Norm Nathan's Vault of Silliness - Ep 165

[00:00:00] Speaker A: We revisit Thanksgiving week again with this episode from November 20, 893. It's possible another date may have slipped in or the tape was mislabeled. But that does not happen often as our friend Joan was rather meticulous and would even provide copious notes. So because this is a Norm Nathan Show dumb Birthday Game norm Nathan Show Broadcast I've decided to call it a cold old turkey sandwich. You see what I did there? Because the dumb birthday game is sandwiched in between a norm nathan show and another no from Thanksgiving. Yeah, the Dumb Birthday Game is only a partial game that picks up towards the end. We get two celebrities, three history questions and lots of puns. Callers throughout are as follows good old Jack in New Hampshire jane in Pinehurst, North Carolina john Paul Dave the reminiscing. Pete the hacking, snorting, hysterical Beverly. Now that's a call guy. From Westford and Anne, we welcome an awesome repeat guest, jean Aspen, author of Arctic Daughter a Wilderness Journey. What an amazing story in life. Her description of being in the Arctic is stunning. We had her on with her other book, Arctic Sun. The Dumb Birthday Game is joined in progress and is very funny. Where or where is the rest of this game? The players? I'm on the phone. Sid Whitaker was producing and playing in studio. Bruce Connolly was in traffic. We have Fred and Medford dave Virginia and Itsy Bitsy christopher the Birthdays gary Hart and Hope Lang And then the history questions. What year did the coconut grow fire happen in Boston? America's first auto race took place in what year? And in what year was the first WSM barn dance, which was later renamed the Grand Old Opry? We get to hear some commercials from the club Ovaltine. Very, very brief on Mrs. Nelson's candy house. I hope one of these tapes has the full commercial, because that's a classic and a commercial read by Norm for Heritage Radio. There's so much other hash on our plate, but I'll only give you a taste. Traffic to romance and dying. Two with Bruce Connolly. Mike Epstein joins Norm to talk about agent extraordinaire Bob Wolf, who had recently passed the penny ferry. 75% chances of survival, five moose, a bear and a caribou. Oh my lumin abner the Bahamas, sounds of the night, jazz ginkheads drifting off to sleepy land, entering a world of decadence and so much more. Episode 165 a cold turkey sandwich slices its way to your ears in three, two and one. [00:02:51] Speaker B: Well, I guess maybe that's right. [00:02:56] Speaker C: Yeah, you can do about it. [00:02:59] Speaker B: Not too much. [00:03:00] Speaker C: And listen, the name of the tunnel, I think, and I think it's delightful that they're going to for Williams the baseball player, but I think a better name for it would be the Yorkie. He was a great man in Boston baseball. [00:03:18] Speaker B: Well, I guess, yeah, of course they have Yorkie way. They have a street named after him. Somebody suggested that if they're going to name anything after Williams, if they ever get around to building a dome stadium or something like that, that ought to be known. [00:03:34] Speaker C: But I think that for a lasting name in the tunnel will obviously last. And I think Tom Yorkey, or Mrs. Yorkie, for that matter, she was quite a gal in sports history of Boston, which is the sports town of the nation. No question about that in my mind. [00:03:58] Speaker B: Sports town of the nation. Okay. [00:04:02] Speaker C: I didn't hear you. [00:04:03] Speaker B: No, that sounds good. [00:04:04] Speaker C: Yeah, that's all I have to say. [00:04:06] Speaker B: Well, I hope you have a nice weekend, Jack. [00:04:09] Speaker C: I tried to make it after 70 years. I keep struggling along, keeping harbor, which was by Paul Revere. [00:04:19] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. I guess because we got a city named Revere. [00:04:22] Speaker C: Yes. But, you know, the names mean nothing as the years go on. But Paul Revere, as longfellow said, the spark struck out for that thief in his flight would kindle the land the flame with his it was I've done a lot on memorials and the six words for you stand free. Because they fought for the Bourne Cemetery. And I think you ought to give it something that has meaning. Why was it named Paul Revere tunnel. The Paul Revere tunnel. Well, Paul Revere, because you say Revere, then he throw those guys down in Revere had the political clout. [00:05:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I think in that case, you'd say the whole name, although we don't with the Sumner or Callahan Tunnels. And most people have no idea what those names were for. You know where those names Sumner and Callahan Tunnels came? [00:05:20] Speaker C: Callahan was named for Callahan's son. [00:05:22] Speaker B: That's right. William Callahan Jr. And if you get. [00:05:26] Speaker C: Stalled in traffic, you can read that over. [00:05:28] Speaker B: Oh, that's right, too. Yeah. It was the commissioners, the transportation commissioner's son, as you point out, killed in World War II. And do you know who William H. Sumner from the Sumner Tunnel was named? [00:05:40] Speaker C: No, I don't know. And they named Sumner. No, he's not. Sumner street, though. [00:05:43] Speaker B: No, that's Summer Street, I think. The street in Boston. But this is Sumner with an N. He was named after he was a War of 1812 veteran. And the construction of that of the sumner tunnel began during James Michael Curley's term. And so that's why somebody suggested, why not name one after James? [00:06:06] Speaker C: I drove through it. Whether or not it toll was a nickel. [00:06:09] Speaker B: Is that the original charge? [00:06:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:06:12] Speaker B: Do you remember the penny ferry also? Was it a penny ferry that used. [00:06:15] Speaker C: To go yes, there was my father took me across on that. We weren't living around, but we were living around Boston, 1916 to 1920. And he also knew a lot of history because he was born in 1870. I was the youngest son of the old he was the youngest son of an older man, and so was I. [00:06:35] Speaker B: Okay. [00:06:36] Speaker C: Grandfather goes back to about 1829 or something. [00:06:39] Speaker B: Okay. I was trying to figure out when you go back to 1910. You were born in 1910? [00:06:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:06:46] Speaker B: Okay. [00:06:47] Speaker C: And since I was 60, I've lectured in 47 countries and on four continents and in two languages, one of which was Spanish. I learned after age 65. [00:06:56] Speaker B: Okay. Now what do you lecture on improving your memory? [00:07:00] Speaker C: I just had a book come out on my 79th birthday, blueprints for Memory, and I just got a copy of it in Spanish from South America. [00:07:08] Speaker B: Without giving the whole thing. What is the key thing we should look for when we're trying to improve our memories? Is it a word association? How do you do that? [00:07:16] Speaker C: Just organize the information so you can think about it. When you were back at school and they told you that the face face felt the spaces on the staff that had meaning, you could remember it, so therefore you could think about it. But then you came to the lines which had no meaning, and so the EGBDF. So they said, Every good boy does fine. Now, that has nothing to do with music, but it holds it where you can think about it, the kind of. [00:07:41] Speaker B: Hardships that you have gone through. And you come from a family like that. Your mother was a traveler through the Arctic as well? [00:07:51] Speaker D: Yes, both my parents were Arctic explorers and wrote a total of twelve books between them. [00:07:56] Speaker B: So did you grow up, were they going mostly to Alaska or did they go to other parts of the world? [00:08:02] Speaker D: It was mostly Alaska. My parents were divorced when I was three, and I don't remember my early life with them out following the caribou by dog sled on the Arctic Ocean very well. But after my mother moved to Tucson with my sister and I, when we became very young teenagers, I was 14 and my sister was twelve, my mother took us by canoe to the Arctic Ocean through Canada for 3000 miles down the Mackenzie Slave River systems. As a matter of fact, that book is also available right now. It's just been republished because people were interested in it. That's called down the Wild River. North. [00:08:41] Speaker B: Okay, good. I must read that. This book, the Arctic Daughter the Wilderness Journey details time that you spent in Alaska in 1972. That's right. In fact, you stayed there for what, four or four years, although you had planned to go for one. [00:08:59] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:09:00] Speaker B: And watching you or reading about you and Phil Bisol. Is that how he pronounced his last name? [00:09:06] Speaker D: Yes, that's how you pronounce his last name. [00:09:07] Speaker B: Okay. Just listening to you going up the Yukon River and then I've never known how to pronounce the name of that other river that was subsidiary, I guess, Chandelier chandelier river. And then up intoward the Brooks Range and up through that area, I guess, without a map. Also, your map sort of, sort of