IT'S A BOY

I spent the first 18 years of my life in a house filled with testosterone. The word filled, however, is relative. It was my dad, my younger brother, my mother and me and we weren't the most athletic family on the block. My dad loved Broadway shows and movies. Our combined testosterone level was boosted only by the fact that my mom could throw a runner out at home from center field and once kicked a field goal – barefoot. Yes, she broke her toe. The doctor, when she explained to him how she had broken it, told her, “Suffer, you idiot!” My first daughter was born when I was 28 years old and that was the beginning of what was to become a hormonal heaven on earth (if that concept is even possible) for a very long time. When my daughter was 4, a baby sister came along so, now there were 3 females and me in the house. I was surrounded by girls and I loved every minute. As the girls began to grow, I was able to see things from a perspective I never could before. Oh, I had been young once and had grown as well and had gone through a lot of what they were going through but I was a boy and grew up in the 50's. There was a whole different value system that it took the 60's to remedy so that by the time my girls came along in the mid to late 70's, I was able to see them without the societal restraints of a couple of decades earlier. I didn't have to “not” teach them how to box because they were girls – I had the heavy bag in the garage and my oldest became proficient enough to break a guys nose once, when he wouldn't leave her alone. She even, while training years ago, got to spar with Leila Ali. My girls learned from me and I learned immeasurable amounts from them. Still, though, I was a guy and lived in a house full of girls. When the girls where pre to early teen, my ex and I made the informed and correct decision to go our separate ways. The girls went with her but, for as long as we all lived in the same vicinity, my house was still filled with girls every weekend. In the 90's I moved to Dallas and my ex took the girls to Orlando. I saw them from time to time and always cherished those extended stays when they visited from across the country and could spend an appreciable amount of time. I loved my “house full of girls”......even though now, it was sporadic at best. Then, I met a wonderful woman whom I dated, fell in love with and married in a relatively short amount of time - less than a year - which I always had to justify by saying, “Yeah well, the last time, I got married in a week....so....” She brought with her, two beautiful children........one of them a gorgeous little girl with big eyes and curly hair and the other a boy. I legally adopted my new wife's little angels and made them mine that week. “Uh-oh,” I thought, “What have I gotten myself into? What the hell am I gonna do with a boy? All I know is girls.” Girls, I reasoned, that I had taught to box and to play ball and do all the things society had told girls they didn't do. I figured, hell, I could just treat him the same way. With the all the love, respect and support that any person deserves when doing whatever it is they choose to do. Of course, the ploy worked and, as icing on the cake, I got to coach Little League, go to H.S. Football and LaCrosse games and, from time to time, as he got older, do “guy” stuff, like smoking cigars. Stuff that I would never subject my girls to (unless, of course, they wanted to) and I got to raise him with a sensitivity to the issues of all of the females around him, including the new one who joined us the following year when my wife got pregnant with my 4th daughter. My two oldest daughters were now married and pursuing what have become very successful lives thus far. My oldest daughter and her husband have chosen not to have children but my 2nd has 3......all girls. I like to tell people that “I have a mother, an e-wife, a current wife, 4 daughters and 3 granddaughters. There is NEVER a time when someone in my life isn't cranky!” My son has been on his own for the past 10 years or so and is now living close to us in South Florida where he is building a nice clientele as a cranial artiste (I believe we used to call them barbers) and is now a father to be himself. His fiance' called a few hours ago to tell us that they had been to the doctor and – it's a boy. The chain has been broken. I think that, between my son and I, the “Little Prince” will have, at least, a slight advantage as he navigates through the plethora of sisters, step-sisters, cousins and other female family folk when they pounce on him and smother him with all the love and devotion he will ever need........just before he steps outside to join his dad and his grandpa in a good cigar.

9-11-2001 Redux

Remember where YOU were on 9-11-2001? Of course you do. We always remember where we were and what we were doing during what seem, at the time, to be earth shattering events. Catastrophic weather, space shuttle disasters, assassinations and the like. I am very clear about days of note during my life time. The assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK and John Lennon, the Challenger explosion, the deaths of Elvis and Michael Jackson. Times in history that are etched in our memories in their magnitude and scope. 9-11, however, stands out for me as the all time worst day of my career. I have been on the air during a number of “bad days” and always made it through them with fairly little effort, and, so it appeared on that fateful day on 2001. The morning started normally. My partner at the time, Lori and I met in one of the production rooms an hour before the show to share the “prep” we had individually done and map out our “breaks” for that day. We didn't always follow the map, in fact, we rarely did, but, it was always nice to have a plan and we did this every morning. The show was going well that morning. We had done a couple of silly, pre-produced “bits” and were preparing for a hearty game “Stump the Chumps” while “Today's Hits and Yesterday's Favorites” graced the virtual turntables and permeated the airwaves, when Lori went to the room we all referred to as the “Dead Break Lounge” for another cup of coffee. She never made it to that end of the hall. There was a TV between the beak room and the studio and she saw a plane hit a building. She ran back into the room to tell me what she had just seen and we went on the air with it. “It looks like a small plane has accidentally flown into one of the World Trade Center towers,” we reported, adding, “As soon as we have more information, we'll bring it to you.” Next song. And then............it all hit the fan. Once second plane hit the WTC, everyone began to realize what was happening. We were watching chaos unfold in front of our eyes and we weren't sure what to do. Obviously, the first thing was to suspend all the music and try to explain something that we didn't understand any more than those listening. We became a “clearing house” for all the info we were getting from other sources and as we attempted to disseminate what were seeing on the TV in the hall, people began to call in droves. We were inundated with emotion and opinion and realized that, perhaps we should try to, at least, serve as the voice of some semblance of reason. We tried to calm fears and explain, to the best of our ability, what we knew. It wasn't very much. At one point, I said, “I have been doing radio for many years and for the first time in my career, I can't think of anything to say.” I was at a complete loss for words. It was pretty unprofessional, but, it was also a very real moment. Shortly before our shift ended, the decision was made to switch all programming over to our parent company, ABC, whose capable news team took over the task of explaining the unexplainable to listeners who wanted answers. Our shows for the remainder of the week were music free and we continued taking phone calls, giving the listeners an outlet to vent and discuss. Each morning, for 5 hours, we handled call after call after call while, as I stated earlier, trying to be the best “voice of reason” we could possibly be. I went home after our show on Friday, proud of the way we had handled a very intense and tough week. I was proud of our professionalism in the face of disaster and I held my head high. Until I got into bed to take my daily nap. That's when the magnitude of what had happened over the prior week hit my like a brick. We had been in the same position as every other American. We were angry and confused and had been a sounding board for all of our listeners for days, absorbing all their anxiety and emotion. I curled up into the fetal position and began to sob. And that's where and how I spent the entire weekend. I finally stopped crying on Sunday night and was able to return to the air on Monday, but, by that point, the world as we knew it had changed forever.