in Facebook or not.

As usual though, I was clueless at first.

Earlier I'd been having a delightfully innocuous little IM chat with a friend who suddenly cut off the dialog with no further explanation. I thought it was odd because we're pretty tight and can tell each other just about anything. Momentarily troubled, I chalked it up to my IM friend needing to get back to work or something, and went about my business myself.

Until awhile later when another friend wrote on my Facebook wall that he too had received some questionable messages from me. Yikes. We’re good friends, but not that good. At the time, I wasn’t even chatting with him. But after assuring me he wasn’t ‘looking for a relationship’, said this had happened to someone else and suggested that I, too, might have been hacked.

And it was only then that the refrigerator door in my head finally opened and the light in my little pee brain came on. Duh! As we were chatting, my gal-pal friend likely got the same raunchy links. No wonder she did the electronic version of hanging up on me. I hadn’t checked ‘em out, but apparently those pictured, were quite naked and doing things to themselves and others that, I was told, would make a Merchant Marine blush. 

Of course, anyone who's ever been on the Internet for more than ten minutes knows the garbage that got spliced into my profile had very little redeeming value. Of course, often, neither do I. But this stuff was really disgusting. And though I hadn't consciously done anything wrong, I still felt terribly dirty and ashamed. I felt about the same as if someone had broken into my house and taken a dump in the living room.

And I guess that was the point.

They don't hack 'ya cuz for world peace and global enlightenment; they don’t hack ya because they like ya either. They hack 'ya because they can. It’s how certain members of society- namely computer savvy anti-social friendless low-life vermin sitting in a dark room with a mouse and a keyboard- choose to interact with their fellow man. To them, it's like high tech masturbation. Corrupting somebody else's on-line life feels real good.

Nevertheless, filth had been sent out to unsuspecting friends under my name. I knew most of the guys in my contacts would either ignore these messages or figure they were counterfeit. But half my FB friends are of the fairer gender; and whether they came to that same conclusion or not, I couldn't help but wonder if a few of them had misgivings- briefly or not- about ever friending me in the first place. And at least one had.

I had to spend several minutes with the non-virtual mother of two boys, who's known me from church for over a decade, trying to prove who I really was and how I really knew her. I didn't blame her though. These days you can never be too safe. Still, when I finally convinced her we were okay and things were back to normal, I felt like I needed a shower. Defending yourself against a false witness is hard work. It just about wore me out.

I'm of a mature age now (though that term seldom is an accurate description of me), but even in my wilder days I'd never been a party to sharing smut with a girl. I certainly wouldn't take part in it now. It wouldn't speak well of me as a man; it wouldn’t speak well of me as a boy, although I guess a lot of boys masquerading as grown-ups do this for sport now; like the gutless Bill Gates wanna-be hiding in the shadows of cyberspace who’d linked my name with two or three disgusting e-links and sent them out under my name. As unseemly as it was, there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.

It wasn't fair and I felt under attack. But it wasn't personal. An anonymous computer nerd had gotten his jollies and taken some perverse delight by hacking into Facebook and messing up hundreds, maybe thousands of stranger's accounts; not just mine. Nothing was taken from me, though, except a little pride. I didn't lose my identity or any money, and after changing my password and security settings the immediate problem was taken care of. No big deal.

Yet all weekend long it still bugged me. It's hard enough to live in the real world with a sense of integrity and honor. So when my Facebook profile got hacked, I felt let down. And like I'd let others down, too. When whoever it was hacked my account, in a way they'd kind of hacked my reputation, too. 

But perhaps all is not lost. Maybe in the end, it all evens out. Maybe- and let’s hope-  there's a special hackers place in hell where all the software is corrupt and the Help Desk guy is still working from an IBM PC 286.

Or maybe I should just stay off Social Media…

 

Dying Inside

Death. It’s as unavoidable as taxes.

 

It's also something nobody likes to talk about. I mean, dead is dead; what's the fun in that?  No way around it, though, I will be at death’s door… someday. (Although the longer I'm around, the nearer someday seems). As for now, I’d rather not think about being invited in.

 

But in the bottomless hours of a restless night, death often comes-a -calling anyway. Not to claim me, but to keep me honest; offering a friendly reminder in the middle of a nocturnal convulsion of lively brain waves, that sooner or later it’ll be back for keeps. However, though I’m keenly aware of my pending earthly expiration, I'm not all that fearful of dying. I know my eternal destiny and Hell has no foothold there. I think it's the process of dying that scares me.

 

I don't want to suffer or be in a hospital, sequestered away in a strange place and being looked after by strangers. I want to go quick and peaceful, too, like in my sleep, and in the familiar surroundings of home; maybe after a really, really good day. Or how ‘bout a nice quick one-car accident heading home on rain-slicked I-80 some night? No fuss, no muss, no taking out anyone else. Just my truck and me; off to eternity. As an exit, yeah, I could live with that.

I've decided I don't want to go in the spring or summer either. I don't want to die when the world is coming alive and active. I want to go when everything else is cold and dying, too, like in the dead of winter. And while it'd be nice to hang around as long as I can, I sure as heck don't want to outlive my welcome or everyone I know. I want someone around to remember I was here. I don’t want to live so long past my prime that the general consensus becomes- “Gee, I thought he already was dead.”

Naturally, though, none of this is my call. I'm pretty sure God's got the final say. But I think the doom and gloom of "the end' comes to me so often on sleepless nights because it's been hanging around close enough to notice since I was 3 years old.  My brother died that year. Then after Larry, a Grandma passed when I was 10, an uncle at 12. Then both Grandpa's croaked within four months of each other when I was 16. That was the year my friend Jim Hinton died, too, and not to diminish any of the others that one seemed to hit a lot closer to home. I couldn’t seem to shake it off; instead I allowed it to shake me to the core. Jim’s death haunted me for a long time.   