began north of where you were going north north of much of what your trip was all about. I just can't picture that. And you went in, what was it, the month of June? [00:09:42] Speaker D: Well, you can't start until the ice has all gone out and the country is sort of settled down from the spring flood. What we did is we put our canoe into the river at one of the few places where a road comes to the Yukon River, which is the town of Circle. And we floated down the Yukon for a ways, and when we got to the Chandelier River, then we had to walk upriver about 300 miles pulling the canoe with ropes to get up into the mountains. And that took much of the summer. And then at the end of the summer, we needed to build a cabin so that we could survive the winter. And we had to have all the tools and food and supplies and books and whatever we needed with us in the canoe, which and of course, the canoe doesn't hold a lot. [00:10:24] Speaker B: Now, you were the expert on this, but Phil was not. Was this his first trip along those lines? [00:10:30] Speaker D: This was his first trip, but it was also my first trip. In a way. I think when we started out, we figured we had perhaps a 75% chance of survival. But you must remember we were in our early twenty s, and it was a good time to be risking, to be trying ourselves against obstacles. I think this is a very important part of the energy of young people that they really need to try themselves against something. And I think, in fact, that the energy we see going into drugs and gangs these days is in fact, sort of a thwarted natural drive to find out who you are and what you can accomplish in life. [00:11:09] Speaker B: It's kind of interesting you put that so casually, and I understand about trying. When you in your 20s, in your 20s, you'll do things that you'll do in your forty s or fifty s, certainly sixty s or whatever. But very few people, even in their 20s, are going to do the kinds of stuff that you were doing back then. And you say a 75% chance of survival, that's a good way to look at it. I suppose many of us would say at very best, we got like a 25% chance we're never going to get out of this thing alive. And I suppose I'd look at that that way. You're going where there's nobody I can't even imagine how you even know how to build a cabin out there in the wilderness. [00:11:50] Speaker D: Well, this is where Phil came in, actually. He was good at building anything, and we worked together on it, and we were really very green in some ways, but in other ways, by having had my experience, of course, in canoeing and being able to talk with my mother and planning the trip my parents had done this sort of thing. Earlier, I had a pretty good idea of a person's food consumption and the kinds of tools we would need. It was not an unplanned trip. It was as well planned as we could do it. But then, of course, we were limited by the space in the canoe. [00:12:20] Speaker B: That's right, because you weren't bringing a big trailer truck up there, you were just carrying it on a canoe, and you couldn't load it. Tremendously heavy, I suppose, because then it would sink. [00:12:30] Speaker D: Actually, we loaded it too heavy, and it was lucky we only had to float the Yukon for a few hundred miles, and then we were able to pull the canoe and get out of it because we were actually overloaded in the canoe. [00:12:42] Speaker B: I thought it was intriguing when you got to forgive me, I'm terrible with names, but this Glenn Olsen's place, I'm terrible with names, too, as you can see. [00:12:55] Speaker D: That's okay. [00:12:55] Speaker B: But you were close to where you were planning to go when you came across this old settlement, which had been abandoned, I guess, many, many years before, but there were all kinds of rusted old tools there that you put to use. [00:13:09] Speaker D: Well, actually, Chris Olsen, as we later figured out, was an old, perhaps a minor from the this country actually had more people in it during the depression than it has had since then. Originally, of course, there were native people, but they were pretty scattered out. Now they're in villages, and now the country is mostly empty. During the depression, people went back into the country because they didn't know what else to do. And you do find these old cabins, usually dating from the from the 1890s. [00:13:38] Speaker B: Because I've known so many people in recent years who not only talking about going to Alaska, but who have gone, but normally they go. If it's any wilderness area, it's maybe a mile or two outside of Fairbanks or anchorage, fairly much in the southern part, but not doing the kind of exploring and things that you did. How did you settle upon the area you went to? Had you been there with your mother before or near there? [00:14:02] Speaker D: No, as a matter of fact, I chose it from a map, and I chose it deliberately for having a lack of people around it and for being looking like a river that we could go up. Looking at the topo maps, I had no idea what the country was like, and it was a big gamble for me. [00:14:20] Speaker B: Now you plan to stay a year, and you know that when the heavy winter sets in, life sort of closes in on you. Although even when it got to be 40, 50, 60 degrees below zero, temperatures that we can't even hardly imagine here, you still went outdoors a fair amount of time, did you? And of course, you lived off the really, literally lived off the land, because you had to hunt animals and all that? [00:14:47] Speaker D: Yes. And you'd be surprised how much a person eats. My mother had prepared me for this, saying that you eat your weight in food every month, and we actually ate five moose, a bear and a caribou in a year. [00:15:01] Speaker B: That sounds like the lyric to a Christmas song. [00:15:06] Speaker D: As a matter of fact, I did not want to put the same kind of strain on the country again this last time we went in. So we were able to fly into the area with a great money, deal more food. And also I didn't want to put my small son or myself, who's now in my 40s, in that kind of position. [00:15:26] Speaker B: Where are you living now? [00:15:28] Speaker D: I'm living in Tucson. [00:15:30] Speaker B: Oh, you are living in Tucson. Oh, I see. Okay. You have gone back to Alaska, though. [00:15:34] Speaker D: Yes, my husband and son and I, and a woman friend in her 20s went up into the country for a year and a half and just returned this September. Actually, the woman friend only stayed for the first few months. [00:15:46] Speaker B: Now, back to the 70s journey, the wilderness journey, when you were living off the land and living off you had shot a moose, for example. You and Phil. Phil had pretty well I guess you both had pretty well cut it up and preserved it and all that, as was done here back in colonial times, I guess, before there was refrigeration and all that kind of business. In other words, during the hot weather. What am I trying to say? Flies and insects and stuff will get added unless you prepare the meat very quickly. But was that kind of weird for you to take a rifle and shoot something like a moose, which you had never done before? [00:16:29] Speaker D: Yes, I still find it weird. It's not something I enjoy doing, and I avoid doing it, but I'm good at it. I can do it. [00:16:39] Speaker B: And you and Phil circuit cut up. [00:16:42] Speaker D: It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. [00:16:44] Speaker B: It took days, didn't it, for the first moose? I think you talked in terms of, what, four days, five days before you had cut up? [00:16:50] Speaker D: Well, the actual first butchering of a moose takes about 8 hours to get the hide off it, get the guts out and get the pieces cut into sizes that you can carry. Then if you're going to dry the meat, it took us, I would say, probably about five days of continuous work. And when I say continuous, it doesn't ever get dark. And so you're working on very little sleep, somebody being up all the time taking care of the fires and cutting the meat up and hanging it to dry and smoking it, because otherwise you'll lose it. [00:17:25] Speaker B: In the meantime. Now it's getting into September and October, and the days get a whole lot shorter then, obviously, of where you are, and the days get a whole lot colder. Is there ever a feeling of a panic at this time because you late into the summer and into the wintry weather. [00:17:44] Speaker D: Yes. [00:17:45] Speaker B: You still haven't built the cabin is not done yet. [00:17:48] Speaker D: Right. It takes quite a while, especially just using an axe and hauling all the logs by hand. In fact, it was 20 below zero and we were still living in a pup tent, working on the cabin. And I will say that is probably the most difficult time I've ever been through in my life. And there was a time in there which I felt that if I ever managed to get back to a nice warm house, I wouldn't even go outside again. [00:18:14] Speaker B: And yet you got through that winter and you were planning what were you planning to stay there just one year and then decided you would stay there longer or you came back and went how did that? [00:18:23] Speaker D: We came back outside and prepared ourselves for another year or a year and a half and went back in and then we came out and