THE PERCEPTION OF FAME

“Fame” is relative. It depends on who you ask, about whom and when. After nearly a half century on the air in various ways, shapes and incarnations. I am still referred to by the vast majority of those asked, as “Who?” “Fame” is also subjective. It too elicits a response of, “Who?” Funny how that works. Just as Art is in the eye of the beholder, fame is often found in the same place. Ones level of fame is directly related to the amount of fawning someone else wants to do. By virtue of the fact that I was fortunate enough to work at a few top tier radio stations in some pretty enormous markets (Philly, Chicago & Dallas - 3 of the top 5) and I got to spend 25 years doing a syndicated network morning show on 260 radio stations across the country and in the Caribbean, it was clearly evident that I possessed the sometimes supernatural ability to “be in the right place at the right time.” To ask me who was the most famous person I've ever met is a loaded question. I've had the good fortune to meet pretty much everybody and I can't narrow it down to one. I can, however, narrow the experiences down to a few of the most memorable and it's inevitable that I will leave some folks out. Let me give a few notable examples: I did a two-man morning show in Philly in the late 70's. My partner, Sonny Fox, was also the program director so he did his half of the show from his apartment, 6 miles away, via telephone line and then came into the radio station to direct programming. We were never together in the studio but we tried to create the image of us sitting right next to each other. Pure “Theater of the Mind.” One of the advantages was that, whenever we had a celebrity guest, they could bypass the nonsense of fans and staff following them around a radio station and just go to his apartment. One day were were interviewing and entertaining Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead who came into the apartment, walked through the living room to the bedroom where he emptied the underwear drawer onto the bed, poured in an ounce of weed and began separating the stems and seeds. We all smoked and, I assume, did the interview. I'm pretty sure it was fun. We had another interview set up for the opening of the movie “High Anxiety.” We were lucky enough to snag the writer, director, star. As I drove my little, yellow Karmann Ghia to Sonny's apartment, I couldn't help but notice a limousine tailgating me on the highway. I took the exit to the apartment and the limo followed suit. As I pulled into the apartment complex I tried to park my car only to have the limo speed up and pull in front of me and stop. The door opened and I saw someone get out and run towards my car. I too stopped and open my window to be greeted with a hand to shake and, “Bob Leonard! Hi......Mel Brooks, I'm a star!” We went inside and did one of the funniest and funnest interviews of my entire career. At the end of the interview, I said, “My dad is a huge fan and told me to give you a kiss for him. Jews kiss......c'mere.” He stuck out his face and “mugged” as I kissed him on the cheek and the photographer snapped. My dad kept that picture on his office wall until the day he died. The first time I met David Crosby was at Sonny's apartment. It was the late 70's and, as you might expect, we got high. The 2nd time I met him was while at the ABC Radio Network. We had both quit doing drugs by that time and we shared our experiences with quitting. The third time we met, we threw everyone else out of the room and just “shot the shit” for about an hour. It was a delightful chat. I liked David Crosby. There were others while I was in Philadelphia and Chicago doing “local” radio. Things picked up once we got the network (SMN/ABC) up, running and somewhat established. Since we were the first ones to broadcast our 24 hour programming by satellite, we had to prove ourselves and build a solid reputation. Others were trying to do what we did and we prevailed. We built a spotless reputation and, with the solid variety of formats, became a desired destination for any celeb going through Chicagoland. There were many who came through but a few stand out in my ever fading memory. Former President Jimmy Carter was my guest 3 times over the years. Once in person and twice on the phone. He always remembered my name and was always a joy to talk to. What you saw was what you got with Mr. Carter. He was about as genuine as you could find. A very nice man. Deepak Chopra was in the studio and having a great time but was due to call CNN for an interview. When I put on a record, he called CNN and told them he had to reschedule. He was having too much fun and decided to spend the entire hour with us. Mariah Carey was being interviewed by one of the other formats in the building, one morning, and I found out so I approached her road manager in the hallway to let him know that we played her music and that I'd like to chat with her. As he was explaining the intricacies of their schedule and reasoning why she couldn't do it, Mariah walked out of the studio and heard him. “I'll make time,” she said, looking at me and adding, “Do you have a studio?” There was a free production room where the two of us spent the next 40 minutes having an absolutely delightful conversation. One of my favorite interviews, however, wasn't even on the air. When I moved to Dallas, I joined the JCC (Jewish Community Center) which was near my apartment and had a great gym. Somebody found out I was with the media and asked if I would introduce a guest that was coming to speak to the membership. I said I'd be glad to and I was introduced to Dr. Carl Sagan. Carl and I talked for more than an hour and a half before the show and found that we had a lot in common. His family and my family both came from the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn (just buildings apart) and we both sang the praises of marijuana before it became fashionable and, quite logically, legal. He had “billions and billions” of great stories. Then, there was that day in 1977 when I got to ride, in a limo, to the premier of “Star Wars” with Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. For its time.....What a movie! If I've learned anything at all from my celebrity encounters it's that people are, generally, the same. They are, with some notable exceptions, nice, down-to-earth people who are just doing their jobs and looking, like the rest of us, for some semblance of normalcy in a dog-eat-dog world. If you mention my name to any of the celebrities I've met over the years, they will have the same response. They will look you right in the eye and ask, “Who?” image

MY PROBLEM WITH CARS

I can state, pretty unequivocally, that every car I've ever owned has come with it's own set of problems. This sorry state of affairs began in 1966 when I bought my very first car. It was a light blue 1955 Oldsmobile with a huge black spot on the rear quarter panel on the passenger side. Upon careful inspection, it was obvious that it was electrical tape used to hide an enormous area that had fallen prey to body rot. It had been previously owned by a Sgt. Scarborough with whom I was stationed about 30 miles from Nashville and who was about to ship out for his first tour of duty in Vietnam. He offered to sell it to me for $75. It was an offer I couldn't refuse and, as I was about to learn, should never have taken. The car was a disaster from the word “go.” It broke down nearly every time I tried to drive it and I was forced to leave it on the side of the road nearly every other day. I had to get rid of it and I knew I would never recoup my $75 so, the last time it broke down and I had to hitchhike back to the base, I left it there. The last time I saw it, it was still on the side of the highway, the tires were gone and the engine had been ravaged for parts. It would have cost me a lot more to have it towed than I paid for it so, that's when I decided that enough was enough and I just left it there. Hitchhiking was easier and much more reliable. My first car had become my toughest lesson. A lesson I was reminded of on a daily basis as I caught rides to town and had to ride past it's deteriorating carcass. Having never been rich, I found myself relying on “used” cars whenever I was forced to be “in the market.” My reasoning being that it was “new” to me. Unfortunately, the semantics of justification never really worked. The cars all had problems. In the mid 70's, while once again looking for a decent car in my price range, I let the dealer talk me into a used Audi 5000. It was loaded with luxurious options from heated seats to power everything. The one thing that should have given me a clue was that it still had relatively few miles on it and was sitting in a used car lot. There was a reason it was there. The previous owner or owners apparently found out and got rid of it. The biggest issue with the Audi was that it was recalled for having a mind of it's own. We didn't pay a lot of attention to what we had heard or read....we liked the car so we bought it. The problems with the Audi were driven home on the day that it decided to drive itself into a corn field with my ex-wife behind the wheel. It took a tow truck with a long winch and about 2 hours to retrieve it so we could drive it to a dealer and get something else. Of course, whatever we drove out of the dealership was also used and eventually fell apart. By the early 90's, the marriage came to an end and she got the house and the car. Since I had always settled for used cars, I decided to treat myself to something new and exciting. I bought a red 240Z, drove it off the lot and made a stop at an appliance store on the way. When I came out, I saw a car leaving a parking space and running smack, dab into the side of my new “toy.” I couldn't even get it home before wrecking it. Fast forward to current day and my current vehicle. We moved to South Florida more than a dozen years ago and eventually landed less that a mile from the beach and ½ mile from a downtown area that I like to characterize as “Greenwich Village with palm trees.” Our car was old and was starting to fall apart so we bought our current car, new about 5 years ago. It has been through it's share of bumps, bruises and fender-benders but we've fixed it and have assured that we can keep it in great shape because we walk everywhere we go. In the5 years of owning this car we finally discovered the secret to keeping our car in good, running condition. We have nowhere to go. Problem solved!