 

The fall semester of my junior year in high school was winding down and Christmas vacation was in sight and Jim was planning a day of duck hunting over the break. He and I weren't super close, but we sat together in the back corner of English class with three other dudes, plus Jim ran track and I played soccer. So in addition to being classmates, as "jocks" too, we crossed paths often. And on the last day of class before the holidays, Jim asked me and the other guys from our English clique if we wanted to join him to shoot ducks. I'd never been hunting before and had never fired a gun. But it sounded like a good time of male bonding- with firearms, no less. Shoot, if everybody else was going, I wanted to go, too.

Jim’s preferred hunting spot was a marshy spot out in the Antelope area behind, and not too far from the Roseville Rail Yard. In those days, Antelope wasn’t nearly as built over as it is today. In fact, Antelope Road was just a two-lane country road with almost nothing on it. Once past a 7-11, it emptied into a bland rural landscape of empty fields dotted with live oaks. But there was also a murky unnamed pond (probably also paved over now) that, in the wintertime, migrating ducks often used as a pit stop. It’s all concrete and houses now, but back then you could fire a shotgun out there without attracting too much attention.

The hunting excursion was planned for Thursday December 23. Even before then, though, it became pretty obvious the outing wasn't going to happen. At least it wasn’t going to happen for me because I’d come down with a cold. Of course I’d have gone regardless, but Mom—who’d never been keen on me having fun even when I was healthy- stopped me in my tracks. “There is no way”, she fumed, ”that you’re going to ruin the family’s plans for Christmas” (We had to go to LA on Christmas Day) “So you’re not going anywhere until then.”

 

Apparently there would be no furlough granted to shoot ducks with my friends. She thought that was barbaric and pretty much put me under house arrest. My orders were to get well. Or else. I heard later I wasn’t the only one who had to back out; just the one with the pansiest excuse. Jim, though, apparently had no trouble finding other takers besides me and the crew from English to accompany him, because he went on his merry way without us.

 

On the day of the duck hunt, the weather was pretty crappy; cold and clammy and so foggy, you couldn't see across the street. But the conditions were ideal for duck hunting- or so I’d been told and would’ve liked to experience for myself. However, I was still stuck at home and hacking up hair balls. At five minutes after six a.m., as Jim and his two fill-in hunting companions made their way to their destination, still dark as night with the ground shrouded in a thick tulle fog, and only a few miles from the pond, Jim chose to try and beat a freight train crossing the tracks.

 

And didn’t make it.

 

I didn’t hear about it, though, till the next day, when I read the front page headline in the afternoon paper, 3 Local Teens Die in Traffic Mishap. Underneath the caption were pictures of the three boys as they'd been in life.  I didn't recognize the other two names. One was only in eighth grade; the other from a different high school. Those two died at the scene. Jim lingered till a few minutes after midnight, which was Christmas Eve. I was surprised he made it that long, looking at the picture at the pulverized car. But the shock sucked the air out of me. I’d just seen him in English class less than a week earlier, and spoken to him just two days ago. How could he be dead? At 16?

Yet as a brooding teenager, though the accident had nothing to do with me, I managed to quickly shift gears from grief to guilt, and make it so. I talked myself into believing that if I'd been well enough to talk Mom into going with Jim and the boys, I'd have been in that car, too, and should've been just as dead as my classmate and his passengers. So why wasn't I?  I was asked to go and wanted to go, but circumstances intervened and kept me home. Nevertheless they were dead and I was not.

 

Was it simply their time? No, I rejected that as being too easy, too empty and too lame to explain why Jim and the other two were no longer with us. Maybe things just happen and there are no answers. Still, I wondered had I not been sick that morning, and Jim had come to our house and picked me up, if that extra time might have been enough to keep him from getting to the crossing at the same time as the train? Who knows? 

 

In this life, I suppose I'll never know. But it took a good chunk of time, mind games and second guessing to finally let it go. I didn’t discuss how I felt or about the accident with either Mom or Dad, except only in passing; that I knew one of the boys in the accident. They said that was too bad, especially with it being so close to Christmas. But there was a plane to catch and the holidays to celebrate. So off we went. Besides, boys don’t cry, boys don’t show emotion, boys don’t talk about stuff. Boys suck it up and move on, or we're supposed to.

 

Christmas in LA was a blur. I did the hanging out thing with the cousins, made small talk with the aunts and uncles; pretended all was good. Unfortunately, we were in LA long enough that I missed Jim’s funeral. I would’ve liked to have gone. Back then funerals didn't freak me out as much as they do now. In fact, I’d already been to two that same year alone for my two grandfathers. But until that December, I always thought a memorial service was for old people like them. Not for a kid in my English class.

It was a lot to take in. I felt on overload, but a quiet, desperate overload. It seemed impossible that somebody my age, who I’d eaten with, discussed the importance of nouns and pronouns with, laughed with when he farted in class and shot baskets with at lunch, was gone. Just like that. It simply couldn’t be. Missing the memorial sucked, too. It would’ve been nice to have a chance to say good-bye.

 

Whenever a young person dies unexpectedly today, grief counselors seem to come crawling out of the woodwork. The kids left behind get cocooned and gently shepherded through the grieving process. Often, at the school or roadside where they died, make-shift memorials spring up in their honor, practically overnight. And I think those are good things, but none of that happened when Jim Hinton and the other two kids died. We went back to school on that first Monday in January and it was like Jim had never been there. Like nothing had changed. There were no announcements or acknowledgments that the accident even happened. I guess since it took place over the holidays and the funerals had already occurred, the school probably felt it didn’t need to deal with it anymore. That it was better to make everything seem normal, so life could get back to normal. But life wasn’t normal.