we went in again. So it wasn't a continuous stretch. It was over three different times that we spent the total of almost four years there. [00:18:39] Speaker B: What was the day like? I'm sure I don't know whether the days were all pretty much the same or not, but say a day in the middle of winter, you've got very little daylight and you've got a whole lot of very cold temperatures. [00:18:52] Speaker D: What can I say? Know when people say, what is it like to live in the Arctic? I can tell you. You remember seeing the old movie wizard of Oz, where it goes from black and white to color? [00:19:10] Speaker B: Yes. [00:19:10] Speaker D: That's what it's like for me to go to the Arctic. It's like meeting God. It's a tough life. Yes. But it is so beautiful. It's so quiet. People talk to me about the stresses or whatever, being in the Arctic, and for me, that's not true. For me, this life is the hard life, dealing with the telephone and the commitments and the different things. All of us have this our checkbooks or whatever it is. And for me to live a life that is simple, it's pretty one on one simple. And some of that simplicity is life or death. Simplicity. I have to admit that that's a hard one sometimes to face. [00:19:51] Speaker B: Yeah, that's about as basic as you can get. Just trying to make sure that you have enough food and that you don't freeze to death in that kind of a climate and that so you don't really have time to worry about too much. [00:20:02] Speaker D: It doesn't create the same kind of stress, believe it or not, that being late on a payment or whatever creates in my life. It's cut or dry. You go out and you work as hard as you can to get something accomplished and you either do or you don't. Somehow it lacks the judgment that goes with it. When you feel like you're going to be late on a payment or you've got a traffic ticket or whatever else is in modern life that keeps you. [00:20:29] Speaker B: One very moving part of the book. The whole book is fascinating, but you would talk about the dog that you picked up and took north with you. Dog named my mind is totally blank. It was not a springer span. [00:20:50] Speaker D: It was a husky. [00:20:52] Speaker B: It was a husky, though. Okay, I'm way off on the breeds. Totally. But at one point, the dog was injured, and there was some possibility you might have to shoot the dog just to put him out of his misery. Or put her out of her misery as a female. Right. And yet you nursed her back to health with very primitive ways. In very primitive ways. And you're speculating at the end of the book that maybe she's probably still alive now because she's with Phil, who I guess you mentioned. [00:21:20] Speaker D: Anyway, she died recently, but she was very old when she died. She was 16. [00:21:26] Speaker B: Okay. Well, I'm glad she survived you, but you have a lot of tender little stories like that. [00:21:31] Speaker D: Thank you. [00:21:31] Speaker B: Facing the wilderness with the dog, and your writing is awfully nice. I just felt like I was there, and at times I really didn't want to be. You married Phil up there and divorced when you came back and you said civilization. Maybe you weren't built to live together in a civilized area. [00:21:51] Speaker D: Yes, this is true. I think relationships are easier, too. In the Arctic. There's only one other know. People talk about getting cabin fever, but I've never experienced that. I've experienced a real sense of mutual dependency and trust and friendship. It's very uncomplicated. You don't have to deal with all of the other things that happen and. [00:22:12] Speaker B: Just the two of you there with the dog for that length of time, and you don't get sick of each other. There must be moments when you do. [00:22:18] Speaker D: No, I never have never experienced that, either with my husband Tom or with Phil. I just experienced a great deal of enjoyment in their company. [00:22:27] Speaker B: Now, Tom Irons, the man that you're married to now, must be an interesting guy, marrying you. Must be a great adventure in itself. Had he been an explorer or anything like that? [00:22:41] Speaker D: No, he'd never even camped out. He's very courageous to undertake this. We started off, actually, kind of slowly in the sense that we went and when Luke was about 18 months old, we went up and spent five weeks in the Arctic on a lake with my father and my stepmother. And Tom got a real sense of what the Arctic was like and said, Well, I think I could enjoy some of this. So then we canoed down the Chandelier River when Luke was four, and we all decided we wanted to go back and live there. [00:23:17] Speaker B: Tom caught up the ways of you there very quickly, obviously. [00:23:21] Speaker D: Well, you know what? It isn't just me. It's the wilderness itself. There's a certain draw. I sometimes feel like it's a mixed gift that my parents gave me and that I'm handing on to my son. A sense of being in two worlds and never really belonging in either one. [00:23:39] Speaker B: I think I can understand how you feel. I can understand the idea for solitude and living in a wooded area, open area, away from people and all of that, but to carry it to the extreme that you carried it through, I just cannot identify with that. Just seems to me there must be more middle grounds where the weather is better, where you're closer to something when you want to say, I don't really feel like roughing it quite this much right now. Let me go back to where there are people and where I can live more of a city kind of life and then come back again. But you just stayed there. Although there were little towns up there, weren't there, where you could you say. [00:24:20] Speaker D: There were little towns up there? Yes, it's true. The nearest town is about 300 miles by river and inaccessible in the wintertime at all. So basically, once the river freezes, that's it. You don't have any options. [00:24:35] Speaker B: How long are you going to be where you are now in Arizona? [00:24:37] Speaker D: We have a home here. My husband and I have been artists in stained glass for years, and we gave that up to go back to the Arctic. In fact, what we did up there is we shot a documentary, which is at the producer right now, and we've had some really good reports on that. I think it's very good material, and we're looking for a network and sponsors to produce that. We have 90 hours of videotape we shot. It was a lot of work. [00:25:06] Speaker B: Oh, I would think so. Maybe you'll show up on the Discovery Channel. [00:25:09] Speaker D: Yeah, that's the sort of direction we're headed with that. [00:25:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Do you feel like you're hemmed in? Do you feel like something is missing now that you live in Tucson, Arizona, right in the city? [00:25:18] Speaker D: Well, you know what? I don't even live in the city here. We live out in the Tucson mountains. We built ourselves a place out on five acres, and I haven't gotten a car yet. I'm kind of trying to get into this very slowly. I live a very reclusive life. I sit here at my typewriter, and I go outside and water my plants, and I often spend days that I don't see anyone except Tom and Luke. So in some ways, I haven't quite immersed myself yet in brief consciousness. [00:25:46] Speaker B: Yeah. I was trying to imagine before I talk with you what your voice would sound like. You sound like it's a very gentle, youthful, soundy voice. And after reading, your know, lugging canoes up through wilderness areas and building homes in the wilderness and shooting moose and skinning them and all that really rough stuff. I thought you'd have a voice way down deep here. [00:26:08] Speaker D: You ought to see me too. I'm 25 or 30 pounds overweight. I'm middle aged, getting gray hair. I don't look like your Arctic explorer type. I have a belief, I guess this is the message I'm really trying to get across to people, is that I think most of us have an inner quest. That something we really want to do, something we'd like to explore. And most of us are stopped by people's opinions or by feelings of inadequacy. And what I'd like to say is that what else is there? You can spend your whole life you still die anyway. You can live your life by other people's rules. You don't get out of it alive. You really aren't risking as much as you think you are. For Tom and I, the big risk was we had worked for ten years to build up a very good business as artists and a good reputation. We sold the whole thing in order to do this. We just let go of it all. We said, well, this is the direction we're going. And we believe the universe supports choice and that as artists and as people, it's important to keep growing and exploring new avenues. I don't know if we'll go back. I suspect we probably will, but it won't be doing the same thing exactly. [00:27:19] Speaker B: Again, because we've talked on this program about pursuing your dreams. It's really kind of a lovely thought because a lot of people don't do that for one reason or the other. One of the reasons is one that you mentioned, the fact that people say, what are you, some kind of a nutcake? You can't do that. And if you're slightly weak at heart or don't have that much confidence in yourself, you give up the idea and it's too bad. I'm glad you said what