DOWNSIZING A TRADITION

Any and all family tradition that I am capable of remembering goes only as far back as my great grandfather, Aaron......a man known and loved by my family as Zeide (Zay-da)........the family patriarch. The guy from whom we all took our cues when it came to life's negotiation. Aaron came to this land from Russia in 1905, bringing with him his wife, his 14 year old son (my grandfather) and enough friends (and their families) to run a farm and start a small Jewish community in Ellington, Connecticut, a land where the belief still held that Jews came complete with horns. A belief he was able to successfully counter by wearing a hat. A hat that, for the entire time I knew him, he never took off. Zeide was born in the Ukraine, in the rather large town of Ekaterinaslav, now known as Dnipropetrovsk. He was a woodsman about whom very little was known before he just sort of appeared, one day, at the lumber yard owned by the Levine family. Word had it that he wielded a pretty big ax, which was, apparently, enough to impress the young Eda, the woman who would become my great grandmother, Bubba. They wed, had a son and then, with as many of their brethren and sistren as they could round up, proceeded to escape the Tzar's pogroms, organized massacres of Jews in Russia or eastern Europe, and headed to the good ole' U.S. of A. to find some of that opportunity that had eluded them while they were busy fending off Cossacks swords, an activity they heard they could find some relief from in the new world. Oh......and he needed enough guys for a minyan - a quorum of ten men over the age of 13 required for traditional Jewish public worship. So, off they went to a new world where they could practice their traditional way of life without fear of persecution. This was the point in my family history where a tradition was born that lives on through me, my brother and, ideally, our children and our children's children. Zeide began preparing for the arduous journey, by himself, with very little money but big plans to find his Eden. A spot to bring his family and others to finally establish the safe and secure Jewish community that had always seemed so elusive except in their imaginations. Before he got on the boat, Aaron's father. Who would be my 2X great-grandfather, handed him whatever the Russian equivalent of our silver dollar was. He was told to keep it on his person for good luck and a safe journey but, when the trip was over, to pay it forward to someone else about to travel. Over the years, the coin became an actual silver dollar and morphed into a good luck gesture for traveling, medical procedures or any other precarious situation one might be facing with instructions that, once you come through whatever it was in one piece, you are to donate the money to charity. When I left for Vietnam, my mom gave me a silver dollar. When I came home and moved to Puerto Rico, my mom gave me a silver dollar. To the day she died, she cherished the role she had grown into and inherited by default: Family Matriarch. She always kept silver dollars nearby and dutifully kept the tradition alive. I'm the old guy now and I have to admit, I have not been anywhere near as diligent or mindful as my mother or, for that matter, any of my ancestors. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the tradition came to an end with my generation. It wasn't that I didn't want to continue but, honestly, when's the last time you saw a silver dollar? When I went into a bank, recently, and asked for a silver dollar, I had to explain to the teller what it was. My family tradition has become a study in obsolescence. I can't find any silver dollars. I don't even think they make half-dollar coins anymore. These days, the best I can do for someone about to face a perilous situation is to flip them a quarter and tell them to,”Have a nice trip.”

(FOOT)BALL OF CONFUSION

Never having been even close to fitting into the role of “good student,” I was completely taken aback when I actually got into a college upon wrapping up a less than mediocre high school performance. What could Waynesburg College have been thinking when I was accepted. It was a small Presbyterian run college in the corner of Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. There were 31 African Americans and 9 Jews on the campus and, in 1965, the 40 of us were barred from the “greeks” so, a lot of us hung out together. I like to tell people that we had our own fraternity/sorority called the GDI's, God Damn Independents, and everyone wanted to come to OUR parties but, we barred them. I don't remember much about the school except hating it immensely, hitchhiking to Pittsburgh a lot to listen to live jazz in the clubs in the culturally iconic Hill District instead of going to geology class and, of course, a few special people. I had a friend named Bo. We would go to the jazz clubs and drink sloe gin and ginger ale. Yeah......I know. I will never forget his philosophy of life. “Fuck it!” He would say, “When I was born, the doctor slapped me and I said – fuck it.” and “If at first you don't succeed – fuck it.” While riding with Bo one afternoon, I noticed that he was driving the wrong way down a one way street and I told him so. He responded with, “Fuck it – I AM going one way.” I couldn't argue with that logic and off we went. I don't know whatever happened to Bo. He's not on Facebook. There was a girl I was crazy about so I will allow her some anonymity. Her mother ran a boarding house for Pitt students and she had a boyfriend at another school. We became friends but I was always a little let down about that boyfriend at the other school. I found her on FB recently and she has done quite well. She became an attorney with a successful practice in Pittsburgh and had a wonderful marriage until her beloved husband passed a few years back. She is having a good life and that's really nice to know. One of my best friends was Dave Smith. At Christmas break, Dave and I went back east together and spent a little time at his mom's house in New York before I headed back to my folks place in Connecticut. I never went back to Waynesburg after that break and I lost track of Dave completely. I was trying to transfer to Uconn but got drafted. The Vietnam war was in full swing in 1966....I was gone. Dave played football for the Waynesburg Yellow Jackets and, as I found out not too long ago, went on to play pro ball. He was drafted by the Steelers as a wide receiver in 1970 and stayed with them until '72 when he went to Houston. He had a pretty impressive record of 109 receptions, 1,457 receiving yards and 7 touchdowns. Then after a year with Kansas city in 1973....HE was gone. Dave doesn't have a Facebook page so, I googled him. All I could find was his Wiki page which didn't tell me any more than I've just told you and some football cards on the images page. Oh wait, there was this one thing. I was taken to a site called - “The 50 Worst Screw-Ups in Sports History” and at number 46: “Dave Smith's Spike Heard 'round the World” - Few remember receiver Dave Smith for his three years of NFL service and 109 receptions. Most do remember him for his performance in the Oct. 18 Monday night game against the Chiefs in '71. After catching a pass from Terry Bradshaw, Smith ran for the end zone, ready to celebrate ferociously. But as he approached the pylon, Smith raised the ball and began to pump his arm losing the pigskin in the process. The rock continued rolling into the end zone. Touchback........ Career defined.” Dave Smith.....my friend.....college football star........potential pro football great........oops!

9 /11/01

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, preproduced “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.

IT'S A BIRD, IT'S A PLANE, IT'S...POP

MY dad, despite being born in a rough section of Brooklyn at the dawn of the depression, was the kindest, most even tempered human being I've ever known. And I've been all over this country and to a few pretty nifty foreign locales. I've met a lot of different folk but my dad will always sit firmly at the top of my list of “who I wanna be when I grow up.” Let me give you an example of the kind of person I observed as a young idiot trying to figure out life: My dad was a furniture salesman and a very good one. When he came home from WW11 he got a job at a stationary and office supplies store in Hartford,Ct. called Plimptons. He was there for more than a decade and after he had established himself as a top salesman, the store sold to Litton industries. Suddenly, dad was jobless with a family of 4 to support. He never changed his daily routine, though. He would wake up at 7am, shower, put on a shirt and tie and walk across the room to pick up the phone and “go to work.” He made looking for gainful employment his full time job. He did this for a few month until he realized that he had built quite a nice reputation with furniture manufacturers, so he decided to try and become an independent manufacturers rep which he parlayed into a nice business with showrooms in New York, Chicago, Hartford and Boston. It was during this time of rebuilding his life that he was shopping for a new suit at his favorite men's clothing store in Hartford. While he was looking at shirts, he spotted an old associate from Plimptons who had lost his job the same time as my dad but had not been as fortunate in the aftermath. He was still looking for work and wanted to dress appropriately. My dad was aware of his situation and saw him looking at a $100 sport coat. Somehow, my dad knew the guy only had $50 so, he pulled the salesman aside, slipped him two 20's and a 10 and said, “Tell him the coat costs $50” and then went back to looking at shirts. I tell this lovely story to show just what kind of man my dad was. This was not an isolated incident. This was how he treated everybody on a daily basis which became quite evident when too many people came to his retirement party. The room was filled to overflowing and the fire marshal had to be called. People liked him......a lot. I'm not sure anyone ever saw my dad lose his temper. For a guy who was brought up in tough surroundings, he was a lamb. For a guy who ate spaghetti with tomato sauce made from ketchup and hot water (a little more water if you wanted soup), he always understood the importance of keeping nourishing food on the table. He gave us a great life. Of course, I can say all of that now. I'm a grandfather and he's been gone for about 22 years but I didn't always know how I truly felt. That came with time. I was very rebellious and a pretty snotty and annoying teenager. On this particular Saturday, I was being my typical obnoxious self, bugging my mother for something I wanted and didn't need. She, of course, was trying to explain her reasoning when I mumbled something to the effect of, “Geez, why do you have to be such a bitch.” That was the first and only time I ever saw my dad fly. Fists balled up like Superman from the comic books, he took off from mid hallway and soared like an exquisite bird across my entire room, landing on top of me, accentuating each swing with a new word: “Don't.....you.......ever......call.....your.......mother.......that......again.” Chivalry was not dead that day but I was about as close as I'd ever been. My dad then walked into the other room, sat in front of the TV and put on the ball game, satisfied that he had let me know right from wrong in no uncertain terms. He was confident that the lesson I was taught that day would last me a lifetime. It did. I never called my mom (or any woman) a “bitch” again.....ever! And I never saw my dad fly again. But that day, I watched him glide with the grace of a swan. It was a lovely flight but the landing hurt like hell.