 

Miss Stewart, our teacher, was the only one who used that first day English hour to talk about it. But it was so surreal to be in that room, in our corner of the classroom and see that empty desk; the desk Jim had been sitting at less than 3 weeks before. And now he was in the ground. And but for the miracle of a messy cold, I might have been there too. But none of the other teachers in any of the other classes that day, or in future days, made any reference to Jim's passing. It happened; it was over. Move on. It was like they were trying to pretend it didn’t happen.

But it did happen. And it didn’t stop. After Jim there were four others.  First there was Kirt Huber who, along with Gary McKenzie, had been a constant childhood chums during our days at Kingswood Elementary. He perished in a violent two-car drunk driving crash. Next was Barbara Diffin, a girl I knew from church. She was taken on her way to a Tuesday morning Bible study, her car t-boned in half by a trucker who ran a red light. Stan Ford, who I’d known since kindergarten, I heard he o.d’s. Finally Donny Smith, a buddy from the freshman baseball team, died instantly when he hit a tree head on late at night, going way too fast and missing a curve. 

 

So counting the carnage, between the years I was 16 and 18, seven people I knew or were close to had all gone out into eternity.  But like having an IV drip of Novocain going directly into my soul, each successive tragedy just seemed to increase the dosage. I grew numb to more bad news.  Wow that’s awful but, God, who’s next?  People in my own peer group were dropping like flies. Though each loss was an unforgettable lesson on the fragility of life and a healthy reminder that young people are no more immune from a quick end than anybody else, I was really tired of people dying; especially people my own age.

 

But the ‘lessons’ validated the suspicions I’d had since early childhood, that death seemed to be stocking me. Seemingly always nearby, I couldn’t get away from it. And I began looking over my shoulder, wondering if it was getting close enough to take me, too. I mean, I’d lived a long time- by 1973 practically 18 years. Maybe that was enough. Like some of my friends, maybe that was all I was going to get. And if so, I guess I was at peace with it. But I was also afraid. Afraid death would always be on my tail and would always be chasing me. And since I'd only be able to out-run it for so long, I thought I better live while I could.

 

Yet I couldn’t even do that right. As it turned out, mostly I just made a mess.

 

Thankfully, God's cleaning it all up now, though I'm still a bundle of contradictions and disarray.  At least death doesn't scare me anymore. In fact, I’ve looked it in the eye- often- and when it finally does come, I think I'll be ready.  In the meantime, I really think I’ve got the dying part down pretty good now.  It's just the living part that, so often, still confounds me.

 

A Whole Lot of Shaking Going On

The recent earthquake in Japan is another harsh reminder that our Earthly home is a volatile, unpredictable planet. But with no real way to escape our hostile environment- short of moving to a less hospitable one- so, we adapt and shoulder on, as man has done for thousands of years, and make do when caught in the middle of a Mother Nature hissy-fit.

 

Thanks to the Internet, and images shown almost instantaneously on TV via satellite delivery, the world has had a gruesome front row look at the carnage and devastation. And while prayers continue to go out to the Japanese people coping with the catastrophe, in places spared this natural disaster the point s well taken that tomorrow is never guaranteed.

 

On the third rock from the sun, no matter where home is under the sun, it could be us next.

 

But as out of control as things seem at the moment in the Orient, somehow I still choose to believe that even in the midst of the crisis, there or anywhere, that God remains in control.

However, today's post is not about Japan's recent calamity, or the closer to home Loma Prieta earthquake during the 1989 Bay Bridge World Series. No, today my story centers on the only earthquake I actually felt, lived and broadcast through. Yes, broadcast- that's not a typo. Come with me now, back to North Idaho and KSPT and the fall of 1983…

…For a small town radio station, the morning show hours at KSPT Sandpoint were intense. From the time I went on at 5 a.m. there was a lot of stuff going on and to stay on top of.  If I was tired when I got into the building- almost always- the jolt of quickly paced activity usually had the cobwebs shaken out before the first hour was over.

 

But the cobwebs, the building, the ground and everything else was shaking on the morning of October 28, 1983.

 

It was 7:07 in the a.m. and the hourly Mutual Network News had finished two minutes before. I’d come on right after the newscast ended and read the weather report. It was a gorgeous Friday morning, mild for late October, and after telling the 7 am crowd the current temperature was already at 55 degrees, I started up Juice Newton's "Queen of Hearts" on turntable # 1 for the first song of the hour.

 

Then, with the mic off and a three and a half minute record playing, I sat back to read the sports page in the morning paper and sip my coffee. 

But 25 seconds into the song, I noticed a faint rumble. I was like an overloaded big rig had shuddered past us out on the highway. This was different, though. The vibration felt like it was right underneath my feet. But it quickly intensified; became louder and then the whole building began to shake.

I heard a picture in the lobby fall to the floor. I turned in my chair and looked behind me, out the studio window. The parking lot was doing its best imitation of a small ocean; waves rolled across the flat landscape and my car was gently bobbing up and down, like a boat docked on a choppy lake.

In the confusing chaos, nothing I saw made any sense, and it took another second or two to understand what was happening. When the brain at last caught up with the optical information the little light finally clicked on just as News Director, Dave Wessell yelled out “Earthquake!” 

I yelled back. “I know!”

Glancing back at the turntable, even though the room and radio station were doing the Rumba, miraculously the record kept playing flawlessly. The noise and trembling motion hadn't got any worse, but wasn’t subsiding either. 

