Well, I had the weekend off and with the weekend off, I was able to go to church. In my case, church is St. Peter's Episcopal in McKinney. I am one of those creatures known as a "Cradle Episcopalian", having been baptised when I was extremely young at St. Paul's in Richmond, Virginia. For those of you (or us) in the South, St. Paul's is the church in which Bobby Lee and Jeff Davis recieved word that the Yankees had broken through the lines in Petersburg.
Alas, I have started to stray a bit. Let me re-set.
I had the weekend off and I was able to go to church at St. Peter's. I was actually expected because I had the job of reading the lessons at the 8am service. Went wonderfully. Did the service, and as I was walking out of the church proper into the parish hall, I was approached by one of the other parishoners who made wonderful noises about how well I did and how I should be on the radio.
I've gotten that line for 40 years, now. I had been on the radio for 20 of those years and I'm pleased that I am off, now, thank-you very much.
Now, I didn't open my mouth, nor did I complain at all about the innocent comment. I rather thanked the person for the comment, mentioned that I had been on the radio and left it at that. At least, that is, until now.
I have been gifted in that I have a wonderful speaking voice. It was my dad's voice, it is my brother Kevin's voice and it's sounding more and more like it will be my son, Stuart's voice as well. What's more, I have learned how to project my voice so that it can be heard in various and sundry places. I've used my talent to great effect both at St. Peter's and at the other St. Paul's Episcopal church in Chillicothe, Ohio.
After being told by Mrs. Colonel Fair, my ninth grade English teacher, that she expected to retire and listen to me on the radio, I have been getting the same compliments, even taking the same compliments to heart and finding myself on the radio. As an aside, Mrs. Colonel Fair retired as a teacher in the same year as I started a job on the radio.
But boy, I was hot stuff in those days. A legend in my own mind, so to speak. I was going to be unique, different and was going to do things on the air which had never been done before. I adopted the personna of Uncle Bruco - part in homage to "Cousin" Bruce Morrow, and borrowing a name given to me in one of my High School yearbooks. And between running incessant sports broadcasts and sitting on my tail listening to every preacher and his brother telling me what a fool sinner I was, I did manage to do some of my own thing and get a little bit of notice here and there.
Might do a book on it some day, may not. Too much to post at one time on a single internet blog post.
Suffice to say over a 25 year period (including interruptions to explore other possibilities), I came to the conclusion that radio was getting me nowhere. I got sort of tired of being paid minimum wage and all the records I could eat. Seriously. And the medium was changing. My boss at the time gave me a way out and I somewhat reluctantly took it... although it took me a good year to figure out that I had been the recipient of some pretty good fortune. I found that I indeed have a niche which didn't involve having to keep up with the latest hits and that that niche actually lets me make some real money for a change. I am happy and contented where I am and aside from being a lay reader at church (and maybe doing some voice-over work for small change), I am quite happy where I am, thank-you very much.
On the other hand, should the opportunity arise, next time it will be Uncle Radio's Bruco Show, keeping the world safe for democracy...
Better quit while I'm ahead.
Be Seeing You!
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