WHEN IN DOUBT - ACCESSORIZE

I have to admit that, as a fashion maven, I'm a bit of a bust. In fact, I'd say my finger missed the pulse of fashionability by about a mile and a half. I wear shorts, sandals and tank tops. Every day. I own 3 pair of sandals, 5 pair of shorts and a passel of tank tops with a few t-shirts with sleeves thrown in for our “cold' days. I have stopped cutting my hair and I shave on occasion. I own no socks. Being retired in South Florida, I almost feel an obligation to slovenliness. Before I retired, I had a 50 year career where I lived in jeans, t-shirts and sneakers. It was radio not TV. Not that much has changed since. My pants got shorter and I lost the socks. One important aspect of the sartorial arts has, however, not escaped me. For as far back as I can remember, which is about 2 or 3 years old with the exception of a huge gap of time in the 60's and 70's, I have been obsessed with accessories. Let me clarify that. I don't do a lot of jewelry. No plethora of rings and bracelets, no piercings, no antique brooches......I wear a wedding ring (that I got from a pawn shop for $50) and a wristwatch. But I must have, at least a dozen watches. I love watches. I have one Rolex which my daughter bought for me in Switzerland for $35 dollars. Nothing like a good knockoff from the land where they were “born.” It seems so real that it got a compliment from the guy who runs a local jewelry store. I once had a real one, years ago, that didn't look as good. I sold it, also years ago, between jobs to pay the rent. My daily watch is a very nice Fossil with Roman numerals. It's quite a handsome, everyday watch. I have a box full of watches with no bands, no batteries and even one with no hands because they fell off and are sitting at the bottom of the case. I have my grandfather's Bulova from the 1940's and, no, I won't be throwing any of them out. I am obsessed with watches. For some odd reason, I am also obsessed with eye glasses. I have been wearing them since 4th grade when it was, mistakenly determined that my poor grade performance was a direct correlation to my inability to see anything that was put in front of me. They were right......and wrong. I needed the glasses but the boredom with the schoolwork had set in long before the revelation of blindness. As the years wore on, my eyes got progressively worse and by the time I hit high school, I was already semi-fondly being referred to as “Four Eyes.” If I was going to wear them all the time, I wanted them to look decent. I grew as fond of eyeglasses as I had already become of wrist watches. I am obsessed with glasses. My obsessions with watches and glasses pale, by comparison, to the way I feel about hats. That all began when I was just shy of toddler status. My mom was waiting in line at the bank, holding me and standing near her was a family friend who was wearing a fedora. In the late 40's and early 50's, men didn't leave home without wearing one and Mr. Cobb was no different. They said hello and I immediately went for his hat. I have been chapeau obsessed ever since. One of the happiest days of my life was when the doctor told me I had skin cancer and that, after my nose was rebuilt, I should never leave the house without wearing a hat. YES - Drs. Orders! I have a lot of hats. 5 fedoras (one felt and 4 straw), 3 pork pies, 1 cowboy hat, 15 or so “driver” (flat) caps and about 40 baseball caps (5 of them identifying my Vietnam Veteran status). People are surprised when they learn I have hair on the top of my head. It is never out from under a hat or cap. I'm still a bit of a slob. Some things never change and my obsession with watches, glasses and hats has just grown stronger. That will never end. However, when I end, I want people to walk by my casket, look in and say, “Nice hat!”

HEAL THYSELF

For a good portion of my adult life, I have dealt with issues that have made feeling healthy seem like nothing more than a fantasy. When one disappears, tree more take it's place. To quote a lyric from Mick & the Boys. “Please allow me to introduce myself.” I am a 70 year old Vietnam Vet and 50 year morning radio vet who is now living the stereotype – retired in South Florida. That's the “Cliff Notes” version and, pretty much, all you need to know. In fact, even that much is somewhat irrelevant except as a point of reference. What is necessary knowledge is the fact that I have been dealing with health issues since I was 35 and hospitalized for the first time with heart issues. Over the ensuing 35 years, my health seemed to deteriorate at a faster rate than I could keep up with. More cardiac problems, high cholesterol, “screaming” triglycerides, Diabetes and a blood pressure that I just assumed was that high because of my Jewish genetics. By the time I hit 60, I was taking about 15 pills a day, splitting them up between morning and evening with a few that I had to take twice a day. This is where I was up to about a year ago when I passed out at home and had to be taken, by ambulance to the hospital. I had been dealing with atrial fibrillation, an erratic heartbeat, and its accompanying medications, including heavy blood thinners, for more than 3 decades so a cardiac ablation was suggested and I had it done. They went in through both sides of my groin and froze a few “trigger” areas of my heart so it could go back to a normal beat, which it did with the exception of occasional rogue palpitations. I will preface the remainder of the story by telling you that I smoked my first joint when I was 19 years old and stationed outside of Nashville. It was 1966 and I had a date with a girl from one of the colleges in town. She pulled a joint out of her purse and I started to panic. I didn't, really, know what to do and I didn't want to embarrass myself, so.......I did everything she did. It worked and I really liked it and have been a proponent ever since. But, it was always purely recreational with no thought of medicinal value until recently. I smoked the way I smoked – that was that. While, in my younger years, it served as an adjunct to booze, it eventually became a fitting substitute when I stopped drinking altogether. As a diabetic, a sip of wine can put me under the table and, at 70, that's not where I want to find myself. It's just too hard to get back up. The cardiac ablation was a relative success and the doc told me I could go home the following day. There was just one problem. My blood pressure was extremely high at 200/103 and the only way they would release me was if we could bring it down with the top number below 160. They tried a pill which didn't work. Then they tried an injection of a different BP drug to no avail. For the next three days they gave me pills, shots and combinations of both but I was still hovering around 175 to 190. That's when I became completely fed up and told them that I wanted to release myself and go home. As much as they tried to convince me of the folly of my request, I insisted until the cardiologist said, “Fine, just make an appointment to follow up in a week.” When my wife came to pick me up, I already knew what my course of action would be when I got home. I had recently discovered medicinal strains of cannabis and was beginning to understand how different strains were being bred for different ailments and how curative it actually is. I got into bed and filled my little stone pipe with medicinal weed. I took a few hits and closed my eyes and took a nice, relaxing breath. After a few minutes I pulled out my BP cuff. I took my blood pressure and, for the first time in weeks, it read 118/74. I did the follow ups with my cardiologist and my primary who, now, both reflect in their records that I prefer cannabis to control my blood pressure. I have come off all BP meds except 1 and all of my cardiac meds. What was a 15 pill a day regimen is now about 7 pills a day and those include pills for diabetes and cholesterol which I have in control. Medicinal marijuana is now legal in 22 states including Florida. What was a pure joy for 51 years is now a necessary medicine........and sill a pure joy! I'm feelin' pretty good on a daily basis. Fantasy fulfilled.