In its wake, my coffee cup had plunged to the carpet spilling its contents. A stack of carts that had been sitting on the console had crashed landed into a jumbled pile on the floor. The pen I'd been using had rolled away someplace, never to be seen again. It seemed like forever, but less than a minute after it'd started, the up and down rolling abated, the Earth came to rest on its axis, and the world settled back into its normal rhythm and place.

And immediately every phone in the place began to light up.

The question on everybody’s mind was the same; either “What was that?” or “Did we just have an earthquake?” Cutting off Juice Newton two thirds of the way through her song, I shoved my headphones on and opened the mic. I think everybody knew what had happened, even if it hadn’t been “confirmed” by experts, but I stated the obvious anyway. "Folks I think we just had an earthquake".

Then I started babbling on about what I’d seen and felt. I was kind of hyper with excitement, though; so to reel me in and make it more of a two-way conversation than one-sided dissertation Dave came in and joined me at the guest mic. He offered his thoughts and what he'd picked up off the wire service and from that point on we were completely in-sync and on top of the story.

Dave Wessell had only been at KSPT a couple weeks, and six months later would become the boss and end up firing me. But that morning we were best buds working the trenches together. Funny what happens when, out of the blue you're thrown into a professional foxhole with someone. After the earthquake, it was a very fast moving and intense morning, and to pull off what we had to do with maximum skill and minimal gibberish, I needed Dave and he needed me. And somehow we made it work. We created great radio

First thing we did was chuck the format. Then we took calls and for the next several hours talked to listeners offering their own perspective on the event. When Dave or I needed a break, I put on another record. By then, other staffers had arrived at work, so we were getting help with the phones, allowing Dave and I a chance to leave the studio for a few minutes to catch our breath. I went outside or to the break room for more coffee, but, ever the newshound, Dave always used the time to go grab fresh wire copy.

The earthquake was the talk of the town and, really, the entire Northwest- and as the morning went on the entire country. According to the U.S. Geological Service, the quake registered a magnitude 7.1 on the Richter scale; its epicenter located near the base of Mt. Borah and the town of Mackay, Idaho, in the southeast part of the state. So even though it was centered hundreds of miles from the radio station, we’d been shaken pretty damn good. Not only had the trembler rattled Sandpoint and Bonner County, it was felt all over Idaho, as well as parts of Wyoming, Oregon, Washington State, Utah, Montana, Nevada, even Northern California.

However, the only “casualty” at KSPT was the portrait in the lobby that fell. Despite the big shake, the old building held together well, and emerged from the quake completely intact and undamaged. In the city of Sandpoint, other than a few things falling off walls and shelves, there was no damage. And my house was exactly as I’d left it earlier in the morning. But nearer the quake’s epicenter, there were reports of several damaged buildings in the southern part of Idaho, and 2 people were killed in the city of Challis

Dave and I stayed on the air till noon that day, and the story began petering out- at least as it pertained to North Idaho- by mid-afternoon. It wasn't till the excitement had quieted down did I realize if I'd talked about 25 seconds longer, I could’ve been actually broadcasting the earthquake live, as it struck. Oh well. At least I was on the air as it rolled through, can tell you about it now, and, along with Dave Wessell- and the radio station- was able to instantly become a conduit of information.

That morning, KSPT was transformed into a kind of communal party line. And it was kind of cool to be the electronic sounding board as our town began sorting through their feelings about this out of the ordinary act of God, and collectively begin to process it. At least it made for an exciting time at work, that day, being at the ‘epicenter’ for local communications.

The Spokane TV channels and cable news outlets like CNN were talking about the earthquake, but we were living it on scene. And everybody within the sound of our little one thousand watt transmitter was listening. It was days like this that made me glad I chose broadcasting as a career because what we did that day, as a staff, is what radio does best- serve its community. We quite literally took the listener by the hand, and walked them gently though an extraordinary event that had either changed, altered or affected their daily lives. It was all good stuff.

My time in Sandpoint, for various reasons, was kind of a low spot in my life. The area was nice, but I missed Spokane and my friends there. Except for the few people I hung out with at work, I didn’t really know anybody in Sandpoint. But the earthquake kind of gave me a little jolt of purpose, for at least half a morning. It made me appreciate my job, the career I chose and even the place I lived. Putting aside the long hours and lack of good rest, the day’s activities were a healthy dose of adrenaline my little mind and body desperately needed.

But after the shaking stopped, I hoped it wouldn’t take another earthquake to make me feel connected, alive or making a difference again.

A Twig In a Hurricane

Holy crap, I endured another of those sleepless nights last night. And the harder I tried to make my mind shut down, the harder it resisted. Naturally, in the dark of a seemingly eternal night, much of the pre-dawn battle for sleep centered on wrestling with demons and the Deity. Yet as I scuffled though the nocturnal skirmish, I wondered why I wasn't drifting off, because the fight was leaving me exhausted.

Suffering in the dark and trying to understand God is often hard work. I felt under attack and in the middle of a storm; or like being a flat bread wafer in an angry giants' hand just before he squeezes it into fine pulverized cracker dust. I want to resist. I don't want to get crushed by life and its troubles. I want to bend and not break.

But sometimes breaking seems so much easier.

So when does this passage ever become less problematic? Experience tells me it doesn't.
Already loaded down with the guilt and baggage of yesterday’s mistakes, apparently I've decided to take on tomorrow's worries, too. But it’s a heavy load. I want to go back and do things over, do them right or at least change the outcome of past failures. It frustrates me that I can't. And trying to gauge what's next is even more perplexing because I'm not always sure if it’s the light at the end of the tunnel I see out there, or just the headlight of the oncoming train.