you said. Well, it's too late for me to explore the Arctic, but I'll find some other way to make up and pursue my dreams. [00:27:52] Speaker D: That may not be your dream. And one other thing I would like to say is if you could even see the computer list of things that we drew up in order to go up there and the way we were prepared, we did not do this. Haphazardly. The Arctic does not abide fools. Even people who are well prepared often get killed by it. I have known a number myself who have died in the Arctic. It's not a forgiving land. And so I would not recommend anybody who's had this fantasy of just packing up all the kids and going and living out in the bush because there's some real tragedies there. If this is really a person's dream, they need to pursue it logically and intelligently. [00:28:34] Speaker B: A delightful to talk with Eugene Aspen, Arctic daughter. A wilderness journey. I'll give the publisher's name and all that a little bit later after the news and. Things, but it's been a delight to talk with you. You're my role model. [00:28:47] Speaker D: Thank you. [00:28:48] Speaker B: I appreciate it. My best to you and your family. [00:28:50] Speaker D: All right. Thank you for talking. [00:28:52] Speaker B: Bye bye. She's a fascinating lady. [00:28:56] Speaker D: Want to tell you how much I enjoy your show. [00:28:59] Speaker B: Well, thank you very much, Jane. [00:29:00] Speaker D: And I love your sense of humor. And I was so tickled when the lady said she'd been married 50 years and you said, Enough is enough. I just thought that was funny. [00:29:15] Speaker B: You know something, Jane? You're okay? [00:29:20] Speaker D: I have a little trouble sleeping at night. And you're such a friendly voice in the night and not too serious and not all the problems of the get. [00:29:33] Speaker B: We get kind of giddy. Where are you? North Carolina. [00:29:36] Speaker D: Pinehurst. [00:29:37] Speaker B: Pinehurst, okay. [00:29:39] Speaker D: Do you remember you say that wonder you're not a golfer then. [00:29:43] Speaker B: Oh, that's right. No, I said it like that because it had a familiar ring. No, I'm not a golfer, but it had a familiar ring. I was also thinking of an old radio show way back, a funny show that took place in this was Arkansas, but the name of the towns, it was a mythical town called Pine something else. Alumn Abner? No, you're not old enough to remember that, but you'd be surprised. Oh, well, I'm glad. But they were a couple of supposedly hillbilly comics, and that kind of humor I always hated. But these guys were very funny and they had a story in a place that sounded like Pinehurst, which is another reason I paused there. [00:30:23] Speaker D: To Pinehurst. You know, we have golf courses coming out of our ears and it's a very pretty village. I've only lived here. I say only, I'm not a Southerner, as you can tell. But I've been here 19 years. [00:30:42] Speaker B: I'm sorry, we'll call you back. Is that okay with you? And we'll talk after the news, which is coming up right now. [00:30:48] Speaker D: That will be fine. [00:30:49] Speaker B: Okay, good. I'll talk to you soon then, Jane. Thanks a lot. All right, if it's happening now, you're hearing it now on WBZ. Your only choice for breaking news 24 hours a day. News radio 1030. It's criminal, the whole treatment of those dogs. [00:31:11] Speaker C: Do they still have dog racing? Get around much anymore? [00:31:15] Speaker B: It's the most stupid sport I've ever seen to see these dogs chasing a mechanical rabbit. The whole race lasting about a minute, and especially the pre race stuff. I haven't been to a race in a long time, but I assume the formalities are the same. They have these uniform guys. Instead of the call to the post where the big horses, the good looking horses, are ridden around. So you can see they have the dogs on leashes and they're marching them to this march music that's played on some tinny phonograph. And they're marching the dogs, and that's supposed to be the pop and circumstance. And then the dogs race, and it's all over very quickly. And when you have that along with this other awful business about killing these dogs, if they're not going to look like champions or winners, it's a stupid sport. [00:32:05] Speaker C: You know what it reminds me? We lived in Puerto Rico for three years when I was in the service and we went to some cockpits. I took my son, he was about 1213 then and he couldn't stay very long. He went outside to watch and the ones that back off, they take them out back and they just cut their throats and throw them on. [00:32:30] Speaker B: I know. Well, that's a sport. That's not even a sport, but it's pretty much outlawed. It's outlawed, isn't it? Most places, yes, but you'd be surprised. [00:32:39] Speaker C: How many see, I knew. I had a lot of Puerto Rican friends. I worked with them in the headquarters and they go every Sunday and it's like they're going to the track or something. [00:32:52] Speaker B: I know it's a big thing. I felt the same way about bull fighting. I was down in Mexico and in Spain watching some bullfights. I thought, what kind of a sport is this? Did I really have to kill these beautiful animals? I tell you, we're terribly civilized, John. We don't believe belong in this world. [00:33:09] Speaker C: That's right. [00:33:10] Speaker B: I got to get going because we have news coming along, John, but you're always fun to talk with. [00:33:14] Speaker C: Hey, listen, I just want to ask you a couple of times. You mentioned are your daughters living somewhere away from you? [00:33:21] Speaker B: Yeah, but very close by. [00:33:23] Speaker C: Oh, that's good. [00:33:24] Speaker B: And we all got together Thanksgiving. We get together a lot. [00:33:27] Speaker C: That's good. [00:33:28] Speaker B: A lot during the week. And they're on the phone a lot, so we're pretty close. [00:33:32] Speaker C: Hey, listen, I like to hear the calls coming in telling these ladies from North Carolina and wherever telling how they just love when you're on and so do I. [00:33:44] Speaker B: Hey, you're a nice man, John. Thanks a million. [00:33:46] Speaker C: Hey, good. That's deluck. [00:33:48] Speaker B: Okay. And happy Christmas to you too. Traffic to romance to and traffic to dine to because it's very much a part of our know. I don't know where I was going with that. I don't know. You probably never get caught like that, Bruce Connolly, where you're trying to end a sentence and it's also convoluted and stupid. You don't know where to go, but when you do it on a 50,000 watt Clear Channel station against the 38 states. It's a little different than just sputtering it out at a small cocktail party. I don't care if you want to make a fool of yourself. Do it in a big kind of way. That's right. You hear me? Canada and the Bahamas and all the other places we reach, including those three unknown planets. Yeah. Anyway, is there much traffic? I always have a feeling that the weekend, nobody's going anywhere and nobody's even exists. During the week. It gets very quiet. I know. Even here on the program. Yes. It is very quiet out there pretty much all weekend, except for I believe on Thanksgiving Day as people were going to their dinners, wherever that may have been, it was pretty busy and probably the next day it's supposed to be big shopping day so getting to the malls probably gets busy. But right now I'll tell you what I'm going to do for you because I think you're one heck of a guy. I'll keep looking out the window here on the Soldiersfield Road. If I see a car, I'll call you right away. Yeah, I thought he was a great guy and he was a good friend, but I think his abrasiveness is what made him a great reporter. He wouldn't take no man. You give me the information or I'll stake out your place. He came back with some great stories, but he did unfortunately. I didn't know that. [00:35:29] Speaker C: I really enjoyed his work. [00:35:30] Speaker B: Yeah, dick Levitan was the first rate. [00:35:33] Speaker C: You must feel warm and safe on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening on Soldiers Field Road between 11:00 P.m. And 03:00 A.m., as opposed to being down the new combat zone around the Quincy Market Fannie Hall area. [00:35:51] Speaker B: I don't think I've ever been there at that time. I must have been there one time. What goes on? [00:35:57] Speaker C: You haven't heard? The murder and the four two Patriots in the last month? [00:36:04] Speaker B: Oh, yes, no, I have heard that. Yeah. Well, not yet. [00:36:07] Speaker C: Of the four meteorized crimes that have been attacked, patriots, punter and their center was attacked there. [00:36:17] Speaker B: In the combat zone? [00:36:18] Speaker C: No, the Fanuel Hall Quincy I'm sorry, what am I I was being facetious naming Fanuel Hall and Quincy Market the new combat zone. [00:36:27] Speaker B: See, that's what happens when I talk and don't listen. I'll be quiet and I'll listen. Okay, yes, no, I am aware of that. [00:36:33] Speaker C: You know, the emphasis that we've heard on the recent spate of crimes in that area, and now that they've gotten the police commissioner together with the owners of the various merchants and nightclubs around the Quincy Mark and Fanuel Hall area, and now this is the latest rage in Boston is how are