IRMA

I like rain. Especially living in South Florida where it can cool down a hot day and keep the landscape lush and gorgeous. This is a tropical climate and storms come and go in a matter of minutes. It's almost always a very refreshing experience. I say “almost” because, occasionally, a storm comes along that completely disregards the rules of decorum as regards rain in SoFla. Those are hurricanes and even during the “rainy season” they have their own agendas. They are not here to refresh and delight. Their sole purpose is destruction and they are scary as hell We got our first warning about the possibility of a “gobsmacking” from Hurricane Irma more than a week before the fact. Within days, they began evacuating people from the beach to about 2 miles inland. We live 1 mile from the evacuation area which meant we were on our own. My wife and I took heed and by Wednesday evening, we were making our own evacuation plans. We would get up early on Thursday and drive to Atlanta to stay at a nephew's house. That would keep us out of harms way and we'd get to take a short trip to unwind a bit but when we got up and turned on the news, we noticed that everyone else in the state had the same thought – before we did. There were lines at gas stations, which were running out of gas, lines at grocery stores, which were running out of staples like bread and water and lines on the highways to “get outta Dodge.” The trip to Atlanta was off. We figured that if we could make it to Orlando, we could stay with either one of my daughters who live in the area but that too was out of the question. We had a half a tank of gas which would have gotten us about half way there. Not the optimal situation as gas stations pumps were drying up and people waiting in lines were running out of the precious commodity. For our second choice to save our asses from the ever growing Irma, we decided to get a hotel room. Our assumption being that even with the loss of power, hotels have generators so they would be safe and relatively comfortable given the circumstances. For the ensuing few hours, with the storm still days away, I called every hotel between South Florida and Georgia. Every single one was booked solid. Once again, my ideas proved to anything but original and I was, obviously, too late again. Now I was beginning to panic. We would start feeling Irma's opening salvo on South Florida by Friday evening. “Let's find a shelter.” I said to my wife, “We'll be safe there.” She agreed and we decided that, once things started to pick up, we'd pack a few things and head to one of our local shelters. Once again my timing couldn't have been worse. They kept opening shelters and they would fill up before we could even find out where they were. There were lines to get in and people were being turned away. I was beginning to feel hopeless and desperate. We were finding ourselves with no place to go and no way to get there. For me, panic was setting in. We were sitting smack, dab in the path of, what was then, a category 5 hurricane and we had no options. I told my wife that, even during my tour in Vietnam, I hadn't been that scared. Shit was getting real and I was getting ready to cower in my closet in the fetal position for the next few days until the memory of the war brought me another fleeting thought. One that allowed me to calm down and look at things through much clearer lenses. I realized that in Vietnam we were never alone. We faced the enemy as a “Band of Brothers.” We had each others backs at all times and forged bonds that, 50 years later, are stronger than even some familial ties. I approached my neighbors, most of whom were in the same boat as we were and realized that, in them, I had my “Band of Brothers”to face the storm with. My wife barbecued for all of the neighbors and we all agreed that if there was any flooding downstairs, they could come up to our place and if the roof got blown away, we could go downstairs to them. We had come up with a nice little system to watch out for each other. It was right about then that my cousin contacted me to, a.) check on our status and b.) remind me that it was the “Yarzheit”(Anniversary) of my mom's death and that he had recognized that fact at the last religious service he had attended. We always light a candle of remembrance on the anniversary, so I got ours out and plugged it in. Within minutes, the TV began reporting that the storm had shifted west and that we were no longer in store for the absolute worst that Irma had to offer. It seemed to now be heading straight for every place we initially tried to escape to. I looked at the candle and uttered, almost to myself, “Thanks, ma.” The storm winds began to blow on Friday evening, By Saturday, we still had power but the cable, which is bundled with our internet and our landline, went out. There was no way to communicate or stay informed but we still had lights and refrigeration. My next door neighbor had also lost the cable but was watching the storm coverage. I asked how they were doing that and her daughter said, “I'm from the Bronx. You got a paperclip?” She came in and hooked up our TV which was now picking up 44 digital channels so that if we got tired of the coverage, we could find a movie. By Saturday night it was getting worse. Heavier winds and more rain but still nothing compared to what was on it's way for Sunday. I fell asleep and woke up to find.......we still had power. The lights were on and the AC, which had been malfunctioning all summer, was keeping us cool. “Thanks, ma.” Sunday it started to get worse and by late afternoon things were downright scary. In my 70 years I had never experienced anything like it and it seemed like it was never ending. This was the longest lasting storm I had ever seen. A small tree hit our window, a large tree in the area near the pool snapped in two and palm fronds and branches were flying everywhere. The wind was literally whistling and it was raining sideways. We have double paned, high impact hurricane windows and they held up beautifully. We were now heading into Sunday night and things started to begin to calm down a bit. The rain and wind started to ease and so did my stomach. Throughout the entire ordeal, we never lost our electricity. Every time I would walk past my moms Yarzheit candle, I would say, “Stay with us, ma.” She did. At about 10pm, the cable, internet and landline just popped back on. We made it. “Thanks, ma!” We got up Monday morning to a bright, sunny, hot South Florida morning. There was damage all around us. Trees down, roofs blown to pieces, debris everywhere and, yet, we came through it completely unscathed. All of the people who waited in all the lines to escape to other areas, hotels and shelters were now waiting in lines trying to get home to assess the damage. We went out to see if anyone was serving breakfast. We found a bagel shop a few blocks away that was serving food. There was, as expected, line but we waited. We had just come through a major hurricane with virtually no issues and we were hungry. I got a bagel with cream cheese and lox. I guess I should have taken into consideration that the place may have had refrigeration issues during the storm because the fish was bad. I got food poisoning. I guess it served my ass right for gloating. Thank goodness there was no line to the bathroom.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Let me tell you about one of the dumbest decisions I ever made. My favorite sport is boxing. I'll take boxing over baseball any day of the week. Yes it takes strength to be a good boxer, but, it's much more like a chess game where each participant has to anticipate his opponents next move and make the proper decisions in order to not get hit while attempting to slip his glove through the other guys defenses to try and knock him out. It's about finesse and movement. It's like chess meeting ballet. I love boxing. My love for the sport goes back to all the boxing I watched with my Dad in the 50's. Great names still resonate when I think boxing. Archie Moore, the undefeated Rocky Marciano, Rocky Graziano and the fighter that I consider to be, pound for pound, the greatest ever; Sugar Ray Robinson. I love boxing. I kept following the game as I got older. I lost money on the first Cassius Clay/Sonny Liston fight. Some clown in High School was taking Clay and giving odds. Who knew? I think I lost 6 dollars on that one. By the 70's I was living in Philadelphia and one of my best friends was the WBC Light Heavyweight Champion of the World. I got the picture of the uppercut that knocked him out at the Meadowlands in his third title defense........with HIS camera. I love Boxing. Boxing is a wonderful union of mind and body. The mind has to be strong enough to be able to control your strategy as you defend, anticipate your opponents next move, try to hit him and come up with your own next move. The body has to be able to to withstand extreme punishment while providing the stamina and power to go from beginning to end. The strength of mind has to be equal to the strength of body. I love boxing. I've taught my girls to Box. My oldest was at a party with her now husband (they were engaged at the time) and her ex kept bothering her. She made a number of attempts at resolving the issue, but he made the mistake of touching her in some way. She broke his nose. Good girl. You've learned well. When I first arrived in Dallas, nearly 30 years ago, I was in great shape and was working out at the North Dallas Boxing Gym.  One of my workout buddies was another disc jockey from the network where I worked. He was doing Heavy Metal and went by the name Mad Maxx, but I knew him as Dave, a friend, a workmate and another boxing fan. We lifted weights, worked on the heavy bag and the speed bag, did some calisthenics and jumped a little rope. A terrific workout. One day I decided to venture off the beaten path a little and I asked Dave if he wanted to spar for a couple of rounds. He said sure and we laced up and started to go at it. I threw a right cross. That's about all I remember……until I found myself being dragged to the corner and hearing a voice ask, "Didn't you know that Dave has had 12 professional fights and spars with heavyweights in Forth Worth?" I did now! I never got in a ring again. I try not to even WEAR a ring these days.………..I love Boxing.

DESIRE UNDER THE BIG TOP

I've always loved to make people laugh but the true object of my desire, for as long as I can remember, has been to don the greasepaint and run into one of the Ringling Brothers 3 rings as a bona fide clown. I discovered the talent to amuse at an early age. I was 6 and, as was the normal course of my school day, cutting up in my first grade classroom in the hopes of eliciting a giggle or 2 from my friends and fellow students. The teacher was, as expected, the one person who was not amused and had finally had it with my hijinx. Livid, she jumped out from behind her desk, realizing, in all the wisdom that she could muster up in her 24 or so years, that the best way to deal with me would be to embarrass me by treating me just like I was acting. “Bobby B,” she yelled, unable to pronounce my then 14 letter last name, “if you are going to act like a 5 year, then there is no place for you here. Pick up your things and go back to the kindergarten where you belong.” Semi dejected, with shoulders bent and head bowed, I found my way back to the kindergarten classroom, opened the door and saw, to my delight, that it was somebody's birthday and they were having cake and ice cream. It was right then and there that I realized that comedy pays. My course was set by the ripe old age of six. I maintained, to the best of my ability, my status as class clown for as long as I possibly could, occasionally going toe-to-toe with Billy, the spitball king or Eddie, the 3rd grade poet whose “The cow went up the drainpipe” piece made me scramble for anything remotely funny to counter with. If nothing else, they kept me on my toes and my creative juices primed. All through junior high and high school, which I was thrown out of for flushing plastic cherry bombs in the boys room, and, eventually 3 years of boarding school and 6 months of college, I worked on my “chops.” I got into trouble all along the way, of course, but always attributed it to a sadly lacking sense of humor among any and all authority figures. I was determined to be a clown. As I got older, I continued to pursue my passion and ended up doing a morning radio show which allowed me the luxury trying out new material every day but I still wasn't satisfying the initial desire to paint my face, put on a big red nose and baggy pants with giant, floppy shoes and run around the big top. Then, one day while I was doing a morning radio show in Philadelphia, the circus came to town. I was beside myself when I got the call from the Ringling representative who said, “We like to use local celebrities as guest clowns when we are in town and were wondering if you'd be interested?” I could barely contain myself. This was my dream come true and it was actually going to happen. I had a few weeks before the performance and I used that time to become a fairly astute student of the art of clowning. I read up on the master clowns like Emmett Kelly and Felix Adler, read all about the Feld family and everything they had done with show since buying it from the Ringlings, everything I needed to know to fulfill my lifelong desire with aplomb and grace. Finally, the day came. I was so excited I could barely contain myself and hadn't slept a wink the night before. I went to the circus and brought my oldest daughter, who was about 5 at the time, knowing she would have every bit as much fun as I would. As we were sitting in the complimentary box seat provided by the Ringlings, my daughter mentioned that, being about 3 feet tall, she was having trouble seeing the animals so, being the good dad I was supposed to be, I hoisted her onto my shoulders, immediately pulling a muscle in my neck and rendering me unable to turn my head. “Let's go,” I heard a voice behind me say, “you're up next.” I wanted to cry. I just couldn't do it. I could barely get back to my car for the drive home. I never DID get to be a real clown. My daughter is now a 42 year old chiropractor in Orlando and a very good one. She also teaches chiropractic at UCF. If she had only decided to pursue that profession when she was 5.