Every moment in life can be a teachable moment. But its stressful nights like this, when I'm at the point of surrender, that I really get the feeling God's trying to teach me something. But what can it be? Is this a test? A test of faith, or a test of trust? Both or none of the above?  I'm not sure. My faith is on trial all the time and trust doesn't come easy for me; been burned too many times.

So how do I trust a God I cannot see with a plan I do not understand? I don't know, but apparently even if I don't know the plot, the outcome or course of action, above all else He wants me to trust Him anyway. But I don't want to. I know what’s best for me right? Since when?

Hey, when I screw up, I want to “fix” it myself. It gives me something productive to do and keeps me functional. Yet even after my repairs, in most cases I’m still fractured. But not before wasting a lot of time and effort. So what’s the answer?  Goes back to that trust thing, right? Trusting I’m a child of a God who has a plan for my life, who infinitely loves me and to whom I value and matter? 

Nah, it can’t be that. 

I’ve goofed up too much and taken too many missteps to imagine ever graduating to some sort of faith enlightenment. So it can’t be that easy. But what if it is? Maybe it really just comes down to trust and redemption. Trusting He can handle all my burdens and trusting He’s a God of deliverance. Lord knows, I've got plenty of problems to give Him and I’m on about my millionth second chance. So maybe I should just let Him handle the troubles and accept the freedom that comes with it.

Grrr.

It sounds so simple, yet seems so hard.

Grrr.

But about an hour before sunrise, the overnight tribulations sapping me of my rest finally slipped away, and peace descended on me at last. The demons were gone. Sleep came.

I know I'm a late bloomer and nothing for me comes easy. It's always been that way. But I guess that's okay. As a continuing work in progress, I'll continue to approach my salvation with fear and trembling-- and hopefully with lessening doubt and uncertainty.  So even though I felt like that twig in a hurricane all night, I was able to relax and close my eyes. 

And maybe, right now, that's exactly where God wants me.

School of Hard Knocks

My in-box, like the snail mail box at home, occasionally gets cluttered with stuff I have no intention of reading. Included in this virtual round file are all the e-vites I keep getting from Classmates dot com. If they only knew how much I hated high school, perhaps they'd quit soliciting me. Or I could simply unsubscribe to Classmates.com myself. But that would take effort. And at the moment, I’m conserving energy.

 

My high school days, spent at that cesspool otherwise known as San Juan High School, were on a completely different plane from the “Happy Days” of Fonzie and Richie Cunningham. Theirs were delightfully over in a half hour with nearly all issues resolved. Mine seemed to go on forever, left me feeling like a dork, that I didn’t belong or that my existence was pretty much useless. But if I somehow came through intact till 2:45 and another temporary reprieve, I'd have to get up and do it all over again at 8:15 the next morning.

 

At the home of the Mighty Spartan, my most notable accomplishments were being able to blend in with the other nameless rabble roaming the halls, stay out of trouble, under the radar and work just hard enough to get through the day. Oh, I learned I could kick a soccer ball and not hit a curve ball, but at the end of it all I was merely four years older, not necessarily wiser, and just one of a couple hundred other mostly average teenagers that graduated together one hot June evening when our sentence at San Juan High had been completed. Suffice to say, for me, high school sucked. It was the least favorite time of my life

 

I did manage to make a few friends along the way, though. Guys I hung out with after classes or soccer practice, loitering around at Foster’s Freeze on Greenback, or scoping out the girls at Sunrise Mall. Of course, it's true that most of the chicks we cruised were barely aware that my friends and I were even breathing. Yet watching and roving within the safety of a pack of like-losers made the perpetual brush-off a little more palatable. In fact, we just laughed it off; either at ourselves or at the girls. But let’s be honest. I knew it and so did everyone else: whether at school or at the Mall, when it came to the opposite sex I was nothing more than a window shopper. Able to look, but never able to buy.

 

And though I did successfully reach the end of my San Juan tenure with a shred of sanity and a valid diploma, the one thing I wanted more than anything out of high school, and seemed forever out of reach, was a girlfriend. Not a friend that happened to be girl, I wanted a real life girlfriend. Going through a dreadfully awkward time of life, lacking any sense of value, craving a sense of belonging and emotionally starved for affection, I wanted to find someone to love me. I longed for it.  And I never found it, at least not in high school. But not for lack of effort.

During my sophomore year, I developed an unspoken crush on a girl named Cheryl, a nice looking, popular girl who I shared several classes with We got along well enough, I think. At least she knew my name, talked to me and seemed un-repulsed by my mere presence. But silly me; I somehow interpreted all that to mean it was okay to speak up about how I felt and ask for a date.  And sillier me, one turn down wasn't enough. I let her turn me down twice.

The first time, Cheryl was polite and said she had “other plans”. A week or so later, I tried again (big mistake), and this time in the presence of some of her friends (bigger mistake). And this time, she was much more direct: “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

Yikes.

 

She broke from her friends and with a head nod, indicated I should follow. “Look, you’re a nice guy and I don’t want to hurt your feelings ...” (translation: she was going to anyway). Next, she gave me a brief lesson in chick-speak. "But when I say I'm 'busy' or have other plans, it's just a polite way of saying I don't want to go out with you.” 

Oh, so that's how it worked.

 

Then, she brought our little chat to a no-uncertain terms end with ground rules for any future discussion. “Quite honestly, I didn’t want to go out with you last week, I don’t want to go out with you now, and I won't want to next week or any other week, too. Okay?”

Okay!

