Not Back To The Future... Back To The Back!

By the time many of you read this, I shall be once again, on a freelance basis, be working at 630 WMAL, the place that furloughed me in a corporate restructuring nine months ago. I have had this work scheduled for a couple of months now, and as the day has drawn near, I have found my own personal anxiety level growing a bit.

From the day I was let go, I have never felt those feelings of anger and bitterness towards my former employer that so many have felt - or at least, not against the managers of WMAL. They were given an unpleasant task to perform, and so it was done. I have appreciated their support these many months as I have sought a permanent job, and I also appreciate that they have called me for fill-in work when they clearly had no obligation to do so.

I have been back to WMAL on two or three occasions since I left - each time on business that was unrelated to my former job there. The first time I returned, it felt very strange, but since then, it's felt strangely comfortable - as if I had never left, except for the fact that someone else is occuying my office. And even that didn't matter much, because I had spent most of my time in the newsroom instead of my office even when I was working at WMAL.

This time, I'm actually returning to work FOR the radio station, writing newscasts and anchoring a couple of them a day as well... and hoping I don't fall flat on my face. I don't have any real expectation that I WILL fall flat on my face, but nothing could be worse than going back there and showing my former co-workers that my furlough was actually justified!

If there's one thing I have learned from my months on the beach, it is to treasure every opportunity I get to work. It's a joy that gainfully employed people who've never lost jobs cannot possibly appreciate. I thoroughly enjoyed filling in at WBAL over the summer, as well as my ongoing freelance job at ABC News. When I am scheduled to work, my adrenaline goes a little nutty, and I find myself a little giddy at the opportunity to channel my creative muscles in a constructive and income-producing way.

It makes me thankful at a time when finding things to be thankful for is a bit of a challenge. And those positive thoughts will make it that much easier to take when my clock radio goes off at 2:30 Monday morning!

It's A Miracle! Hallelujah!

I've just come out of surgery, and against all odds, I was able to bring my 1983-vintage General Electric clock radio back to life! Now, I'm afraid it will never again be the spry, witty, devil-may-care machine that it was in say, 1986, but honestly... who among us ARE that way any more?

As mentioned in my previous post, I decided to go ahead and crack the clock radio open for the first time in 24 years, just to see if I could figure out a way to fix the dial, which suddenly no longer moved when I turned the knob.

I turned the clockradio bottoms up and saw a message molded into the plastic, warning me that if I even dared to turn the screws holding the machine closed that I would no doubt send my heart into cardiac arrest from the 200 megawatt blast of leftover electricity from some capacitor that would no doubt vaporize me instantly. The message also said there were no serviceable parts inside the clock radio, and that if I had any questions, I should write to some General Electric office in Syracuse, New York. (We forget how quaint life was before the internet, don't we?)

Ignoring all warnings and putting my life in sudden jeopardy, I removed the screws, opened the case, and nearly CHOKED on the 25 years of dust that had accumulated inside. The cloud filled the room! Feeling my way inside, I found no obvious path to the tuner knob, so I removed the knob and found a string wrapped around the knob post... I untangled the string, gave it a gentle tug, and discovered that the string operates the dial... you can pull it in either direction to find your station of choice! Somehow, it had detached from the tuner knob, and therefore ceased to work! I was not able to reattach the string, but now that I know how it operates, I can set the station again!

Not a perfect solution, but it'll keep me from having to find a replacement! Sometimes, prayers really ARE answered!

Rest In Peace, Old Friend!

Do you have an old, outdated thing in your house that coulda and shoulda been replaced years ago, but that you just can't bear to part with? I do... or rather, I did... until last night.


Last night, my trusty 24-year-old General Electric clock radio/cassette player suffered a life-threatening injury. I went to change the dial and found that, while the knob still turned, the dial did not move with it. Now, the AM band is set to nothing, and the FM band is set to a low-watt Latino station in Silver Spring that I don't think even broadcasts at night. I am going to pull out a screwdriver and see if I can perform some kind of miracle surgery (kind of akin to opening the hood of your car when it's dead even though you know damn well you can't fix anything under there), but otherwise, I think I'm going to have to say goodbye to the old gal and get me a 21st century model.

You can't possibly understand how this upsets me. I bought this big clunky radio at Christmas time, 1983, with a W. Bell gift certificate that I had received as a gift from WMAL. I was a receptionist at the time, and the station had gotten a ton of gift certificates as trade, so everybody got one as a holiday bonus. How many of you can remember where and when you bought YOU last clock radio?

This device was truly state-of-the-art.... a wood-grain plastic cabinet surrounding an LED clock with a solid state cassette player to boot! I woke up to that clock for my entire career, through literally thousands of 2 or 3 am wakeup calls... My hands became so familiar with the controls that I learned to set the time and the alarm without even looking at it.... a significant feature when you work the hours I work! In addition, the wide, flat top of the clock radio gave me plenty of room on which to lay my watch and glasses every night. We grew very comfortable together.

Now I face the hard task of finding a replacement. I'm sure today's models have all sorts of attractive features, but none of them will have the same feel as the old clock. Learning how to set it will be a chore. Feeling for it in the middle of the night will take a long time to get used to. Sure, I could try waking up to the alarm or the cassette player instead of the radio, but I have always found alarms to be too jarring, and honestly, the sound of the cassette player was never that good even when the clock was brand new.

No, I think I'll have to give the old gal a decent burial and find a new model - one that can play the AM band.

I wonder if they still make those!