KICKS CHANGE

“Some get a kick from cocaine I'm sure that if I took even one sniff That would bore me terrific'ly too Yet I get a kick out of you.” In 1934, Cole Porter wrote these lyrics for the Broadway musical, “Anything Goes.” It was sung by Ethel Merman. 2 years later, the film version was released with a new lyric because of, what was known as, The Hollywood Production Code of 1934. It, too was sung by Ethel Merman. In 1886, Dr. John Stith Pemberton of Atlanta used cocaine to create his own concoction, which became known, based on it's most active ingredient, as Coca-Cola. By 1903, Middle-class whites started to worry worried that soft drinks were contributing to what they saw as exploding cocaine use among African-Americans. Southern newspapers reported that “negro cocaine fiends” were raping white women, the police powerless to stop them. “Coke” took coke out of it's recipe and replaced it with sugar and caffeine. By 1904, it was illegal. The thrill was gone and so was the lyric. In the mid 70's, I decided to see if the original lyric was correct and found that, for me, it was, except, it did more that “ bore me terrific'ly,” it hospitalized me – twice, before I was able to focus on the fact that it was Sigmund Freud's powder of choice that was making my heart seem like it was about to jump out of my chest. Not only did it screw up my heart, pretty much for the rest of my life, but I never really liked it. In the world of rock & roll radio in the 70's, it snowed constantly, not just in the winter. It was everywhere you wanted it to be, so, in my case anyway, I just did it because it was there and everyone else was “playing.” It was the second hospitalization that reminded me of the question my dad had asked me often growing up, “If Billy Hart jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, are you gonna jump off the Brooklyn Bridge?” It was at that point that I was able to pick up the phone, call my dad and give him the answer he had been looking for throughout my formative years - “No.” My short lived cocaine use did, however, lead me to a new source of kicks – meeting characters during the numerous ER visits and hospital stays over the years. A couple of years ago, as I was being moved from an ambulance to an ER bed, I couldn't help overhearing the lady in the next bed. She was 82 years old and had, apparently, had an episode of very low blood sugar and had fallen getting out of a car. She had a huge gash in the back of her head that had to be stitched up and had broken her neck. It was a fracture in a spot where it had broken before. I heard them talking about how she was hit by a trolley car when she was a teenager and how her leg had never been the same, but, she hobbled through life and faced one challenge after another. She was told that she would have to wear another “halo” to allow her neck to mend, but she was having none of it. The doctors said that if she didn’t wear it, she could be permanently paralyzed. This was obviously not the entertainment portion of the show. That came when she would doze off, reacting to the morphine they had given her for the pain. That’s when her daughter and her daughter’s best friend would start to chat and it always seemed to be about booze. Every conversation involved who could hold what liquor, how to mix drinks that wouldn’t give them a headache, how many bottles of wine it would take before they became totally useless and, in one particularly enjoyable segment, how a guy had given one of them a gift of a wooden box with 2 bottles of Sutter’s Home Wine, which she perceived as the ultimate insult. She was worth a more expensive wine than that. During my most recent visit, I had a roommate who had broken his hip while stepping off a cruise ship. He was 72, his name was Bob and he had Alzheimers so, every three or 4 minutes, he would be buzzing the nurse to get help peeing, pooping, standing up, lying down, turning on the TV, changing the channel, turning off the light......you name it, Bob was asking for it. He kept saying, “I can't.” He said that a lot. He seemed pretty depressed so I loaned him my i-pad, on which I recorded a number of old movies. He watched “Topper Returns” and seemed to enjoy it. When he gave my my i-pad back, I realized that he had watched about 23 minutes of the film. Bob was gay and his husband made it a point to stay away as much as possible. It seemed to be his only respite from the incessant demands and having to cater to Bob's every whim. I, finally, while struggling to be understanding, had had enough and as I heard him trying to get out of bed right after hip surgery, I yelled, “DUDE, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” To which he yelled back, in a moment of lucidity, “WHO DO YOU THNK YOU'RE TALKING TO?” I explained that I was concerned and I didn't want to see him hurt himself and I told him a story: When I was about 5 years old, my parents took us to the annual 4th of July Parade that wound down Main Street in my hometown, Manchester, Ct. My mom looked down and I was gone. They couldn't find me and had begun to panic. That's when they saw me marching along the parade route playing a drum with one of the marching bands. When my parents addressed the fact that I didn't play the drums, I responded that, “Nobody told me I couldn't.” That was the day I removed the words “I can't” from my vocabulary, Earlier, Bob and I were chatting about our respective lives and he told me that he was impressed with many of the things I had done and told me that he thought it took a lot of talent. I reminded him of the earlier conversation and told him that it much less to do with talent and everything to do with the fact that nobody ever told me that I couldn't. I told him to get the words. “I can't” out of his head and off his lips. He listened and seemed to perk up at the suggestion. He said that was some of the best advice he's heard in quite a while and he was grateful. Then, within about 40 seconds, he was buzzing the nurse's station and telling them, “I can't change the channel,”as he was pushing all the buttons on his phone, thinking it was his remote. Bob will be fine but a little concerned for the mental well being of his partner, Richard. He was pretty frazzled. I still get my kick from doing drugs......all of which have now been prescribed because of the maladies caused by earlier experimentation. Metformin, Amlodipine, Lisinopril, Eliquis......I could go on but my keyboard is getting writers cramp. I'm sure there's a pill. Bottom line – new kicks caused by old kicks – and yet, those “kicks just keep getting harder to find.”

GRAND THEFT AUTO

        Every single one of us is, occasionally, guilty of gross stupidity and, although the consequences differ depending on the severity of our idiotic choices, we, ideally, learn from them.           This is a story that I have not told often and I'm not really very proud of it. In the world of stupid choices, for me, this one takes the cake.          It was a dark and stormy night. I say that because I've always wanted to open a story with that line, but, it was a pretty nasty night. The year was 1967 and I was in the Air Force, stationed at Sewart AFB in Smyrna, Tenn. which is about 30 miles south of Nashville on the way to Murfreesboro. There were about six of us who shared an apartment in the projects in North Nashville, not far from Tennessee State University. We called it “The Flop House” and it was the site of an ongoing party. The door was always open to our friends, be they military, college or other and our refrigerator was well stocked with the finest wines. OK, maybe not the “finest,” but, as we used to be very proud of stating, “we didn't drink that cheap dollar shit – we paid $1.09.” Gypsy Rose, Ripple, Twister, Bali Hai....nothing but the best rotgut on the market for our friends. There was always good weed and bad wine at “The Flop House” and everybody knew it. We were young and as carefree as we could be with a tour of duty in Vietnam looming over our heads, although, the more time we spent at the place, the less we cared about much of anything. On this particular night, two of us had to get back to the base for our work shifts. We had no car and were left to our own devices when it came to traveling to and from the flop house. We decided we would rely on our usual mode of transportation - our thumbs. I don't remember my friends name (I don't remember very much from those days) but, I know we called him “Superman” or Supe. He was a pretty good sized guy, but, the appellation came from the size of his afro. It was enormous – super, if you will – and he had to buy the biggest hat he could find to “stuff” it into when he was on base. We were close enough to the entrance to the highway that led to the base that it didn't take very long for us to get to. Then, we had about a 30 mile “hitchhike,” a straight shot, to get to the front gate.                   The weather was a very uncomfortable mix of snow, rain and ice that was falling at a light and steady pace. The roads were slick and we were high, drunk and cold, staggering backwards with our thumbs out. There was no traffic. Not a single car to be seen going either way. There were no lights on this particular stretch of road either. It truly was a “dark and stormy night,” and we were smack, dab in the middle of it. We had gone about a mile and were both uncomfortable and oblivious, conditions that could only coexist on the heels of our massive consumption earlier in the day, when we noticed the used car lot we were fast approaching. I'm not sure what prompted us to look in the windows of the cars, but, in one of them, we spotted.......the key. It was in the ignition and the doors were unlocked. It was almost as though one of the employees knew we would be hitchhiking in the middle of a very cold and sleety night and “had our backs.” We got in and Supe drove. The windshield wipers didn't work, so, I reached out of the passenger window and maneuvered them manually.                   We drove about 2 miles when we reached a traffic light that was red. The car died and wouldn't restart. That's when I got creative and told Supe that we should run down a side road and head back in the direction we came from so that we would be hitching towards the stalled, abandoned car in the middle of the road as if we had never gotten that far. We made it back to the car and, as before, the roads were completely empty.                   We got back in, the car started and we were, once again, on our way to the base and our military responsibilities. We had gone about another 4 or 5 miles when I saw the flashing lights approaching us from behind. They didn't pass us, they closed in on us and we pulled over. That was when the drugs and alcohol began to speak for us as we droned on about going to Vietnam in a week anyway, so, “go ahead and take us to jail.” The cop informed us that he pulled us over because we were driving without a license plate and asked to see our “off-base passes.” I showed mine. Supe didn't have one. He was off-base illegally and the AP's (Air Police) were summoned. They got there and took my friend away in handcuffs, leaving me, in a somewhat altered state (although the situation was a bit of a “buzz kill”) to deal with the situation alone. That's when I reached deep down into my creative psyche and explained that we had bought the car earlier in the day and that the paper “temporary tag,” that was taped to the back window, must have flown out when I opened the front window to make the wipers work. My first experience with the art of improv.              I'm not sure if the cop was really tired or just wanted to wrap things up and get in out of the cold, but, he bought it and asked if I was able to drive back to the base. I was not and I told him so, but, I DID know a place where I could park it until the light of day. I asked him follow me as I parked it. I now had a police escort as I drove the car right back to the lot and the parking space that we stole it from.               I then stepped back into the cold, dark night and “thumbed” my way back to the base. I even made it to work in time. Despite the intense exercise in stupidity, I learned a couple of very important lessons that night. I learned that I had a real creative instinct, which, in time, I was able to parlay very nicely into a career and I never again hitchhiked on a “dark and stormy night.” Oh yeah – and it's not nice to steal a car.