we going to curb crime in that? [00:36:55] Speaker B: You know something, Paul? You're really a wet blanket. We're sort of sitting here giggling like a bunch of I didn't want to. [00:37:00] Speaker C: Talk about this, but there's something you said that reminded me of it. [00:37:05] Speaker B: Oh, the fact that it's quiet over here? [00:37:07] Speaker C: No, you had mentioned the violence on television. [00:37:10] Speaker B: Oh, yes, I had. That's what triggered that. And I think I'm not so sure that just to be serious for maybe twelve more seconds. [00:37:18] Speaker C: Okay. [00:37:19] Speaker B: We'll get on to something else. And I never believed this before, and I find myself finding it hard to believe now. But I think there may be some truth in the fact that maybe we have become an insensitive society because we're so used to seeing guns and shootings and all that on television, even in a fictional way, that it kind of seeps over in some people's minds into real life. And the people who have been protesting this, who I always thought were a bunch of kooks, maybe they're not so kooky after all. I think there's a grain of truth to that. [00:37:52] Speaker C: Yeah, but, Norman, again, we get into the chicken or egg argument. I want to get into something else. But does TV and its violence merely reflect the public at large, or is the TV and violence induce the public to violence? [00:38:12] Speaker B: I think it's probably both, in a way. I think kids growing up with it, seeing enough people dropping dead on television, phony or not, and it becomes such a natural thing that maybe they're not horrified by it the way maybe they ought to be. [00:38:31] Speaker C: Television and the entertainment, as you know, in the film industry has always maintained that they are merely a reflection of society at large. [00:38:43] Speaker B: No, I know it that's the argument they're using now. And people say the FCC and all that will crack down on them and all that censorship. Yeah. No, I think they ought to censor themselves. I have a hard time with censorship. I do. With any agency telling you what to do and what not to, only because I'm not sure I'd trust that agency. Who's going to be on that committee that makes that decision? And do I trust them any more than I do trust the TVP cellular phone force? Yeah. You know what that is? Is that the question? What the heck is that? It's composed of people who call the traffic number. Basically, it's just civilians. There's nobody who works for us. [00:39:25] Speaker C: Right, but what is the number? They never give that number to call. I mean, I have a phone, but it's like, well, gee, I'm sitting in traffic and nobody mentioned that. [00:39:32] Speaker B: Oh, how do you call that's? Right. And there's a free number. Actually, it doesn't even cost you. Do you know what the number is, Sid, to the cellular force? Isn't there something they can punch up. [00:39:42] Speaker C: And they get no, nobody knows. [00:39:46] Speaker B: Now, where is that guy? I'm sorry, we're getting the number. I'm getting out of my earphones. What is that, Sid? A star. 1030. You think? Or something like I tell you what, at 01:00, if you're still tuned, at 01:00, okay, bruce Connolly comes out with a traffic report, and I will ask him at that time, and we'll get that number. It's a good number to keep giving, because that's how he gets these other reports around town. He checks on them so that he doesn't give the information people give because somebody's have to give him a false tip. [00:40:16] Speaker C: Right. [00:40:16] Speaker B: But at least they give him a tip and then he checks it out, right? [00:40:19] Speaker C: No, because I've often wondered about that. And now here's a radio question for you, because every time I try and call, I can never get through. Now, this is probably going back about a month or so. There was people calling you up and they were asking you about other disc jockeys that you had known and worked with, because it seems like you've worked with just about everybody. [00:40:37] Speaker B: Yes. [00:40:38] Speaker C: Okay, well, now, when you were doing your jazz show, were you allowed to just pick all the music you wanted? [00:40:44] Speaker B: Yes. [00:40:45] Speaker C: So you just make your own show. I mean, you'd make your breaks, but you'd also pick out all your own music. And nobody said, this is too lively, this is too fusion? [00:40:54] Speaker B: Well, yes, they did at first, they did the general manager when I first went on with the program, which was called Sounds of the Night, it was on in 1957, which is when that kind of music was very big in colleges and among young people, which sounds strange now, but anyway, I started with big bands, basically. Then I branched out to more modern jazz and a little more adventuresome stuff. And the boss, who was the general manager at that time, never was happy with it because he would have rather I played Montavani and Percy Faith and that kind of stuff. [00:41:31] Speaker C: Was that what the station was playing at the time, or were you no. [00:41:34] Speaker B: That'S what they wanted me to play at night. I won't go through the whole history just roughly. We used to have an automated music system at night that is a glorified jukebox, so that at 01:00, everybody went home, and from the transmitter, they would play this automated music, which was generally middle of the road, kind of pop. And then the andrea dorian the stockholm collided off the cape, and we were owned by two newspapers, and we had nobody on duty that night to cover this big story, so they decided they ought to put somebody on to do it. And so I had applied to do an all night show anyway, so they put me on, but they didn't really care for me to do much of anything, just segue these sloppy music soupy things. But I began sneaking in jazz stuff, like about three in the morning when I thought the boss was asleep. Unfortunately, the boss used to get up during the night to go to the bathroom and he would catch the program, so we had some battles about that, and he never was really satisfied with what I was playing. He very often would say, no more Basie and no more Ellington. What kind of stuff are you doing there no more Fitzgerald. But I would say yes, and I would play it anyway, hoping he wasn't going to the bathroom at that moment, and eventually became popular enough so that he began to lay off. And then eventually he retired and some new people who took over were more sympathetic because the ratings weirdy were very good, and that's how we got into it. So when I say nobody ever interfered at first they really gave me a bad time, but I got through it. But all the time I did pick out my own selection of stuff, and we had just about every jazz musician ever played. Boston came on the air with us, and the number of them came into Storyville and the Jazz Workshop, paul Small and Lenny's on the Turnpike and all the it's hard to remember all the great jazz clubs that were in existence then that brought in great performers who played the whole week. [00:43:28] Speaker C: That's fantastic. So you actually were able to get away with it and it worked. [00:43:32] Speaker B: In other words, yes, it was unusual because it was on a major commercial radio station. That's the kind of stuff that you might find on a public radio station or a college station, but on a well listened to commercial radio station like WHDH, which was the station that was almost unheard of. [00:43:53] Speaker C: Oh, I know. Well, they don't let you do. I mean, nowadays on the radio, they control what you play. A computer controls what you play. [00:44:01] Speaker B: Well, yeah, for the most part. That's not true on every station. I think some of the stations, the guys pretty much pick out what they want along the basic format lines of what the station is all about. [00:44:14] Speaker C: Right, but would you say it's a small percentage? A very small percentage? [00:44:17] Speaker B: Yeah, it is a small percentage. Maybe a couple of FM stations in Boston let the disc jockeys program their own stuff and even then it's within a rigid format. [00:44:28] Speaker C: Right. [00:44:28] Speaker B: But the others know they don't pick out anything. [00:44:32] Speaker C: When I was working at a couple of the Boston stations, we had to say, we just read cards. [00:44:38] Speaker B: Say this yeah, I know it isn't. [00:44:41] Speaker C: That awful reading line of cards. And if you strayed, which is what I did, I tried to actually be a Norm Nathan and pioneer my own thing. Didn't matter. Norm, he was like, look, what are you doing? Does the word verbatim mean anything to you? Read these cards verbatim. [00:45:00] Speaker B: In recent years, I worked at a station like that. I worked at WMRE, for example, which is now, I don't know, some other station now, but it was a memory station there for a while. I think it's owned by one of the other Am, WSS am. Okay, now, and it was a memory station like Kiss. Am is XKs the time of the music of your life. Except we had another service and they had everything down. You play three records in a row, and of course, they were on cartridge, so you never picked them out. You never even saw records. And whatever they had was all you could play. And you had to say, somebody got the