Memories of being a teenager at a rock radio station

If you're on Facebook, you know that people from your past find you and remind you of your youth. It's great to hear from them, even just to learn they are still extant. A girl I never dated but had a crush on as a high school sophomore -- this is 1968 we're talking about, far enough back for "Midnight Confessions" to be the anthem of the crush -- surfaced as a happily-married West Virginian. (It is useful to make it clear I am happily-married myself because then I can hear how such a one is doing without fear of misunderstanding or what Paul Simon would call "hints and allegations.") Today I became Facebook friends with Dennis Constantine and Jack Casey, with whom I worked at WYRE Annapolis. I was there 1972-1975, when I was 19 to 22, and it was the best job I had until my current one, though there were some very fine jobs in between. Annapolis, Md., is a bedroom community of both Baltimore and Washington, D.C., though it's an hour drive from Annapolis to either of those cities. Annapolis is not only the state capital and home to the Naval Academy but also the county seat of Anne Arundel County, which stretches north to Baltimore. I grew up in Glen Burnie, a nice name for a not-very-pretty town -- Hawaii readers, think Wahiawa but without the charm -- about two-thirds of the way from Annapolis to Baltimore. I broke into radio in my senior year in high school working for free doing news on WNAV Annapolis, which I think Pat Sajak owns now. In those days it was owned by its founder and not living up to its potential. That was okay because I was 17 and hardly living up to my potential. A year later I was in community college and was cast in the Vincent Price role in "Angel Street," the play that became the movie "Gaslight." I went to WYRE to record a promotional announcement for the play. Dennis Constantine, the program director, was going to make me wait until he was free to record it. I told him I could record it myself if he had a "cart," a tape-loop in a cartridge that in those days was the universal format for recording commercials, jingles and so on. Intrigued at the idea I could tannya a promo "direct to cart" he tossed one to me, which I caught one-handed, the only time in my 55 years I have ever caught anything thrown at me one-handed, and while he waited I tannyabed a promo in one take. By the time I left the station I was its new Glen Burnie stringer, and soon I was working for it full-time. WYRE was a weird, wonderful station. In a day when people still listened to rock on AM, it was a daytime station with what should have been a weak signal, made strong by a series of excellent chief engineers who did everything possible and somethings that skirted the law to make it a kick-ass source of rock music, local news, Chesapeake Bay marine weather, and tide timetables. The marine weather was always sponsored and had its own jingle. Most of the jocks came from Baltimore or D.C. I was one of the few who actually lived in Annapolis, and it was a great place for a single young man to work. My air work was immature but energetic, and at its occasional best it may even have foreshadowed what I do now, more than 30 years later. I worked for three program directors in three years all of whom went on to program major market rockers. The general manager, himself a former rock jock from Baltimore (Kerby Scott, real name Kerby Confer, now owns a chain of stations) and set the tone for the place, encouraging creativity. Perhaps the best thing I can say about WYRE is that almost everybody I worked with at the station is still in broadcasting.

Comments

[Erika Engle]

I remember you talking about the marine report w/its own jingle backstage at Gridiron. This was a GREAT story, Howard. Then again, aside from your beloved Marilyn and Bernadette, I am among your biggest fans. (((( hugs ))))
I literally laughed out loud at your line about not living up to your potential at age 17.
Your "voice" is so distinctive, both IRL and in virtual ink, that I can hear you in my head as I read your words. I took my twin sons to a recent slam-poetry tournament at Farrington HS (notably, won by Farrington and Waianae HSs) - and one of their teammates may as well have been you at that age. I was spellbound as he recited his slam poem about cheesecake. It was brilliant, as are you.
[And you, Erika, are a sweetie of the first water. HMD]