 

Finally, she tossed in a cursory “Sorry” at me, before turning away and going back to her friends. As they walked off, I couldn’t help notice they were having a pretty good laugh, undoubtedly at my expense. I guess by schooling me on how the world worked, at least as it pertains to dating, Cheryl probably thought - in a perverse way- that she was doing me a favor. And maybe she had. But if I was now supposedly somewhat smarter, how come I felt so completely stupid?

 

Later that night Mom found me in my room, all bummed out, and asked what the trouble was. And if I'd only been mildly retarded, I'd have just answered I was having trouble with one of my classes. But, no, I told her point blank about the blunt rejection Cheryl had dealt me.  "Oh Honey, I'm sorry. That's too bad". Mom sounded sincere, though, and I honestly thought she understood how badly hurt I felt. If only she'd stopped there.

"But see? It's probably the way you look. What have I always told you? Girls don't like bums and slobs, 'ya know? That's kind of how you look sometimes and I'll bet it’s probably your hair that turned her off. Why don't you run out tomorrow and cut it and ask her again." Mom's ability to completely miss the point was often astounding. One, my hair wasn't that long; in fact it was much shorter than many of my peers and I felt no compulsion to cut it. And second, I was never going to ask Cheryl out again, under any circumstances. 

To be fair, I guess that was Mom's idea of being empathetic. But in my ears it just sounded cruel. I didn't need to be torn down any more than what Cheryl had already done. And whether it was the truth or not, what I needed right then was a little propping up, a little compassion. The 'ultimate make-over' talk could wait for another time. I wanted to curl up in a ball and die. And I wouldn't admit it because I was 16 and thought I was grown up, but right then I simply could've used a maternal hug.

But after Mom's mini-lecture, I meekly crawled back into my hole, believed the worst about myself and gave up the idea of ever winning the hand of a fair maiden at school. I stopped thinking, or even make-believing I was okay.  I had a sense of humor, was fun to be around and played sports. But none of that seemed to be working. And though my hair was usually combed, washed and seemed quite socially acceptable at school, I just couldn't make it or myself acceptable at home. And it often seemed like I never would. Sigh.

In Cheryl's defense, though, she didn't know me much beyond the superficial. But Mom had known me all my life. So I found her evaluation of me somewhat irritating, if not painful. Of course, as far as she was concerned, her "concern" was meant for my own good and spoken “in love. However, I'd lived with Mom's undercurrent of disapproval for a long time and it often irked me, mainly because I seldom felt the love and missed the “meant well” part altogether.

Still, it would have been so wonderful during those years if even just one sweet girl had taken an interest in me. One that I could grow close to and be friends with; one that cared for me and I for her. Then I could say to Mom (and maybe Cheryl too) “Hey look. Someone thinks I’m special. Me. Just the way I am. And you (Mom) had nothing to do with it.” That would have made me happy beyond description.

But I understood what Mom didn't or ever would. Cheryl didn't reject me because of my hair. She rejected me because I wasn't in her strata. I wasn't terribly “cool” yet, and none of my friends hung out with hers. I'd simply aimed too high. Despite Mom's insistence, it didn't matter if there was or wasn't enough "lipstick to cover this pig." In the superficial world of life between the ages of 12 and college, Cheryl wasn't going to go out with me under any circumstances, simply because I didn't stand out in the crowd. I was a bowl of vanilla. She was looking for a tall cone of pistachio tutti-fruity. Sigh.

 

I'm so glad I'm not in high school anymore.

Don't Call Us, We'll Call You

My dream job coming out of college would’ve been to work at KJRB, probably the coolest Top 40 AM station in Spokane. It was a lofty goal, but I had a diploma and high hopes. So, with an admittedly skimpy resume - but awesome college radio air check tape in hand, in my humble opinion, I set off to be the next greatest thing to hit the Inland Empire's airwaves since Rob “Hot Dog“ Harter. (That’s an inside joke: as a d.j. Rob Harter was pretty forgettable. I’ve never forgotten his name, though).

But I remember how school-boy excited I felt the day I was actually inside KJRB

 

From the outside, the building, on East 57^th Avenue , was a dump. But once privileged to walk thought the front door it was like I’d just entered Oz’s Emerald City. I wasn’t just listening to my favorite radio station; I was actually within the place where it all happened. I’d broken the plane, crossed the unseen divide; I had my foot in the door.

 

And then I was in the office of the man who made it all happen, program director and midday jock, Jon Sherman. I’d listened to Jon almost every day for almost four years, but to be sitting in his small glass enclosed office and talking shop, having a personal one-on-one discussion about coming to work for him, was beyond inspiring. And when he took me around and showed me the behind-the-scenes intricacies of how this jewel of a radio station was run, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

 

I so wanted to work there, even if it was only doing the Sunday morning public affairs shift. Even if it was only writing news copy all night Even if it was only taking out the trash. Jon, just let me in! And Jon was very nice, very encouraging, spent over a half hour with me, took my air check tape, said he’d preview it, and that he’d keep in touch.

 

And like a dope, I believed him.

In those days I was still idealistic enough to take what people said to me at face value. But starting with Jon Sherman and working my way through all the other futile job interviews that summer, it didn’t take long to become jaded enough to realize that “I'll be in touch” was simply double-secret program director’s code for, "You’ll never hear from me again.”

It also didn't take long to understand, that without much practical experience, bagging a job at KJRB or anyplace else in the Spokane market was kind of a pipe dream. I wasn't that stupid. But, young and dumb enough, I pressed on anyway, all the way to the worst job hunting experience that summer: the day I called on KHQ.