idea to emphasize the letter M in the call letters WMRE. You had to say it that way. And I said, what the hell for? Sounds stupid. And I think the reason was because in New york at the time, there was WABC, and they would in order to differentiate the two, one of them would say, this is WNBC, so, you know, you weren't listening to ABC. But with WM pause, re, there seemed to be no sense to that at all. I've worked with a lot of geekheads in broadcasting who ran stations who were like that, and you couldn't talk with them anyway. So I mean, it hasn't all been all been, how do you say strawberries and cream, I think, as we say in the broadcasting business. But I'm very lucky right this very moment. It seems to me that any broadcaster would kill to do what I'm doing. I just love it here. And they don't even say, Stop screaming about management, Nathan. I mean, they're really great about that. I love this and I love that jazz program. And in between, I had some kakamami things. But all in all, I've been very lucky. [00:46:47] Speaker C: Right now, they don't send out a book or an arbitrage on your part. [00:46:54] Speaker B: Well, the nighttime they do. Generally a six day thing, a seven day thing, rather. The average of the all night listening on is seven nights a week. On occasion, they'll take a special survey, which they did one week, I think, within the past few months. It was sometimes past summer. And they do that hourly biopsy, even on weekends. Twelve to 01:00 A.m., one to 02:00 A.m., and all that. And we came out looking really great during the night. [00:47:24] Speaker C: Right. Needless to say, you're still on. [00:47:26] Speaker B: Yeah. No, the ratings I hate to say this, because it's bragging, and we're kind of lucky that the response has been like this, but the ratings were just amazed me, even. I mean, there wasn't anybody even close. [00:47:39] Speaker C: Yeah, but you can almost tell what your rating is going to be by your phone. [00:47:42] Speaker B: Yes, you can. Sure, you can get a sense when you don't have listening owners. Boy, you can really sense it. I mean, it's quiet and nobody's ever heard anything you ever said on the air. No, you can. You can feel it. [00:47:55] Speaker C: Right. Well, that's great, Norm. I just wanted to ask you about those couple of things about how radio was great back then, and you did what you wanted to do and it worked, which congratulations on that. [00:48:09] Speaker B: Hey, thanks a lot, Dave. [00:48:10] Speaker C: All right, well, listen, I will write you and give know what do you want me to write you about being on the what is not the dumb birthday game. The trivia game. [00:48:20] Speaker B: Yeah, the music quiz. We call it the swell music Quiz. Yeah, just the music program. And I'll know what you're talking about. [00:48:28] Speaker C: Not like swollen, but swell as in. [00:48:30] Speaker B: Good swell as in really nifty. Neat. Awesome neato. Okay. [00:48:35] Speaker C: Okay. Thanks, Norm. Take care. [00:48:37] Speaker B: Thanks, Dave. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gone out with my personal history, so it really mattered, but I don't know. You know how we are in broadcast and we can't shut our mouths. [00:48:46] Speaker C: Have you ever heard of a car being stolen with the club in use? You probably never will. No doubt you've heard of the club. America's favorite antitheft device. The bright red Club fits easily across the steering wheel and once in place, makes the car undrivable. The club, the one police recommend as represented by fellow members of the Fraternal Order of Police, is effective, affordable and guaranteed. See package for details chances are one in 114 that you or someone you know will have your car stolen. This year in 1991. Vehicles were stolen at a rate of 3 /minute so this year. Don't let the holidays be an opportunity for car theft, especially yours still priced at under $60, the club now available in designer colors as well makes a great gift for every member of the family. They'll thank you over and over again. The club is available at better stores everywhere, but please be careful except no imitations. Make sure that the antitheft device you buy says the Club on the handle. And happy holidays from the makers of the club Rich Chocolate Oval Team. [00:49:52] Speaker D: When my mom said I should drink Rich Chocolate Oval Team because it was good for me, I knew what that meant. It was going to taste yucky, like spinach and broccoli. Boy, was I wrong. It was really chocolatey. I guess that's why they call it Rich Chocolate Ovaltine instead of plain Ovaltine. [00:50:07] Speaker B: Rich Chocolate Ovaltine is a different kind of Ovaltine with a flavor kids love. [00:50:12] Speaker C: Plus extra vitamins and minerals you won't find in Nestle's, Quick or Hershey's. [00:50:16] Speaker D: It's kind of like drinking a chocolate bar, but it's got all this good stuff in it. Things kids need to stay healthy. I love it. And my mom's really proud of me when I drink my rich chocolate. Oval team. [00:50:29] Speaker B: Dave, 52. [00:50:31] Speaker C: Jeez. [00:50:33] Speaker B: What do you say, Dave? [00:50:34] Speaker C: 52. [00:50:35] Speaker B: Oh, 52. And Tony? [00:50:38] Speaker C: I'll go with Sid 56 on this one. [00:50:41] Speaker B: You're 56? Can you all hear that sound? Yeah, maybe I was going nuts. [00:50:48] Speaker C: Frying bacon. What is it? [00:50:52] Speaker B: What's going on over there? That's Virginia still. [00:50:59] Speaker C: What are you hearing? [00:51:00] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I'm hearing heavy breathing. Darth Vader on the other line. [00:51:07] Speaker C: I called up a 900 number before I called you. When I put it on, I put it on conference call. [00:51:12] Speaker B: Okay. Thanks, Tony. Gary Hart is 57. Okay, that means that Tony said 56 and Sid said 56. All right. And those are the two winners. Hates to cheat. Yeah, that's right. Okay, how about Hope Lang from Reading Ring, Connecticut? An actress. She was nominated for an Oscar for best Supporting Actress in Peyton Place and she has been on the screen since 1956. [00:51:48] Speaker C: That must be a one long movie. [00:51:54] Speaker B: Sounds like she's been on the screen. It sounds like she's played the part of a mosquito or something. But that's a whole other line of ryeballed humor. Okay. Hope Lang. [00:52:06] Speaker C: When was that? Peyton Place. [00:52:08] Speaker B: Peyton Place. Let's see. I'm not quite sure, but let's see. It does not say that here. He's been on the screen since she's been on the screen since 1956. So obviously came probably around then. I think that's about when Peyton Place came on because that was considered quite daring. Right now, it's what we call a yawner. I don't think anybody would consider that daring anymore because you young folks have just sponsored and supported so many dirty pictures. Okay, let's see who we start with this time. Let's start with you, Tony. Hope Lang. [00:52:45] Speaker C: 56, right? [00:52:47] Speaker B: 56. Yeah, there it is. I'm sorry, that was the year. [00:52:54] Speaker C: This is the year. I'm trying to figure it out. Give me a chance. [00:52:56] Speaker B: I was hoping Tony would do the mumble routine. [00:53:01] Speaker C: Let me try to add this up. [00:53:02] Speaker B: Now, he gets done at 05:00. [00:53:08] Speaker C: Tony? 53. [00:53:16] Speaker B: 54. I'm sorry, I just seemed to drift off into sleepy land. 54, 54, okay. And, Bruce, all of that thinking, Tony, and you're wrong because you've got all her videos. That's right. I've got the extensive Hope Lang collection. [00:53:33] Speaker C: I figured she's been on the screen since then. Maybe she was older. [00:53:37] Speaker B: And also, I know you've got a lot of the outtakes in addition to the paint place itself. Yes, I do. She is 61 years old today. It says that without any hesitation or anything. That's? Because I know. Sid, what do you think? The age of Hope Lang and her orchestra? 59. 59, okay. And what do you think, Fred? [00:54:03] Speaker C: 62. [00:54:05] Speaker B: And, Dave? [00:54:06] Speaker C: I hate to go with Fred with 62. [00:54:09] Speaker B: 62. Okay, 62. Okay. Virginia? [00:54:14] Speaker C: I'm going along with Ruth. 61. [00:54:17] Speaker B: Does that hurt your ears? The lights dimmed all over Revere Beach with that one. Okay. As in fact, the guy up on Route One just spit out his tortilla tortilla or something. Anyway, Christopher 60. Do you know something, Christopher? Just hit it right on the button, all right? [00:54:50] Speaker C: You didn't know it either, Bruce? [00:54:52] Speaker B: No. The rest of you were very close. Bruce said 61 and so did Virginia. Well, you're all very close. [00:54:58] Speaker C: Actually, I was trying to get a date with her, that's why. [00:55:00] Speaker B: Yeah, you said 54, which was a little bit beyond off. But anyway, I got some other kinds of dates here, and I'll tell you, Vance, you know today is the anniversary of the Coconut Grove fire. It was on November 20, Eigth. 19 what? Coconut Grove fire. Let's see what it says here. I think most people should know could figure that out just 1 second and see what it says on the AP. I didn't realize it was today. Nearly 500 people died in a fire that destroyed the Coconut Grove nightclub in Boston. And it happened on November 20, Eigth. What year was that, Fred? [00:55:42] Speaker C: I'm going to say 1940. [00:55:46] Speaker B: 119. 