NO NOSTRADAMUS

I tend to shy away from making predictions because I honestly believe that the only thing I can predict with any amount of certainty is that I'm full of shit and my predictions will be wrong. With the notable exception of the fact that I, along with, pretty much everybody I know, will continue to get older every day. I feel like I've been waiting my whole life to understand what it means to get old. Until recently, I didn't even realize that getting old was a “life zone,” for lack of a better term. Not aging, mind you. That's a logical process that just, sorta, comes with the territory. I remember always being dissatisfied with whatever age I happened to be at any given point in my life because I was able to make, what seemed to be, credible predictions about what my future held and it was always rosier than where I was at the time. I just knew the grass would be greener in that next phase. I always considered my younger brother fortunate because he had the advantage of looking at me and saying, “Hell no. I gotta find some greener grass than THAT!” Each year of our life is spent with the anticipation of being a year older, especially when it is a milestone year. We reach these milestones by simply existing for any given amount of time. Get past the first nine years and you're in..... “double digits.” Three more years and you're........a Teenager. Once you realize that being a teen comes with it's own set of issues, you can't wait to be done with all the awkward nonsense. You know that eight years into this particular leg of the journey, you'll reach a milestone that gives you a glimpse of what adulthood will be like. You'll be.........18. The age of majority, where you will now have the opportunity to make some of your own decisions. You will be able to serve your country and, in times of war, you may be drafted.......I was. You can now be thrown into the middle of a conflict and, quite possibly, die. Don't try to get a beer, though. For that, you have to reach the next milestone......21. Now, the wait to quench that thirst is finally over and you can freely walk into a bar and feel like an adult. This is where the prediction of a more idyllic existence is split into 10 year increments. We are aging as well as getting older but that concept is still too abstract to make a difference. “Gee, I'm 25 but when I look in the mirror and I still see 19. Man, I can't wait 'til 30 so I can feel like a real grownup.” This is a general rule of aging but occasionally, rules are meant to be broken. For MY particular segment of the baby boom, part of our generational mantra was, “Never trust anyone over 30.” Once we tuned 30 and began to grow up, we understood that it was time to put down the Daffy Duck doll (that I carried in my back pocket) and start getting serious about raising a family and doing the things responsible adults do as they age as gracefully as they possibly can. After the trauma of turning thirty wore off, the aging process just “was.” The predictions got a little easier. At least for a decade or two. In fact, the only prediction I made at 30 was that I would see the next milestone.....hitting the big 5-0. Fortunately, that one came true. I try not to make them too difficult. Then came the next big one - turning 60, which meant you were now in a decade where it was all supposed to pay off. Words like – retire, pension and Social Security enter our lexicon. And yet, for the most part, I can still remember looking in the mirror and, just like when I was in my 20's, seeing that 19 year old me. I didn't appear that way to anyone else, I'm sure, but I preferred to keep the image in my minds eye alive and milk it for all it was worth. It's a nice perception and it can keep you young until......one day......out of the blue, simple aging becomes “getting old.” It just happens. Real fast. You really don't expect it and you can't predict it. Things start to hurt and fall and clog and change colors and sizes. Your hair turns gray and your prostate gets bigger than your ego. The wait is over. All that preparation and anxiety has come to this. You are now officially getting old. I don't see 19 in the mirror any more.........I see my grandfather and it's pretty unsettling. I certainly never could have predicted, as I took part is the mass drug experimentation of the 70's, that in my 70's the only drugs I would take would be those prescribed to do things like keep my blood sugar steady, keep my heartbeat steady, keep my blood pressure steady.....you get the idea. All the crap that was caused by those years of messing around with all those other drugs. I really can't tell you a whole lot about the experience though. It was the 60's and the 70's and I was there. That's about the only fact that I can accurately remember. These days I don't even try to predict tomorrow. Each morning I wake up and take stock of what aches and pains are waking up with me. That is how I can gauge the “normal” for the day. Each day is a new “normal” and you adjust accordingly. This is what I've waited my whole life to understand? That Bette Davis was spot on when she said, “Getting old ain't for sissies?” I have to be honest. I'm digging the wisdom that comes with getting old. I miss an awful lot about being younger but most of it is physical. I would give anything to be able to play a game of baseball but, I can't. My body will let me know, in no uncertain terms, that I will, if I don't sit down and act my age, most likely break a hip. I've accepted the fact that the list of my contemporaries is getting shorter by the day as is the list of things that I can do without pain and weird noises coming from parts of my body that I didn't know existed. There is, of course, the BIG milestone. The one that we will all reach. As close as it may seem to be getting, I won't be making any predictions. The plan is to stretch the “wait” as far as I can.

A MOVING EXPERIENCE

When someone tells me they would like to pursue career in radio, my first response is to ask, “Are you out of your mind?” Next would be to let them know that part of the job description is to be prepared to pack up and move at a moments notice. You can go into work on a Tuesday morning and be actively pursuing another job by Tuesday afternoon. In between, you might as well pack up the car because the odds are pretty good that you'll be moving.......again. I've made some pretty substantial moves since deciding to venture forth into my chosen profession. I've moved from Connecticut to Puerto Rico to Northern New Jersey to Philadelphia to Chicago to Dallas to Miami. With each move came, not only the hassle of packing up and moving myself but, eventually, moving a family as well. As the family grew, the moves got tougher but we all seemed to turn out OK. I was more fortunate than most in that the last major job I had lasted for 25 years so a few of my kids got to “stay put” and grow up in one place – well, actually two places since the company moved from Chicago to Dallas but, at least, there was a semblance of stability. One of my earliest moves was also one of my most memorable because of some friends I had made in a local band and, ironically, it was between radio jobs. In 1970, I had come home from a little 18 month visit to South East Asia and, after a reception that included being spat upon for serving my country, I moved to Puerto Rico for a radio job. It only paid about $150 a week but, I was young, single and pretty limber when it came to negotiating the twists and turns of my 22 year old existence. While in San Juan, I met a young lady from New Jersey, married her and left the island. It all happened in about as much time as it took for me to type this sentence. What did we know? We thought it was a good idea at the time. We moved to New Jersey and I got a job selling clothes at Archie Jacobson Clothiers in the Menlo Park Mall. I didn't last very long at that job for any number of reasons, the main one being that when I sold someone a suit, I would send them to J.C. Penney's at the other end of the mall because the shirts and ties were cheaper. The boss kinda frowned on that since I was supposed to be selling Archie Jacobson shirts and ties at twice and thrice the price. While I was there, I also decided to go back to school and enrolled in Brookdale Community College. I had the GI Bill to pay for it and I took full advantage of that particular benefit......any number of times. Looking back on my career as a scholar there is nothing that would have distinguished me or that would have even justified my being there in the first place but it was at Brookdale that I met someone who made quite a difference in the avenue I decided to follow. It was during an English Lit. 101 class that I met a guy who became a good friend. I suppose I could lie and tell you I remember his name but I don't. It was 1971.....if you know what I mean. I know that we shared a common talent. We bonded over the fact that we both played percussion, in general – conga drums in particular, the major difference being that he was in a band and I wasn't. He invited me to one of the bands shows in a club at the Jersey Shore and, subsequently, to other shows. I became pretty friendly with a number of guys in the band, particularly the sax player. He had gone to high school in a small town in North Jersey with another friend named John who the sax player called “Abe.” John called him “Nick,” so, I did too. Nick had an apartment at Sandy Hook Beach where we could almost fish from his balcony and we were all hanging out there, one day in July, when my now ex wife was preparing a surprise birthday party for me. They kept me occupied and then we all went back to my apartment where the surprise was waiting. I was taken aback and everyone had their laugh. The party came off without a hitch. The band had a gig that night at a local Catholic School and I accompanied them into the school gym where I climbed a rope and enjoyed the concert from the rafters. It was a little dangerous but, I was still young, nimble and stupid and it was a fun evening. I didn't see the guys in the band much after that. We hung out a little but, unbeknownst to us, we were all heading for much brighter times and many better things. I went on to work for a radio station in Plainfield, New Jersey which led to a job in Philadelphia and then a fairly significant radio career. The band recorded an album and changed their name from Dr. Zoom and the Sonic Boom to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. The album was “Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.” Yes, moving is part of the job description when one decides on a career in radio. My move from Puerto Rico to New Jersey was one of the first ones I made and the one that set my career in motion. I'm retired now. I have finally unpacked the car.

NERVOUS, NORVUS?

