Day #45 - 11/29/97 - 5:15PM

My wife is jealous. A couple of months ago she thought she was going to give up her teaching job, move to Cleveland and get a few months off while she looked for another job. How things change! It turned out, of course, that I lost my job and came back to Richmond where she continues to diligently go to work everyday to help support us. I'm the one getting the time off and she's jealous.

I can't say I blame her. Maybe it's my experience, maybe it's my age, maybe it's a little of both. But, when somebody gives you 3 months severance pay...you damn well better enjoy the down time! Time off really doesn't get any better than this. When I was fired in Chicago from WFYR-FM in 1989, they handed me a big check and said, "Thanks, but we don't need you anymore." I was stunned! I loved Chicago so much the money meant nothing to me. I just went home, gave my wife the check and proceeded to mope around for almost three months until an offer came from KLOU-FM, St. Louis. What a ditz I was!

As you can see, I have since learned from my mistakes. I've actually accomplished quite a bit since I was fired. My piano playing has really improved, I've gotten a real good handle on Visual Basic 5.0 and I've done some needed work around the house. Besides that, I've been there for my kids at every turn. That's a real nice feeling.

I have a fantasy: We sell the house, get our equity out of it and then move out West and buy a farm. (Of course, I still have to have my Internet connection.) Somehow, we manage to raise enough crops and breed enough cattle to make a living and drop out once and for all. At night and on weekends I sit in front of my computer in my wood-beamed ceiling home and develop software applications.

Of course, I don't know diddly about farming....or ranching.....but that's what fantasies are for.

Are we all a little nuts or is it just me? I love radio YET I fantasy about another life. Do farmers sit on their tractors and wish they were lawyers? Do doctors hold scalpels and yearn to plow fields? Is it just human nature to believe that something else is probably more fulfilling than whatever it is one happens to be doing?

In the beginning, I used to wonder if being on the Radio was important to anyone. I used to wonder if being on the Radio made a difference. I have since seen the positive effects time and time again. I've received the mail. Gotten the calls. Talked to the listeners at remotes and appearances. Heard the stories. Gotten the email. I am always humbled by people I don't even know who tell me they used to listen to me in one city or another and who still follow my career and wish I were on the radio where they live.

Can there be no greater affirmation for a broadcaster?

Yet, I sometimes fantasize for simplicity. I wonder how long I can put my life up on a stage for everyone to see, day after day. What I am is what they get on a daily basis: my good spirits, my tantrums, my sarcasm, my humor, my joy, my bitterness.

Yet, I sometimes fantasize for simplicity...and anonymity.