Sunday, May 4, 2008

Everything's all right, I'll just say goodnight and I'll show myself to the door

As I mentioned a year ago (and my, how time flies: see Watching your river turn into an ocean) my first steps into radio started as a newsreader during what would have been the fall semester of 1994. Not only was I new to radio but I was new to college and new to living with a roommate. As the summer ended and the day in August when I moved into Bowman-Oates Hall crept closer, I worried about how I would like living in that large a building with people I had never met.

Thankfully I had little to worry about because the kid I ended up sharing a room with in room 424 of Bowman Hall was a second-year freshman who turned out to be one of the nicer people I met in college. His name was Morton Broomill, a stocky, clean-cut kid who lived for college football, Beverly Hills 90210, and becoming an elementary school teacher. Mort was an education major and hailed from Tarbert, a small town in Heritz County about 80 minutes away. While there wasn’t much in common between the two of us, we hit it off and he took to introducing me to some of the quirks of living on campus:
  • Get in good with your suitemates.
  • You’ve got to make an early start to use the building’s laundry service.
  • Move your car during the week and you’ll be walking a mile to the last remaining parking space.
  • Residence Advisors are students, too.
  • The directive from the physical plant that says you must remove all items from your closet and desk so they can spray for insects can be taken for a grain of salt. All they do is take up 30 seconds of your time spraying in front of the closest, under the air conditioner unit, and maybe in the bathroom – and then you’ve got to spend your time putting everything back the way it was.
  • Visit the cafeteria early, if possible – the food is fresher.
Morty found my major interesting and said that he’d give the college radio station a try in the mornings when he worked-out. I remember thinking it was sort of cool that the University Health & Fitness Center actually played the campus radio station, but then I wondered how much of that had to do with the fact we broadcast those rock-infused morning shows. Would there be an audience a year or so later when we played "the most classical music" during our "parade of all-star dead guys?" Anyway, I doubted Morty would listen regularly outside the UFC because he was more into country music than any of the rock, jazz, and freeform oddities that our station played.

Thanks to my morning shift at the radio station, I too became an early riser and ended up becoming more of a “morning person” throughout most of the rest of college. The station signed on at 6AM and the first newscast was an hour later. It was driven into the heads of the news and sports staff that they were required to be there an hour prior to their shift to prepare for the broadcast, so I needed to arrive as close to six o’clock as possible. “Preparing,” News Director Troy Meadows said, usually meant finding something interesting off the AP wire and rewriting it into a short piece that would fit into a three-to-five minute broadcast.

From the radio station I would then disembark for back-to-back classes between 8 and 11, so I knew when I left the dorm I wouldn’t be coming back until much later. Morty’s first class was also over at 11 and it was decided early on in the semester to meet up for lunch in one of the campus cafeterias. Naturally, this was to avoid the awkward sensation of eating alone, something I think weighed heavily on the mind of every other timid, reluctant freshman. Thankfully, we always had company.

It was a strange mix of kids that gathered at our table: Morty was easily the one who held everything together through his easy-goingness, sociability, and decency; Stan Barbery was Morty’s roommate the previous school year and Stan routinely joined us when his music performance schedule allowed; Leonard Davidson was Stan’s current roommate, a freshman taking business classes but still a bit unsure what he wanted to do in college; and Phil Hertz, who just sort of showed up one day, possibly from knowing Leonard from somewhere. The five of us from Bowman Hall met up with three other guys from Rex Hall – Alan Heathland, Michael Arthur, and Kenny Jones – and by then, yes, eight was enough.

At one point the group became the Octumvirate – the group of “ate.”

After we had finished eating and grown restless from sitting around listening to the noise of the cafeteria and our fellow students, Morty had a way of asking if everyone was ready to leave –

“Shall we?”

“We shall!”

We shall, indeed.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
Friends in Low Places
(DeWayne Blackwell/Earl Bud Lee)
Garth Brooks
From the album No Fences
1990

Blame it all on my roots
I showed up in boots
And ruined your black tie affair
The last one to know
The last one to show
I was the last one
You thought you'd see there
And I saw the surprise
And the fear in his eyes
When I took his glass of champagne
And I toasted you
Said, honey, we may be through
But you'll never hear me complain

'Cause I've got friends in low places
Where the whiskey drowns
And the beer chases my blues away
And I'll be okay
I'm not big on social graces
Think I'll slip on down to the oasis
Oh, I've got friends in low places

Well, I guess I was wrong
I just don't belong
But then, I've been there before
Everything's all right
I'll just say goodnight
And I'll show myself to the door
Hey, I didn't mean
To cause a big scene
Just give me an hour and then
Well, I'll be as high
As that ivory tower
That you're livin' in

'Cause I've got friends in low places
Where the whiskey drowns
And the beer chases my blues away
And I'll be okay
I'm not big on social graces
Think I'll slip on down to the oasis
Oh, I've got friends in low places