I used to be a blood donor. It was a quick, easy way to make a few bucks and I knew I was, ideally, helping a fellow human being. Whether I actually was or not was a moot point. I thought I was helping someone and that was all that counted. I prided myself in my readiness to jump in, at a moments notice, roll up my sleeves and pick up a free pair of movie tickets. My altruism blew my mind (he wrote, with all the humility he could possibly muster up). If I saw a bloodmobile in the neighborhood, I knew it was time to catch a movie or make enough to bring home pizza. But, that was then........and this is now. Then – I was young and vibrant......now – not so much. Then – it could be my entree to a movie theater or would allow me momentary hero status by bringing home a surprise pizza or two......now – not so much. Then my blood was a healthy and in-demand commodity - now – not at all. As a rock & roll radio guy in the late '60's and through '70's, my lifestyle gave me enough pause to be a little concerned about whether I ever would reach the, then, dreaded age of 30. If I did, I theorized, then I could worry about the future. In the meantime, anything went...........anything. The lurid details, entertaining though they may be, are a subject for another day. It's the results of those lurid details that turned me from a self serving blood god - the bloodmobile had a poster of me, needle in arm, grinning from ear to ear and flashing a big “thumbs up” - into a pariah......a castaway.......a hemogoblin. The fact that I had made it past 30 told me that I was OK without really having to change anything. Sex, drugs and rock & roll were still the order of the day. No reason for the carousel to stop. It didn't. There was one party, in particular, that comes to mind. It was a record company party for a band from Australia (they were from an area near a little river) that was in the early days of it's looming popularity. At one point, their, then, road manager broke out a huge “rock” of pure cocaine and was scraping off a continuous “line” as he walked down a long table. Yes.....I did. I went on the air a few hours later with no sleep, nasally and dripping into my mustache. It was a two man show but we were useless to each other on the air because we had both been to the party. If I were a prayin' man, I'd pray that no recording of that show exists anywhere. And yet, I still didn't see any real damage. There was no reason stop doing what I had been doing. Unless, of course, you count the fact that I had gotten married and had my first kid two years earlier but not me. My gauge was reaching 30 with little or no consequence and, that, I had done. It was about 6 years into my 30's when, while enjoying a private regimen of Tequila Sunrises, cocaine and cigars – I had stopped smoking cigarettes because they were so bad for my health – that I nearly saw the light. I had been doing a few lines with a friend and went home to mow the lawn. I lit a cigar and went to the garage and got the lawn mower ready. I had made about 5 or 6 passes on the lawn when I started to get light headed and began to turn gray. It seems my heart had stopped beating and was fluttering. I was in Atrial Fibrillation and wound up in a hospital bed. Remember when I mentioned that I nearly saw the light? When I got home, the first thing I did was have a couple shots of tequila and a nice cigar. It was a matter of days before I was back in the hospital and back in A-Fib.....an issue which has now plagued be for well over three decades and for which I still take the same meds. I immediately quit doing cocaine. I never enjoyed it and, really, only partook because everyone else was doing it. Apparently, it was also around this time that I discovered I was part Lemming. I stopped drinking alcohol. All these years later, the most I will drink is a very cold beer on a very hot day. It took a little longer to stop smoking cigars. Over the 30 some years between then and now, I have developed a number of “issues” that dictate a number of different medications. From diabetes to skin cancer to low blood flow in the legs, I deal with these annoyances that often come with the territory. But it was that episode on my lawn that precluded me from ever giving blood again. The doctors gave me medications that affect my heartbeat. One of the meds is toxic and the other controls the rhythm – which, you'd think, as an erstwhile percussionist, I'd have a pretty good handle on. Imagine the look on a blood recipients face if he got some of my blood and his heart started to flutter? Ironically, I was recently diagnosed with severe anemia and had to have a blood transfusion. The last person in the world whose blood I would want transfused into me would be me. But, to whoever was kind enough to donate the blood that made me feel better.....enjoy the movie.

GREETINGS

Everything we do is a choice. From getting up in the morning to going to bed at night and everything in between – what we eat, when we eat, breathing.....technically, all choices. The choices vary in scope and impact, painting some with a more important hue than others. As I attempt to sort through some of the choices I've made over the last 7 decades and put them into some semblance of order of importance in my life (other than breathing. I'll have no problem with breathing in the #1 spot on my choices hit parade), my biggest realization was that I was around in the '60's and '70's and am incapable of judging choices that I don't remember making. Then I remembered a choice I made in late 1965/early 1966 that turned out to be one of the wisest moves I had ever made. I had just spent my first semester of college in what was then a college but is now a university. It was 50 miles south of Pittsburgh......Waynesburg College in Waynesburg, Pa.......in the southwest corner of the state, bordering Ohio and West Virginia. It was a small, primarily Presbyterian Liberal Arts college and it was the one I got into. I was a far cry from class valedictorian. I think I was 57th in my class.......a class of 56. Waynesburg was the college I got into. I realized I wouldn't be there for long when I was first “rushed” by one of the fraternities on campus. I was curious so, I checked it out. I didn't get very far. You see, this was 1965. There were 31 Blacks and 9 Jews at the school and the 40 of us were barred from the “greeks.” I was gone after the first semester. It was while I was on my way back home to enroll at Uconn that I got the dreaded letter. I'm sure you've gotten it/seen it/read about it in the history books – It began, “Greetings… you are ordered to report for induction.” I was 18 years old and it scared the shit out of me. Probably, literally but, like I said....it was the 60's. Many of my friends and colleagues were getting the same letter. Some took off for Canada, some went off to war.......some never came home. The first step was the physical to determine if the Army even wanted you. I decided to go so I could get an idea of what I might have in store. Not to mention, I didn't want to go to jail. There were people who would show up to the physical doing things that made a 4-f rating a certainty. Ted Nugent, for instance, shat his pants to make sure he wouldn't be sent to war, making him, today, perhaps, the world's biggest hypocrite and coward but, that's a vent for another day. I passed my physical with flying colors and walked out with a big “1-A” stamped on my paperwork. NOW, it was time to make a choice. I could show up for my Army basic training and do 3 years with a year in Vietnam being a sure thing - I was 18 and had no training in anything but flunking math exams....I would have been infantry on the front lines - or, I could try to enlist in another branch and have a better chance of doing something a little safer. My dad was in the Navy. He spent part of WWII attached to a Marine unit as a radioman and fought in the Battle of Leyte Gulf....the deciding Naval battle of the war. My uncle had been in the Air Force and was stationed in Korea smack dab in the middle of the Korean Conflict. Now it was my turn and I weighed all of my options. I could just go ahead do my Army duty but, instead, I chose to enlist in the Air Force. Even knowing that I was committing to 4 years instead of 3 and that any duty in S.E. Asia was 18 months instead of 12. The deciding factor? I liked the uniform better. When I left for basic training in April of 1966, it was very early in the morning. By the time my mom got the mail that day, I was in a bus, on my way to Texas. In her mail was my reporting date for Army boot camp. I had made it by about 6 hours. I went to S.E. Asia in 1966. I spent most of my time in the Philippines with TDY's (Temporary Duty) in Saigon. It was just across the South China Sea and when they needed extra bodies for a few days we would go to do pretty menial stuff. I spent my entire 4 years either driving a fork lift in a warehouse of typing bills of lading to ship stuff. Not very dangerous at all. On January 10, 1970, I stepped off a plane in San Francisco. I was home safe and semi-sound. As tedious and mundane as my work was for 18 months, there is, to this day, absolutely no doubt in my mind that the joining the United States Air Force had been the right choice.

INTEGRITY IS SPELLED D-A-D

As I write this, it is 3 days before the 20th Father's Day without my dad. He died in 1996 but not before passing on to me and my brother a set of values, ethics and morals that garnered him respect and adoration for all of his 72 years. I can only hope to have carried them into my life with as much ease and grace as he did and that my kids have seen fit too integrate them into their lives as well. There are certainly worse legacies to leave for their kids. I can point to dozens of examples that prove my allegations and to scores of people who knew and loved him and will, without hesitation, back me up on this. But, there is one story, in particular, that has stuck with me throughout the years. It's a tale of selflessness and humanitarianism that stays with me, top of mind, wherever I go and whatever I do. It makes me both proud and humble as I try to live my life with the integrity I learned watching him deal with the twists and turns that we all have to negotiate throughout our lives. My Dad sold furniture and office supplies. He began, upon returning from WWII, selling pencils and books to Uconn students at the college bookstore. It paid the bills and, eventually, propelled him to the stockroom at Plimptons, a stationary and office supply store in downtown Hartford. He was a quick study and, with diligence, was soon moved from the stockroom to the main floor. He was selling pencils again but, this time, rather than college books, he was pairing them with all manner of office supplies and, ultimately, office furniture. Over the years, he became an expert and, with his incredibly outgoing personality, built trust filled relationships with all the right people. He was furnishing entire office buildings from the insurance companies in Hartford to the offices of Electric Boat in Groton. Everyone knew that if you needed a chair or a desk or a lobby full of couches and tables, you called Jerry Brett. He was friendly, funny and loved by everyone and he always gave you a great deal. The buyers knew it and the manufacturers knew it. He had been with Plimptons for more than a decade and a half and was thriving when the store was sold to Litton Industries and he was “downsized” out of a job. Not only did he not panic - he didn't miss a beat and kept up his daily routine. He got up at 6am, took a shower, put on a jacket and tie and went to work. What had been getting in the car and commuting 30 minutes to the store in Hartford became walking across the room, picking up the phone and trying to find a job. Looking for work had become his full time job. A job that lasted for nearly a full year. Paying the bills got tough but,with the help of my grandparents, he was able to keep the lights on and food on the table. My parents were brought up to “pay it forward” and were always there when I have hit rough spots in life just as I now try to do with my kids. My dad was having trouble finding work but kept all of his contacts and, eventually, decided to open his own business. With a partner (who later screwed him and left him with nothing.....but, that's another story) became a furniture manufacturer's representative, basically cutting out middle men like Plimptons and selling, for the manufacturers, directly to companies for their offices and buildings. He opened a showroom in Hartford and did quite well. Before long, he had opened showrooms in Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago as well. Through hard work and tenacity, he was back but, as inspirational as his actions were, this story isn't what inspired the awe with which I jot these memories down. Dad had just begun his new venture and was in his favorite clothing store picking up a few things to help him “dress to impress” potential customers, when he saw a guy he used to work with on the other side of the store. H went over to say hello and learned that the guy, who had been “downsized” at the same time as my dad, was not having much luck in finding steady employment. His wife was sick and he had $50 bucks in his pocket to try and find a decent jacket to wear on job interviews. My dad saw him eyeing a very nice jacket that had a $100 price tag. After they were done chatting, my father, as he was walking out of the store, grabbed a salesman, shoved $50 in his hand and told him to tell his friend that the jacket had been marked down to $50. He then went home and made a few calls, one of which helped get his friend a job. The guy never knew. I never knew either. Nobody did except my his wife.....my mom....who shared it with me after he was gone. Morals, ethics, values, integrity.......that's how I learned to live by watching my dad. I only hope that I have been able to successfully convey, to my kids, the importance everything I learned from him and that they pass it on to my grandkids. They say that if you wanna know the measure of a man – look at his kids. I hope I have represented well.

