As were are talking about the history of WIFC yesterday I noticed a post on the Facebook site “You Know You're from Wausau If”…if you are a Wausau native or just want to learn more about your adopted city you should check out this page. It's full of history and rememberances of the the Wausau area through the years. Someone will post a picture or a description of a place or building or business and the floodgates of memories open for people. One person's memories will jog another's and the chain builds. Yesterday was such a case for me as a guy posted a short recording of a commercial and promo that aired on WIFC in 1976. It was a commercial for a stereo shop called Sound North and a promo for the WIFC celebrity basketball team “The Dirty Dribblers”. I was a young college student at UWSP who was interested in the radio biz and was lucky enough to be working on the air weekends on WIFC. I usually worked Sunday nights and filled in at other times when I was available. It was valuable training and I was surrounded by an airstaff that was loaded with talent. The morning man was Sebastian Oliver Stone or SOS. He called himself “The Morning Mouth” and had a huge following in the area. He was a funny guy. The midday jock was Tom Collins (real name Tom Bedore…the older brother of standup comedian Tim Bedore who was a classmate of mine at UWSP)…he was the program director of the station and the guy who hired me. I will always remember him kindly as the guy who gave a young, green college kid a chance to learn the job by doing the job (I'm sure I was terrible when I started). Afternoons were the domain of Jim Owen who called himself “The Duke Of Madness”. He was a long-haired music freak and he let me sit in the studio while he worked. I spent many an hour talking music with The Duke. At night it was Tom Hudson (The Incredible Hud) who also had a huge following. He was a real nice guy who ate more than anybody I ever saw. He had a huge burger named after him at a local bar (The Office I think…where the police station is now). The other weekend guys were Tom Kaye (who later worked full time at the station) and Dave Taylor. The spring and summer of 1976 was a magical time for me. I was having a blast and in the fall left on my semester abroad in England. I will always thank Collins as well for letting me back on the air when I returned. who knows how my life may have turned out if he hadn't done that. You remember the speech that James Earl Jones gives in the movie “Field Of Dreams”…one of his lines says something about 'the memories will be so strong they'll have to brush them away from their faces”. That's what one 60 second snippet of old radio audio did for me yesterday.
Songs Of The Day (from my Ipod) a couple of debut tunes today
