Sentimental Folderol, Circa 1978

Just added links to all the radio stations I ever camped out in, starting at WFAU, "Your Country" in Augusta, Maine. Well actually, it's in reverse order ending/starting at Business Radio AM 570, which is now Air America's D.C. affiliate on AM 1260 (long story).

I was 18, fresh outta broadcasting school in Boston. I had just turned down a non-pay newswriting internship, or apparently it was, at WRNL in Richmond, VA, and journeyed up to Hallowell to visit Brotherman the Elder, who was bartending at Hazel Green's. The year was 1978, and my favorite song, as I recall: Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street. 2nd & 3rd were Bob Segar's Still The Same, and It's a Heartache by Bonnie Tyler. I also suffered from an auditory dissonance that was usually subliminal but very near the surface. I was told later it was called "Disco."

Right around that time, it was; and, hey, nothing wrong with the long-term.

We, the bro & I, spent the last 4 months of '78, running fall into winter, mutually struggling to eke out a subsistance while living together in a spartan two-bedroom upstairs flat on Prospect Street; him in a nowhere garage band called Clean Slate and me week-ending at "Your Country" while washing dishes at Oliveri's restaurant to make ends meet. He'd quit slinging drinks some months earlier and we were down to stems & seeds, figuratively speaking... and, uhm, literally. The diet was relegated to what the refrigerator would bear, say, beer, some mushrooms & mayonnaise; and maybe in the cupboard, a can of tomato soup to go on the low-rent pasta, no cheese. The days were spare, often ending with Tom Snyder and then Linda Ellerbe on a 12-inch black & white.

I got the call in January for a full-time gig at WLKN in Lincoln, a low-watt Top-40/AOR shed (plus antenna); the owner giving me all of 24 hours to decide. Hey, I was 19 and what did I know from responsibility. I left my brother (with his blessing, and now his bachelor digs), Oliveri's and "Your Country" in the rearview, and took to the hinterlands of rural Downeast, within range of a mountain called Katahdin and a distant piece north of Stephen King.

To be continued...

Meanwhile, this song keeps echoing in my mind:

Got kinda tired of packing and unpacking...
Town to town, up and down the dial...
Baby, you & me were never meant to be...
Just maybe think of me once in a while...