41. What do you think, Virginia? [00:55:50] Speaker C: 1940. [00:55:51] Speaker B: 1940. Okay. [00:55:54] Speaker C: And, Dave, if I'm correct, anniversary, which. [00:56:01] Speaker B: Would be 40 319 43. All right, let's see. Did I ask you, Fred? Yeah, you said 41. [00:56:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:56:15] Speaker B: Okay. Sid, believe it was 1942. And Tony, what do you think? [00:56:23] Speaker C: I think the 50th was last year. 42. [00:56:25] Speaker B: 42 also. And Christopher, what do you think? 1940 219 42 says Christopher. Bruce, what do you think? I also think it was in 42. 42 is correct. [00:56:40] Speaker D: Yes. [00:56:41] Speaker B: The 50th anniversary was last year. That's true. So we have four winners there, and Christopher now has two correct answers. [00:56:50] Speaker C: All right, chris? [00:56:52] Speaker B: I've never picked out a useless gift for a 13 year old. I wonder if I can go to a Toys or Not US store or something like that to find something. Really? Nothing. We have fred is still in the elite. However, he has three, but no, Tony has three also. [00:57:08] Speaker C: Thank you very much. [00:57:09] Speaker B: Yeah. So we have a tie there and one apiece from Sid, Bruce and Virginia. So everybody has one. Except except nobody has two, doesn't he? Sid has two. Yes, sorry. Stick up for yourself. Yeah, I'm sorry. Sid has to. [00:57:30] Speaker C: Norm is terrifying him. He's looking at him right now saying. [00:57:32] Speaker B: If you even say you've got two. [00:57:33] Speaker C: I'm going to come in. [00:57:37] Speaker B: Are the this is the unofficial oh. We don't get the official tally till the game is over itself and all of those mistakes will be corrected. [00:57:46] Speaker C: That's when the judges are consulted. [00:57:47] Speaker B: That's right. Okay, the first auto race, let me tell you where it was and saw it. America's first automobile race got underway. Six cars began a 55 miles round trip from Chicago's Jackson Park to Evanston, Illinois. J. Frank Durier won it in a gasoline powered auto invented by his brother Charles with an average speed of 7. Took 7 hours and 5 minutes. [00:58:16] Speaker C: You had him on the show, Norm, remember? [00:58:18] Speaker B: Yes, right. Durier was with us, gentlemen who rebuilt it. [00:58:21] Speaker C: Not Durier himself. [00:58:22] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's right. [00:58:24] Speaker C: 7. [00:58:26] Speaker B: His prize was $2,000. At average speed of 7 mph, he could have walked it 7 hours. That's correct. Very good. It took 7 hours and 5 minutes to travel the 55 miles. I didn't realize those were the two locations. [00:58:43] Speaker C: I thought you said round trip. How could it be round trip? [00:58:49] Speaker B: 55 miles round trip, that's correct. Yes, that's right. Because actually it was from Chicago to walkegan Illinois. [00:58:56] Speaker C: Walkiegan? [00:59:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it was Walkiegan, Illinois, but it went to walk Keegan and then obviously then came back to Evanston, Illinois. I assume that's just outside of Chicago, although I don't know that for sure. Yes, it is. Okay. Actually, this says Walkegan Illinois. That's right. It's wrong. Keegan is Illinois. I'm sorry, I don't know what I'm saying. Anyway, what year was that? Whatever it is, I said. Okay, we're going to start with you, Christopher. First auto race, 19 two. Okay. [00:59:38] Speaker C: Virginia, 1912. [00:59:42] Speaker B: 1912. Okay. Dave? [00:59:47] Speaker C: 19. [00:59:47] Speaker B: Oh, 1909. Fred? [00:59:53] Speaker C: 1904. [00:59:55] Speaker B: What do you think, Sid? I remember it well. It was 19 three. [00:59:59] Speaker C: Were you there? [01:00:01] Speaker B: Of course I was. [01:00:03] Speaker C: She's a big fan. [01:00:04] Speaker B: I wouldn't have remembered it. And, Bruce, I know that you're a big fan of that race. You have cardboard cutouts and all kinds of mementos magazines, programs and things that were put out at the time. [01:00:14] Speaker C: Yes. [01:00:15] Speaker B: Being the big racing fan that I am, I know it was in 19 oh, 719. Seven. How a guy who's doing miserably in this game can be so positive of himself is beyond me. [01:00:33] Speaker C: He's a traffic guy. He's got an advantage. Norm. [01:00:35] Speaker B: That's right, too. And it's about cars I never thought of. It was a big traffic jam that day because they had that block off all the roads for the race. How far was it backed up? It's a big day in traffic history. Off for miles. [01:00:49] Speaker C: You know, the marathoners people run up with the marathoners and give them water and fruit. [01:00:54] Speaker B: You could do that with this car during that race. 7 miles an hour. [01:00:59] Speaker C: And how do they clock that? And here he's coming by, and he goes by the board. 7 miles an hour. [01:01:07] Speaker B: And the crowder RoPS. Well, we've all said life was slower in those days and more relaxed. We didn't realize just how much slower it was. Anyway, Tony, what year do you think it was? [01:01:21] Speaker C: They say you're going to come over on Wednesday. Yes, I'm leaving Monday. Well, the car was built in 1893, so give them a little time to refine it and throw in the turbocharger and the high octane fuel air conditioning. Yeah. No, too heavy. [01:01:40] Speaker B: It was an open air car. [01:01:41] Speaker C: 7 miles an hour is quite a breeze. Okay, 1890. [01:01:47] Speaker B: 918. 99 is the closest. That was very good reasoning. All right. It was 1895. [01:01:57] Speaker C: Wow. [01:01:58] Speaker B: A couple of years after yeah, just within a couple of years, they said, hey, why wait so long? [01:02:02] Speaker C: Find it that quickly? [01:02:03] Speaker B: Through sports suspension and off they went. Obviously, it wasn't all that refined. It would have taken them that long to get there back. And I imagine a few of them broke down, but they figured, hey, listen, we got the car, let's do it. We can always do it again later. When we've refined the car, it actually started in 1895 and ended in 1899. You were right. That might have been correct. [01:02:29] Speaker C: Okay, bruce wouldn't steer us wrong on that one. No. What are you driving at, Fred? Give me a break. [01:02:40] Speaker B: Okay, moving on. I think we better downshift here. [01:02:46] Speaker C: These jokes are tiring. [01:02:49] Speaker B: Have to break this whole thing off. [01:02:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:02:53] Speaker B: Now cut that out. Okay, now, here's another event. [01:02:58] Speaker C: I ought to stop this. [01:03:02] Speaker B: Is that reaching a little bit? Fred, stop this. Auto is the keyword. Oh, that's different. [01:03:10] Speaker C: Let's try to shift over to something else. [01:03:12] Speaker B: All right, shift over something else. What you're saying is well, what we're doing now is pretty good in the clutch, so who cares? [01:03:23] Speaker C: Jokes are giving me gas. [01:03:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I think this whole thing is accelerating my move out of radio. [01:03:35] Speaker C: But come on, this thing's moving on like a well oiled machine now. [01:03:40] Speaker B: We better speed up this process and get I had to put mufflers, I think mufflers on all of you. Okay, let's take the next event. We were rolling for a while. Pretty good. Exhausted again. Okay, this really stalled the game. Did I ever tell you you guys all stink to high heaven? You're just getting rusty, Norm, that's all. Okay, tell me what year this happened. This is the first WSM barn dance. [01:04:19] Speaker C: Pardon me? [01:04:20] Speaker B: The first WSM barn dance was held in Nashville, Tennessee, later renamed the Grand Old Opry. What's WSM? [01:04:29] Speaker C: The radio station? [01:04:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that's WSM is the radio station in Nashville. And it was called a Barn Dance, and it's still broadcast by WSM and called the Grand Old Opry. When it was the barn dance. At one point, maybe I'm thinking of some other things. There used to be a program called the Barn Dance, and it was a guy named Uncle Ezra was kind of the folksy MC, and he would say at the end, he'd say little things like, remember, folks. Remember, folks. When your hand, itches means you're going to get something. And when your head, itches means you already got it. So long. Drive safely on the way home, everybody. That was Uncle Ezran, and that was the want to do some more automobile jokes? Okay, where was the Grand Old go, when did that start as the Barn Dance and then become the Grand Old Opry? We always all go back, right to the very beginning. Let's see. Yeah. What year was that? Let's see. Let's start with you, Tony. [01:05:36] Speaker C: Thanks. [01:05:39] Speaker B: Grand old Opry. [01:05:40] Speaker C: This was oh, well. [01:05:42] Speaker B: I think so. Or it might have been on a fax machine. [01:05:45] Speaker C: Way ahead of, like, your stationary store joke. There's something about barn dancing. I went to a barn dance and I looked at it and I waited hours and hours, and that thing