Stay On The Air And Die

There was a station in Westfield. Small place. The call letters were WDEW. You know, Dew Drop In? Please, give me a break. This couple bought the place, and changed the call letters to WLDM. A typical Mom & Pop place. Years later, it became a 50,000 watt monster named WNNZ. I was the first live voice on the air when it signed on, but I started there when it was WLDM. On a windy day, the signal would reach at least 4 miles. Twelve people listened to it to try to win prizes, like a pair of bridal show tickets, or a bag of cotton balls. High caliber prizes.
I did the morning show, and shortly after I started, I found hundreds of up beat, fairly modern songs. As the format was basically a bit slower than a funeral parlor, I decided to try and spice things up a little, after all, the music was there, it must be there for a reason, so why not, let me flip a few in. I had reaction from the beginning. The owners were gone somewhere, and the few calls I got, I knew folks liked this stuff.
They came back from wherever, and the first thing he did was open the studio door, during my shift, and asked me who the hell I thought I was, to change the format of the station. After a minute or so of being chastised, he slammed the door. Swell, now he's nuts because I tried to improve the format with the stations music. He then opens the door and says, "by the way, I liked the songs you played", and he leaves. Any radio people who read this will know this sort of wackoid personality. They have all the answers, that's why their station has 12 listeners.
This station was located in the basement of a ranch style house near some wetlands. The only escape from the basement was a hatchway in the ceiling of the sales managers office. The only good day there was the Saturday morning shift, because I was all alone.
So this one day, I do my morning show, write and record the endless specs for air time that very few people bought, and I went home. It was raining like hell that morning, and it continued to rain. Down pours like you seldom see up here, and constant with no let up at all.
WLDM was a daytimer. There are nowhere near as many of them today. Daytimers signed on at 6 AM each morning, but signed off at sunset. The AM signals are stronger at night, and whoever had the signal in any geographic area, could stay on the air. Everybody else had to shut down to avoid a "bleedover", where you could hear two, or even three stations on the same frequency. If you had a 3PM show, you were gone at 4:15 in the winter, but could be on till 8PM in the summer.
The phone rings at my house on this day with unending, driving rain. It's the owner, and he wants me on the air, at night, after sunset, to tell people it's raining. Fine. Six of the standard twelve listeners will be in bed, but what the hell, I'm a trooper. I go to the station. This trip took me past a supermarket on a bend of the Westfield river. It was at this point, I realized that Western Mass. was in some serious trouble. The parking lot of this supermarket is, on an average of 20 to 30 feet above the river. It was starting to flood over from the rise of the river. So I
get to the station, and it is dark by now, park, and go inside. He tells me that the station is going to stay on the air to keep the public informed of this encroaching great flood hitting the area. I thought, gee, yeah, that's what I'd do. If some emergency was in my back yard, the first thing I would do is turn on a radio station frequency that has never, ever broadcast after sunset, but, I don't know, maybe somebody will be there. Now why this was ok on this night, as opposed to ever before, I don't know, but I was the guy who wanted to introduce different music to the 12 out there, I was wrong, so I must be wrong about this too. I now take to the airwaves. This was a music station, well, eh, yeah, music I guess, but I was told, NO MUSIC. Just inform the public. I saluted, spun around, and took to the airwaves. "Good Evening ladies and Gentleman, and all the ships in the Big Y parking lot. It's raining hard out". Ok, now what? I go to check the AP news wire. These things bad bells on them. One bell said, hey, radio guy, we're writing something. Two bells meant, hey stupid, come read this, ok? Three bells meant, other stations are talking about this stuff already. Four bells meant you get over here now, jerk. And the most was five bells. I only heard that once. When the space shuttle blew up. But this night, I was desperate for something to talk about. Somehow, the AP gave half of one bell. I sped to the AP machine. These things were always in a 2 foot by 2 foot closet, and you had to keep the door closed. I guess so if the Russians were walking down the hall they couldn't read the daily hog slaughter reports,(something I used to read for no reason whatsoever). I get there and the advisory was, "heavy rains pound the east cost". Well, now I have something to talk about!
About 9 PM, the owner comes down to the studio, and announces to me that he has been on the phone with the Mayor, let everybody know. I was going to call my wife, but she's 4 miles away and can't hear the station, so I talked into the mic. Here come de mayor, here come de mayor. It was around this time that I had to use the bathroom, so I broke the no music rule and went up to the bathroom. When I came back down to the basement, I heard something to my left at the bottom of the stairs. It was water rushing in through the cinder block walls in about three places. Like a faucet, as the back and sides of this place were now under water. I couldn't see it in the dark when I got there, so I went upstairs again and turned on the back flood light, ( no pun intended), and the ground in the back was now a lake. I told the owner who was in his office in the front, playing with his Lincoln Logs, that there was water coming in through the walls. He then made the most profound statement; "That's not good". It's now 9:30, the mayor shows up, and the owner brings in a wooden pallet he was keeping, as a prize to lucky caller 3 I guess, and puts it in front of the console, and puts my chair on it. He said he didn't want me to get shocked. Wha chew talkin' bout, Willis? This is for real. I am broadcasting on 200 year old equipment, none of which was grounded, and even if it was, I'm on the air in 3 inches of water to tell 4 people it's raining out.
Mayor Varelas of Westfield, was a fine and well liked gentleman. Had a slight Greek accent, and he was just a great guy. It was a shame we were going to get fried together. He came in and made his little speech for about 5 minutes, and told everyone not to worry, the rain will stop soon. Ah. This was worth all the problems of this night. The rain will stop soon. You know it's true. The mayor said it.
All throughout this stupid night, I gave the on air number and begged people to call with conditions where the were. Nada. I knew this, this was a given. But the owners had to let those two people out there know, that we were on the air! Oh yeah. And it was raining.