At 590 on the dial, KHQ-AM was one of the oldest signals in the Northwest, and a legacy NBC affiliate. It was kind of the “establishment” station; the music was middle of the road, appealing to adults 35 and up. Not a listener, and not at all even close to my mid-30's, KHQ would not normally top the list of broadcast facilities I’d be seeking work in. And, in fact, it wasn't- it was my last.  But running out of local radio station doors to bang on, it’d suddenly moved to the apex of my search. By then, the honest-to-God’s truth was I'd have bussed the bathrooms there if they’d let me on the air.

 

The studios at KHQ were lavish and extravagant, the interior design reminiscent of a grand broadcast studio right out of the 1940's or 50's. The large, spacious lobby was adorned with photo portraits of all the air personalities, and.an elaborate staircase led to the radio studios and business offices on the building's upper level.

 

Off the lobby, two double doors led into the television wing of the operation. KHQ, Channel 6, was probably the most watched TV station at the time, and like the radio station was the NBC affiliate for Spokane. As I waited for my 2 pm appointment with Chuck Heaton, program director for both KHQ AM & FM, if he had nothing currently available on the radio, I wondered if perhaps there was something I could do for Channel 6 in the meantime, like maybe running one of the cameras. They certainly wouldn’t be putting me in front of one.

 

I was 15 minutes early and had plenty of time to ponder crazy stuff like that. It was crazy because I had only nominal radio experience, and not the slightest clue about how television worked besides turning it on and changing channels. What made me think a first class operation like KHQ would just turn over their expensive equipment to a dummy like me?

 

And looking around the ornate lobby waiting for 2:00 to arrive, I wondered if I might be in over my head; not to mention, a tad bit underdressed. Though I’d slapped on a tie, I wondered if I should’ve rented a suit, too; and maybe fattened up my resume. And like I always contemplated, whenever I was nervous to the point of wanting to run like hell, I wondered whether I should just get up and leave.

 

Before I could make an easy get-away, though, and right on the dot at 2:00 Mr. Heaton buzzed the receptionist for me to come up. She pointed to the staircase then told me to go through another set of double doors when I got to the top.

 

The doors at the top had little round windows at eye level to peek through, and when I got to the landing, I got on my tip toes and looked in. I saw the back of somebody’s head talking to another person down the corridor and I and quickly stepped back. That was close.  I composed myself, took a deep breath and pushed through the doors. As I sort of suspected, I’d glimpsed the back of Mr. Heaton’s head, there waiting to greet me. Fortunately he hadn’t seen me peeking in like a little kid- not that that’d necessarily be a deal breaker. But it wasn’t exactly the kind of first impression I wanted to make.

 

Chuck Heaton was a pleasant man, about 50 I guess; trim, relaxed and well-coiffed. Even so, it was a 95 degree day and his tie was loosed at the collar and he’d long since removed his suit jacket. My tie was not loosed and the rest of me was nervously perspiring as if awaiting execution, which had become standard operating procedure whenever I was on a job interview. It hadn’t helped that he’d almost started me at the doorway.

 

After the introductory pleasantries, Mr. Heaton congratulated me on my recent graduation and mentioned a daughter at WSU (Washington State University) who was graduating the following year. He then turned the conversation back on me, asking about my goals, dreams and ambitions. Without hesitation I told him I wanted to be a radio personality, that it's all I ever really wanted to do and would do anything to achieve it. 

 

“Why?”

 

Why?  Umm, why do you think? Because I want to be on the radio, you moron.

 

Of course I didn't answer that way. But wanting to say something meaningful, thoughtful, and wise beyond my years, I made something up. I told him I wanted to disseminate information to the public as best I could, and play the music the radio station thought best served its listeners. Sir.

 

Of course it was just a line of b.s. Nobody gets into radio for that. You get into radio because it’s fun. In the beginning it is anyway. So I answered the way I thought he wanted me to answer; which was certainly better than the first thing that popped into my head: Because it looks like an easy way to make a living and impress girls.

 

Chuck briefly chewed on my ostentatious response, rubbing his chin. He’s not buying it. I need to try again. Then he told me to follow him. First he led me down the hall to the radio studios and introduced me to Dave Rodgers, the afternoon guy.  I’d heard Dave the few times I'd accidentally tuned KHQ in.  He was good, fun to listen to and by his voice, I imagined him being a tall, athletic guy. Well, he was tall. But when he turned around, and stood to greet me, I met a chain smoking man wearing a too tight button-down shirt straining to cover a gorged belly. He likely hadn't seen his toes in ten years, or been in a gym even longer. That's Dave Rogers? 

 

Geez Louise! If that's what happens to you after a few years in radio, maybe I don't want to do it after all.

But once past the shock of matching the face to the voice, I studied him at work; cueing up 45's , answering phones, pulling copy and stacking his spots. All the activity made his face turn red. He started breathing hard and I thought he might be croaking; then he cleared his throat, sounding like a garbage disposal. It was disturbing. But it’s what he did every time before opening the mic.  

 

And sure enough, when he was “on”, he was on- the same smooth, happy talking voice boomed out of him, clear and clean and just like I'd heard on the radio. The transformation was amazing.

Then he closed the mic and started hacking again. I wondered if KHQ kept paramedics standing by when 'ol Dave Rogers was on the air. It looked and sounded like he was destined for an early grave.

The next stop was a glass encased room behind and adjacent to the KHQ-AM studio. This was the room where KHQ-FM (or Rock-98 as it was known) resided. Rock-98 was a totally automated operation and seemed more like an afterthought than a radio station. At least it played stuff people my age listened to. But it was just a wall of computers with 12 inch reels that played the music, and two big revolving carousel machines where the jingles and commercials resided. The machine found and cued them up when they were ready to be aired. Human beings need not apply here.

