Crusty's Journal

It seems as if the thing to do this week for computer users is to write down 25 things about themselves and send them to 25 friends, hoping you will get 25 back in return.

1)      When I was born, people thought times were good.  The unemployment rate was 17%.

2)      I graduated from high school without ever hearing a “rock and roll” record. Maybe my class of 1953 was one of the last  to graduate without hearing one. 

3)      When I was small, I spent a lot of time with my grand parents’ farm in Perry County, Ohio.  There was no electricity there until I was about 10 years old.

4)      I was the first music programmer in a major market to program a record by Anne Margaret. That earned me a lot of lunches, dinners and booze with her, courtesy of RCA, her record label. 

5)      I was the first music programmer to program a Gary US Bonds record. The name of is was a Quarter to Three.  Also, the first to program Michael, by the Highwaymen, and The Way You Look Tonight, by the  Lettermen,

6)      When his PR people wanted Col. Harlan Sanders to be on a show I was producing in Cleveland in 1962, I wired him for sound and sent him out onto the street with a tin cup, asking passerby for money.  His story was that KYC had gone bust; he was stranded in Cleveland and was trying to raise money to get back to Kentucky.  He thought it was a lot of fun.

7)       I have only cried during two funerals.  One was when I was conducting part of the service for a good friend, Mari-jo Stevenson. As her husband Steve, also a very good friend passed her casket on his way up to take communion; he reached underneath and patted the bottom of her casket, just about where her fanny was located. That was one of the most loving gestures I've ever seen. 

8)      The other time was at my brother’s funeral.  He was buried beside by grand dad, Quincy, and my grand mother Edith, in a small cemetery in Perry County.  I was trying to read a poem he wanted read at his grave side, and was so overwhelmed with tears that I had trouble finishing it.  I think it was because those three people have as much of a parenting connection with me as did my parents.   Maybe more.

9)      In about 1961, I went to lunch with a black singer, maybe Jackie Wilson, but I am not sure who it was.  His manager went along to pick up the check.  We walked into to one of the better restaurants in downtown Cleveland, were seated promptly, but no waiter or waitress came to take our order.  After we had spent 45 minutes or so chatting, it occurred to me that we were not getting service because they were black.  We discussed that possibility and at about 1:00 we decided that since none of us had anything pressing to do that afternoon, we would see what would happen if we just continued to sit there.  By about 2:30 we were the only customers left in the room, and they took our order and served us.  There was no apology or anything for making us wait that long.  I don’t think the manager left very much in the way of a tip.  I should have known not to take them there.  In those days, a black could not get a room in any downtown upscale hotel in Cleveland.

10)   I have seen every president, except Barak Obama, in person since Jack Kennedy.

11)   I answered media queries in Governor James Rhodes office the day the students were shot at Kent State, in May of 1970.

12)  I have been in stage in hundreds of productions and probably have done thousands of performances in public of some kind. .

13)  I bought my first foreign car, new, for $1,400 dollars in 1959.  It was a Fiat 600

14)    While I had been a reporter in Erie Pa in about 1960, I did not really start to be interested in politics until I moved to Lima, Ohio in 1962.  I spent a few years there and thought of myself as being a liberal democrat.  However, that was only because I was in the middle of a VERY conservative Republican area.  When I moved to Columbus in about 1966, I discovered I was really pretty conservative. I remain conservative on fiscal matters relating to government, but liberal on human and civil rights issues.

15)    I soloed an airplane when I was 18, and have remained interested in aviation ever since.  My first solo flight was in a 1941 Taylor craft.  It was made mostly of wood and cloth, and the odor of gasoline was so strong in the cockpit that I never even considered lighting a cigarette while flying it.

16)    I am skilled at horsemanship, because of my Dads love of the animals.  It seems as if I have always known how to ride a horse, and passed along some of his love and knowledge to my kids.

17)    I didn’t know it for a long time, but I love the adrenalin rush.  I learned to ski when I was 30, and liked it so much I tried to get jobs in Colorado, so I could ski nearly year round.  The only thing for me that compares to skiing is driving a race car at speed.  In both cases, and is also somewhat the case with flying an airplane, if one makes a mistake one gets instant feedback.  With all three the feedback can come in the form of pain.

18)   The last alcoholic drink I had before typing this was January 16, 1986.  I never thought I could be happy with out alcohol, however, after 23 years, I am happier now than I ever thought I could be. The steps of AA work.  The promises come true.

19)   The first time I got paid to be on the radio, it was in 1952 and I was one of a barbershop quartet which was paid to be on a talent show in Zanesville.  I was also paid to sing while I was still in elementary school.  I was a boy soprano, singing in the choir at trinity Episcopal Church in downtown Columbus.  We each had a contract so we would not leave and sing in the much better known Columbus Boy choir. 

20)    At ten years of age I would take a street car or bus from Clintonville to downtown Columbus by myself for rehearsals.  Often I would ride public transportation home after the rehearsal and it would be dark.  Not something I’d let a kid do today.

21)  My family sold nearly everything at auction in 1942 so we could move to Vero Beach, Florida where my Dad was stationed in the US Coast Guard. My mother, brother and I drove there, with mother driving at 35 miles per hour (The Victory speed limit) in a 1938 Chevy two door deluxe.  I did not know it at the time, but I’ll bet enlisting at 43 years of age, as Dad did, cost him a bundle of money.  I know the family was dead broke when we returned from Florida when he was discharged. 

22)    I was not a good student in school.  I had an undiagnosed learning disability, but had a very high IQ.  I graduated near the bottom of my High School Class, but today, all my classmates think I was near the top.  Interesting how 50 plus years can change things. I did better in college but ended up in the middle of the class.

23)    I hurt a lot of people over the years.  I have tried to repair the damage I did. 

24)    If I had life to do all over again, I don’t think I’d change very much, except I would quit drinking and smoking at a much younger age than I did.  As Mickey Mantle said, “If I’d know I was going to live this long, I’d of taken better care of myself.”

25)    My philosophy comes from places different than most people.  I believe in a “Force” and a “Dark Side” very similar to that shown in the Star Wars movies.  My outlook on the end of life is the same as Captain Hook in the Peter Pan story.  “Death is life’s last great adventure.”  I got the inspiration for my current life from something sewn on the back of a baseball cap advertising Planet Hollywood.  “Love All -- Serve All."