ZEIDE

I spent my entire career, which translates to a good portion of my life, surrounded by some very quirky people. Rock and roll radio of the 70's and beyond was wall to wall quirk. From the time Wavy Gravy popped up at Woodstock in 1969 reminding us how “We're all bozo's on the bus, so (we) might as well sit back and enjoy the ride,” my generation has personified the idiosyncratic and unconventional. I would venture to say that there isn't a soul over 60 who can't look back and find someone who has crossed their path and made them smile with their peculiarities. The choice of subjects is abundant which is why I surprised myself when the first person who came to mind was my great grandfather, Aaron......a man known and loved by my family as Zeide (Zay-da)........the family patriarch. The guy from whom we all took our cue when it came to life's negotiation. Aaron came to this land from Russia in 1905, bringing with him his wife, his 14 year old son (my grandfather) and enough friends (and their families) to run a farm and start a Jewish community in Ellington, Connecticut, a land where the belief still held that Jews came complete with horns. A belief he was able to successfully counter by wearing a hat. A hat that, for the entire time I knew him, he never took off. Zeide was born in the Ukraine, in the rather large town of Ekaterinaslav, now known as Dnipropetrovsk. He was a woodsman about whom very little was known before he just sort of appeared, one day, at the lumber yard owned by the Levine family. Word had it that he wielded a pretty big ax, which was, apparently, enough to impress the young Eda, the woman who would become my great grandmother, Bubba. They wed, had a son and then, with as many of their brethren and sistren as they could round up, proceeded to escape the Tzar's pogroms, organized massacres of Jews in Russia or eastern Europe, and headed to the good ole' U.S. of A. to find some of that opportunity that had eluded them while they were busy fending off Cossacks swords, an activity they heard they could find some relief from in the new world. Oh......and he needed enough guys for a minyan - a quorum of ten men over the age of 13 required for traditional Jewish public worship. So, off they went to a new world. Sometimes, when necessity is the mother of invention, quirkiness is the means to the end, the second cousin, as it were. In order to maintain a sense of community and pride in their heritage, Zeide and his minyan minions realized that they needed a shul, a synagogue in which to practice their faith in their new home without fear of reprisal but they had never built anything like that before and didn't have a design. “LEON,” Zeide yelled to his son, my grandfather, “kumen do aun brengen a blayer.” Yiddish for “Come here and bring a pencil.” “We need a shul. Draw us a shul.” The 14 year old who would become the man I knew as the strong head of the family, drew a square and put a couple of angled lines on top for a roof. “Here ya' go,” he said, handing his father a picture that looked as if a 5 year old had just drawn a box, “Here's your synagogue.” The men used the “blueprint” and built a big box and put chairs in it. The box still sits in Ellington and has been designated a historical monument. My grandfather is listed, in the records, as the “architect” by virtue of the fact that he had a pencil. Aaron began to show more of his quirkiness around the end of the 30's when the German ship, the MS St. Louis, with 908 Jews aboard, tried to land in Canada and then the United States. They were turned back and those who were not given refuge in European countries went back to Germany, some, to their deaths. Franklin D. Roosevelt was President and Zeide NEVER forgave him. He was so upset that he refused to change the clocks during Daylight Savings Time because he felt that it was something Roosevelt wanted him to do. “I'm a farmer,” he would reason, “I know what time to get up. The sun tells me not Roosevelt” The clocks remained where they were. He was rarely on time for anything but he made his point. As he got older his quirkiness seemed to magnify. At least in the eyes of this, then 8 year old. It seemed bizarre to me that he always wore a cardigan sweater with hard candy in the pockets that he would hand out to the neighborhood kids on his daily walks. The candy sometimes had no wrapper and would be covered with lint but his heart was in the right place. I, also, never saw him without his hat. He wore it inside, outside and, presumably, to bed. For a short time when I was very young, I just assumed he was born with a fedora on his head. The irony is that I have now become what I considered quirky and, at times, embarrassing. I have two cardigan sweaters (that reminds me, it's time to stock up on and unwrap a bunch of hard candy) and I wear hats – all the time. I have become Zeide and I'm sure my grandkids have some of the same reservations about my sanity and my ability to live a life without quirk. Aaron, the man I knew and loved as Zeide, passed away when I was about 13. He was 93. We should all live so long.......and maintain the sense of goodness, family and community that this man possessed......amid his quirky ways. One of his quirkiest quirks, however, was that his fly always seemed to be open. I have one picture of him and it's just the way I remember him. An old man in a cardigan sweater with his hat on his head and his fly wide open. Now, if you'll excuse me (“zip” sfx).

CELEBRITY TALES.......AS I REMEMBER THEM: DAVID CROSBY AND GRAHAM NASH

As I sit down to write this, it has been nearly a whole day since the news of a world without Crosby, Stills and Nash. Word of the end came in a response to a question during a recent interview Graham Nash did with a Dutch magazine. "It's the first time I've said this out loud but this is the way it is. You asked me if there is more CSN? Well, my answer is no and that is very sad because we were pretty good but I'm currently not fond of David Crosby. He treated me horrible the last two years. Really, really awful. "I've been there for him for forty five years to save his fucking ass but he treats me like dirt. You can't do that to me. You can do it for a day or so, until I think you're coming around but if you keep going and I keep getting nasty e-mails, then I'm done. Fuck you." The first time I met Graham Nash, it was with David Crosby. It was the late 70's and any interviews we did for the Fox & Leonard Morning Show on WYSP in Philly were done at my partner, Sonny's place. Because of the way we did the show with me in the studio and Sonny at home, we had all of the resources we needed to do a complete broadcast from his living room. We recorded all of our interviews there. It was much more intimate and there were fewer people to confuse things and get in the way. We made the guests feel like it was just a few buddies, “hangin' out and shootin' the shit.” We got some pretty good interviews that way. Keep in mind that it was the 70's and I was part of a successful morning show on one of the top AOR – Album Oriented Rock - radio stations in of of the top markets in the country. Drugs were part of the landscape. The record promo guy who brought Graham and David to the apartment for the interview was a legend in the music industry who was universally loved. Since very few people know this story, I will refrain from naming him. He was, probably in his 70's at the time and had been “promoting” artists for many years yet, he was so astute that he was able to slip nicely into the relatively new world of “sex and drugs and rock & roll” without losing an iota of momentum. The guy was good! He and Crosby & Nash got there in the early afternoon. The weed and coke were set out with chips and Coke on the refreshment counter. David and I dug in and started exchanging heroin stories with a few tales of hallucinogens thrown in for good measure. I think he particularly enjoyed my description of dropping a tab of mescaline and sitting in a tree in a park in Puerto Rico, just watching the world go by in a variety of shapes and colors. We were all having a pretty delightful time when someone suggested that it might be fun to get our friend, the old promo guy, high. Someone approached him and handed him a joint. He was such a master at his job that he would sometimes have to “break character” to keep his charges happy. He took a hit on the joint and we waited for the “fun” to begin. And waited.....and waited. Nothing. We were being typically young and assholish for the times and, fortunately, a hit off a joint is about as harmless as it gets and he remained unscathed, kept his artists happy by complying with their idiotic behavior and got his record on the air. In other words.....this “pro” did his job. Despite us. All in all, it was a successful interview and we had what we considered to be a good time while getting the job at hand done. I didn't see David Crosby again for quite a few years. By the time we had another interview scheduled, it was more than two decades later. I had been free of all things drug related for close to 20 years and Crosby, too, had been clean for a good deal of time. I quit when I began having heart issues in my late 30's. David Crosby's medical history is downright mythological. We met in a small studio. There were about 7 people there and Crosby was visibly uncomfortable. His first act was to clear the studio and he wasn't at all polite about it. I believe his words were something like, “All you assholes, get the fuck out.” We were alone. Before we rolled tape we reminisced about the day we got “promo guy” high and traded stories of how we had gotten clean. How we had both gone cold turkey when our physical limitations told us we had no choice if we wanted to live. We then had an absolutely delightful interview about Crosby, Crosby and Nash, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Crosby, Still, Nash and Young and, of course, The Byrds. It was a very lucid and fun interview. I never met Steven Stills. I've heard the stories but I can't, so I won't, validate any of them. The disagreements among members of the group are very well documented but Crosby and Nash always seemed, to me, to be a team. Good friends who always had each others musical back. I guess that's not the case. I was disappointed when I read about the end of a very integral part of the musical landscape of my life. I guess to expect any type of reconciliation is “Helplessly Hoping.” I guess it's out of the question to ask for “Just a Song Before (They) Go.”