I didn’t quite understand the technology yet, but Mr. Heaton said every song, jingle and commercial had a “cue tone” so the machine knew when one element was over and in what order to start next. The ‘station’ was programmed a week at a time.

”So even if we wanted to play a request”, he explained “we couldn’t. But the kids that listen to this crap don’t know that. They call in at all hours, an answering machine takes their calls and nobody knows the difference. Rock 98 generates a ton of money with almost no overhead. It’s the wave of the future.”  He said it with a slight air of over-confidence, like a guy who'd figured out the magic formula for making big profits without having to pay people, while lining his own pockets at the same time. I hated the entire concept.

After Rock 98, I was given a quick look at the radio news operation. The space was the size of a large dining room, with five teletype machines running, a couple guys sitting at typewriters banging out copy, and a tiny, tiny news studio booth. The workspace was so noisy I wondered how any of the news crew concentrated. The place was a cacophony of ‘mixed’ signals. Dave Rogers and KHQ-AM was playing over one speaker; Rock 98 was coming out of another, and the NBC Radio Network from New York was blaring away in another. I thought the network only was there for the five minute newscast at the top of the hour. But apparently they fed programming content and spots every couple minutes all day long. Plus if some big National story broke, the local affiliates would know when a bulletin was coming down the line.

 

Then Mr. Heaton took me out of the noisy newsroom and down a back corridor into the TV studios where it was absolutely still. It was three hours till the 5:30 newscast and the set was completely deserted, the news stage, the anchors desk and Channel 6 “weather station.”  It all seemed so impressive on TV, but looked so humble and ordinary when standing in the midst of it. Up close and in person, it looked sort of second hand, too, like stuff you'd find at a yard sale. It was a little deflating, like seeing the real Dave Rogers and learning that Rock 98 was just a high-tech bucket of bolts.

After the studio tour and a Coke from the soda machine that he bought for me, Mr. Heaton took me back to his office and we talked a little more. The way the meeting had been going, I thought we’d been on the same wavelength, thought he liked me and we were hitting it off. I almost dared think I had a real shot at maybe coming away with something entry level. But then he gave me the straight scoop.

“Here's how it is. You’re well educated and seem to have a good head on your shoulders. But I’ve listened to your tape and you just sound too young and inexperienced for us. Our audience is mostly adults 35 and up. I’m sorry but I don’t think we can ever bring you on”

Ever? Ever? I wasn't going to be 23 forever.

”Well, what if I go out and work in a small market and get some more useful experience besides college radio? Could I come back in a year or two and discuss this again?”

It was a reasonable counter and figured it showed ambition, desire and drive. But blowing me off, Chuck Heaton didn't even blink. “No. You see, in a year or two, you’ll be a year or two older." Well, at least he could add. "And maybe I could bring you on then. But then there’s always going to be somebody younger and hungrier coming up behind you, wanting your job. And then I’d just end up having to let you go. And nobody wants that.” 

Huh?  Based on what? This was 1978. How did he know what might or might not happen in 1980? Where was his crystal ball?

 

When we’d first started talking, I thought Chuck Heaton was a pretty smart guy, but nothing he’d said in the last five minutes could be reinforced with any intuitive logic. It was nonsense. I didn’t get it. If I was ‘too young” to work at KHQ at 23, how could I possibly be considered “too old” to work there at 25? Where was the reasoning in that? They're admitted demographic started 10 years above that. I'd also just had a 45 minute look around and, except for the receptionist I hadn’t seen anyone working at KHQ under 40.

Nothing was adding up.

I guess it was a kind of corporate through-the-looking glass gobbledygook employed by people in power to avoid simply speaking directly. I’d soon enough discover this wouldn’t be the last time in my professional life that a manager, co-worker or potential employer would soft shoe around the truth. I'd also learn that some did it better than others. But it was an eye-opener to be on the receiving end of some executive slight-of-hand-deception for the very first time. It certainly punched a hole in my naive view of the world.

Ah, but even I had begun to detect the stench of bullshit.

Chuck Heaton was trying to hand me a 10 pound bag of manure, disguised as fact, that he wanted me to take into the backyard garden and plant flowers in it. At best, the crap he was spreading around was disingenuous conjecture based on incomplete assumptions. At worst, he was full of himself and liked to make stuff up to get rid of people. But to end things on a high note and “help" in my vocational search, Chuck offered this pearl of wisdom as he showed me to the door.

“Maybe you should consider selling shoes or another line of work. I honestly don’t think you’re going to make it in radio, son”

And you know that, how, you pompous condescending windbag? 

But he just smiled an insincere smile, shook my hand and that was it. Meeting adjourned. Chuck Heaton went back to work and I walked down the palatial staircase and out to my car. I yanked off my tie, got in and sat in the driver’s seat stunned, steamed and wondering what just happened.

 

The other people I’d interviewed with that summer had at least tried to spare my feelings. But Mr. Heaton had gone 10 miles out of his way to tell me I sucked, before I’d even been given the chance to suck. He also told me I was both too young and too old to work for him. What the hell was that, the new math? I went home mad and promised myself I'd never forget Chuck Heaton.

 

And I haven’t.  However, though he never hired me, I've always been sort of grateful to him for getting me started. He made me so mad I'd have done anything to prove the arrogant old SOB wrong. Six weeks later I landed my first on-air job at a KEZC-FM in Truckee, California. And more than 30 years later, I've enjoyed a wide and varied broadcasting career that's still going. And where's Chuck Heaton? 

 

He’s either dead or long retired. And still wrong.