A little help, please?

In radio, you don't start out at a big station, and really, you shouldn't, anyway. It's working in the small town radio stations that helps build the skills to carry one to a larger market station. In fact, I knew a guy when we were starting out in the "biz" who got his first job as the overnight DJ at a Baltimore station, through a unique set of circumstances, and he envied those of us who went to work in the tiny stations where you got to do it all: play the records, read the news, empty the trash, be the engineer, sell some ads, mop the floor, all that.

Not going into too much detail here, but in 1972 I got my first job at a small station in Southern Maryland. The station had been built into an old hermit's abandoned house out in the middle of a huge field off the main road. I was 20 and, like all 20-year-olds, did not know nearly as much as I thought I knew. So when the station manager, who just happened to be the son-in-law of the owner, decided to take his wife on a six-week trip to the deserts of New Mexico in search of greater mind expansion (make of that what you will) six months after I started out, it seemed altogether fitting and proper to me that he would put me in charge of the whole operation before leaving to get in touch with Native American shamans. (Shamen?)

Things went well for the first little while. I guess it was 45 minutes before DJs started not showing up, bill collectors started calling, repossessors started repossessing, and then it got worse. Another station in the area, sensing that we had a real wise hand at the wheel, started some business trouble for us. And I needed advice on other topics too. It really was a good thing that I was too dumb to know I was not quite ready to have the keys turned over to me.

But I had friends up the road. Chris - whom I had known since Sunday School and grade school, and whose entry into radio encouraged me to go for it as well - and Dennis, with whose cousin I had gone to high school - were both great guys, working for a great station in Annapolis, which was sort of competition for us, in the way that Joe's Burgers and Subs is competition for the McDonald's chain. I called them for help several times. They could have laughed and said "Sink or swim, kid." But they didn't. They came through, helped me handle every problem and coached me on a lot of areas.

Again, no details here, but I see both of these fellows on Facebook now and I want to share this with them. I want them to know that all these years later, I have tried to remember how helpful they were. I read in a book of essays by Bob Greene about a female DJ who was being harrassed by hangup callers, and how it affected her work, and Dennis, her boss at the time, was mentioned by Greene in the story for how helpful he tried to be.

There was a first for everyone. The first time Dr Ben Carson operated on someone's brain, you can bet that a trusted advisor was right there with him. If you think I am comparing myself to Dr Carson, perhaps you should call him and get a noodle check. No, what I'm saying is, I learned from those two fine gentlemen that every beginner deserves a fair shake, good guidance, and hearty encouragement. My career path took me away from radio, but along the road I've walked, I've been a supervisor to many people, and any time I might have even thought of not being as patient as I ought to, the image of a skinny longhaired kid drowning in FCC citations, screaming phone calls and complaints about jingles getting help from two mentors always brought me around.

I'm trying to thank people who have meant a lot to me. Thank you, Dennis and Chris.