How Do We Get To Be Who We Are

If you are part of the circle which I live you have heard me tell this story before. How did I get here in my life where I am now especially when I was 12 what I wanted to do.  Back during my hey day it was the 60's and am radio was king.  The big 50,000 watt stations boomed into eastern North Carolina at night  and my two favorite DJ's were "Cousin Brucie" on WABC in New York and at the time Jackson Armstrong WKBW Buffalo New York. 

"Brucie was the #1 jock in America and he played the rock and roll hits.  I liked Armstrong because he played the hits too but he talked so fast if you didn't know the lingo you missed it with him.  My grand father Minton gave me a 6" reel to reel tape recorder  when I was 12 and I use to hold the mic up to my record player and record songs.   I would wait until WABC played a jingle.  WABC had a simple one where a group of singers would  sing   the call letters W A B C or Sing out "Cousin Brucie".. I would then splice out the jingle  and I would talk into my mic as if I was "Cousin Brucie" then play a record  like the Beach Boys Good Vibrations and hold my mic over my player and record the song.  I would then splice in the jingle and record another record and then after my 30 minute tape was completed I would lay back on my bed and listen to myself being a bedroom disc jockey.

That of course led me to go to work at WRCS radio in Ahoskie in 1970 and after graduation from high school went to work the following Monday as a full time jock in Ahoskie.  I pretty much played radio until 1976 and upcoming marriage led me to believe that being a disc jockey  in Ahoskie was not going to feed my family the way I desired so I found a sales job as a living and played sportscaster for the rest of my life.

The live ball games on radio are dwindling for me so it has been more taped TV in the past few years.  Now this brings on the story of how did I get into the blogging business?  My freshman year in High school my first period class, was English which is not a very good way to start any day in high school.  In fact it is not a very good day at all when you have to take English as a 13 year old.

My second class of the day was typing.  Like all typing classes you were timed and ever how many mistakes you made was how you were graded.  Almost every Friday our typing teacher Mrs Taylor would give us a timed test and after than was over do what ever you wanted as long as it didn't require spit balls or excessive noise disturbing other classes down the hall..

My little group of us football players who all sat in the back corner would sleep, talk about girls or in my case I would write made up sports stories about the guys around me.  The stories were as long as time allowed and for me to read my results back to the guys before class ended.  They would go something  like this.

Ahoskie High JV football team beat Edenton yesterday when Clint Steele tackled  the Ace's quarter back causing a fumble.  Jimmy Godwin   the Indians linebacker    pick up the fumble and start running the wrong way causing Bobby Harrell Ahoskie end to give chase to Godwin and tackled him before he cross the wrong goal.  The force of the tackle caused Godwin  to fumble where "Hoss" Earley lineman for the Indians scooped up the fumble where he preceded to run 90 yards the right way for an Ahoskie score.  The touchdown secured another conference championship for the Ahoskie JV's.

They were funny stories that everyone liked and every body thought I would got to school to be a newspaper sports reporter.  As I progressed into the radio sports business my becoming a newspaper man took a back seat and with the advent of the blogs it has brought  me back to writing as the live play by play gig dwindled..  The late Charles Alston rode with me to many games when we were doing Gryphon sports on the radio and we had many discussions traveling to and fro  and once he started the Gryphon Grapevine I ask him if I could write a weekly column  for the Grapevine.  It didn't take long before Charles set me up with this blog and it is almost a daily obsession for me. 

So you see, whether it is talking on the radio or writing this blog it is in my genes.  Just imagine if I had of played the drums instead of a reel to reel tape recorder where would I have been now?