never moved. [01:05:57] Speaker B: It didn't even do a little. Not even a little. [01:06:01] Speaker C: No. No. [01:06:02] Speaker B: Just stood there. [01:06:03] Speaker C: Maybe there isn't a joke there. [01:06:05] Speaker B: No, there isn't. There is. No. If there were, Fred or Christopher would have come up with it. Or maybe Tony. Anyway, what year do you think the Grand Old Opry started? [01:06:18] Speaker C: Well, the Barn Dance well, it started. [01:06:20] Speaker B: As the Barn Dance, which became how many years after it became known as the Grand Oil Opry? Two years after it started. Really? Yeah. So it was only the no, no, it was only the Barn Dance? Only for a couple of years. I was in Tennessee and Nashville, and they've got a whole new setup. It's not right in downtown Nashville anymore. It's part of a hotel Dollywood thing. She has a theme park that's right next to I think in fact, I think the Grand Olapry is part of that now, very close to it. And then we stayed in a motel. This was a convention with peels of water out the door and making jokes about Dolly Parton. It was a wild time. We took beer labels off the bottles, put them on our forehead and danced around and everything. We just went crazy. [01:07:18] Speaker C: What a heady life. You were a risk taker back then. What happened to you, Norm? Yeah. [01:07:23] Speaker B: I don't know. [01:07:23] Speaker C: I just had labels on your forehead. [01:07:36] Speaker B: If you could just back off just a little, Virginia, because you're coming on so loud, it's hard to understand you. I don't mean to make fun. [01:07:42] Speaker C: Of course you do. [01:07:44] Speaker B: I guess you're right. You're probably right. Yeah. Okay. What? [01:07:47] Speaker C: You went, I don't know, 1930. [01:07:56] Speaker B: Yeah. It happened on this date, too. November 20, eigth. Which is why we're bringing it up. And the auto race also was November 20 eigth. [01:08:03] Speaker C: Did they broadcast it? [01:08:05] Speaker B: Yes, they broadcast the auto race. [01:08:11] Speaker C: All right. [01:08:15] Speaker B: 1938. Okay, Bruce, I know that you've got all the records made by all the artists who ever appeared on the Grand Oil Opera. Believe me, am I a big country music fan. One of the biggest. You know what? I will honestly say that I am not a country music fan. But I know the only record you really liked was Elton Britt's Blood in the Saddle. Yeah. And I don't care to tell you why it was named. [01:08:46] Speaker C: Yeah, you always do. I was waiting for it. That's usually a very funny line, Norm. You didn't finish. [01:08:50] Speaker B: You mean the part about it's being the Hemorrhoid Song? [01:08:54] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:08:55] Speaker B: I don't want to do that right now because this is kind of a class program and there may be somebody of importance listening. We do have youngens that's right. Christopher is getting an education today. Oh, boy. I'll say 1948, and I don't know why, but I'll say it okay. I'll put in parentheses, I don't know why, because we'll keep that for the record. Sid, what do you say? 1926? [01:09:25] Speaker C: We've kind of covered the three decades now. [01:09:28] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah. Fred, what do you think? What year did the grand old Opry start on radio? [01:09:34] Speaker C: 1936. [01:09:37] Speaker B: Okay. Dave? [01:09:39] Speaker C: 1930. [01:09:40] Speaker B: 319 33. Virginia? [01:09:45] Speaker C: 1934. [01:09:47] Speaker B: Okay. And Christopher? [01:09:49] Speaker D: 1933. [01:09:53] Speaker B: Same as what Dave said. Okay. The actual year was 1925. [01:09:59] Speaker C: Wow. [01:10:00] Speaker B: Sid said 1926. [01:10:04] Speaker C: Can't get any closer than that. [01:10:05] Speaker B: No, nobody said 24. You know that, Sid. [01:10:10] Speaker C: Do you have some kind of idea on that? [01:10:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Because you were much lower in the date than anybody else, Sid, so no, I just had a funny feeling about it. [01:10:49] Speaker C: Fan of he scares me. [01:10:53] Speaker B: You know that. It is kind of scary. They go to recording bits of this program and playing it back for you on the phone. [01:11:01] Speaker C: One more thing, though. Since the game's over, I just thought I'd say the number 76. Trumbones. Well, I thought you'd be right there. [01:11:12] Speaker B: With me on that one. Now with that day of the truth. Fred, the only reason he did what he did just that is because he'sick to death of you like all the rest of us are. No offense, I hope. Well, anyway, that winds up the swell, dumb birthday game. I think one day the management's going to say what happened the other night. They're going to call up Fred. He'll play the whole thing back for. I think we better get on the good side of this guy because he could ruin us all. See what yeah. Hey, Christopher, you're still awake? Are you very tired? [01:11:53] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:11:54] Speaker B: Are your folks up now, too? [01:11:57] Speaker C: They are now. [01:11:59] Speaker B: Hey, Christopher, you sound like a real nice kid and I appreciate you playing the game with us. Thanks an awful lot. Have a good week. [01:12:08] Speaker D: You too. [01:12:08] Speaker C: Okay. [01:12:09] Speaker B: Thank you. Bye bye. And Virginia. [01:12:12] Speaker C: It's been fun. [01:12:13] Speaker B: It's been fun having you and I hope everything goes well. [01:12:16] Speaker C: Yes, it's been nice. And can I have Sid back? [01:12:20] Speaker B: Well, no, Sid is kind of busy now. What did you want to talk to Sid about? [01:12:24] Speaker C: She was going to give you her. [01:12:25] Speaker B: Secret code name from oh, I see. [01:12:28] Speaker C: A long time ago. [01:12:29] Speaker B: All right, hold on. What the heck is that? [01:12:33] Speaker C: That wasn't me. [01:12:35] Speaker B: No, I know it. I believe it might have been Fred. Right, Fred? [01:12:38] Speaker C: Yeah. I'm just going to hang. [01:12:42] Speaker B: He knows that I usually hang up on him, but the last several times he's been hanging up on me and I think that is just sit down. Cute. Okay, Sid is going to take your call and find out what name you used back then. What area are we talking about? What was the incident? [01:13:03] Speaker C: Charlie Van Dyke. [01:13:04] Speaker B: Oh, Charlie Van Dyke. I met you through Charlie Van Dyke. [01:13:08] Speaker C: I talked to him many times with Charlie Van Dyke. [01:13:11] Speaker B: I see. Okay. And thanks for playing the game, Virginia. [01:13:15] Speaker C: I loved it. [01:13:16] Speaker B: Okay, here's Sid to take the call. [01:13:18] Speaker D: Thank you. [01:13:19] Speaker B: And Dave, thank you very much. Thank you very okay, okay. And Tony? [01:13:25] Speaker C: Yes, Norm. [01:13:26] Speaker B: You're okay? [01:13:27] Speaker C: You know, it comes naturally. [01:13:30] Speaker B: I guess we'll see you later. [01:13:33] Speaker C: Maybe not. [01:13:34] Speaker B: Take care, Norm. Okay. Bye bye. And Bruce, as always, take care. Hi. This is Bill Marlowe. You know. [01:13:45] Speaker D: Lift you up when you're down. [01:13:46] Speaker C: Norm. [01:13:47] Speaker D: Nathan or W. Busy in Boston. [01:13:56] Speaker B: Okay, let's really get the program underway for real for now. Okay. The other was just a test. Look at the time. It's already 5 minutes after midnight. Did I tell you the temperature? I think in all the confusion I did. Anyway, it's 37 degrees in Boston right now. 37. And I'd like to very much to hear from you. As a matter of fact, without you I'm just nothing. Anyway, it's two 5410 30 eric, code six, one seven. We'll just chat through the night. I thought that'd be kind of a unique way to run a program. We'll be here till 05:00 in the morning and like that. Anyway, let me give you some scores up. Rick Fox kept up his resurgence with 22 points. And the Boston Celtics led by at least five points for the last 44 minutes as they beat the Portland Trailblazers 114 to 108 at the Boston Garden. There's a great name for a basketball team, the Portland Trailblazers. Anyway, the Celtics rather beat them. Hold on a minute while I wrestle some papers into your head. Oh, the winning lottery numbers. Massachusetts Daily Lottery was 9774, mass minions, 910, 1727, 46, 49, and a bonus number of seven. And there were no winners. It was $9.8 million is in the jackpot for the Mass millions. It has gone unclaimed. Nobody picked all six numbers. However, tickets in Peabody and Dennis Down on the Cape both matched five plus the bonus number, so they want $50,000 apiece. But nobody won the whole nine. Almost $10 million in Mass millions. Tristate daily. Seven, eight, one and 3219. Thank you just so much. Anyway, our number is 25414. I guess I said that two, 5410, 30. Anyway, did you have business with the chairman of this team canteen committee? Mike? You're right over there. [01:16:15] Speaker E: The business that I had with the chairman, I was going to come in prior to the chairman ascending his throne. I was going to say, have a wonderful show and kick. You know what? [01:16:27] Speaker B: Here's a sad note in the news. The death of Bob Wolf, who was really a very high class, very nice gentleman, I have to tell everybody gave eulogies, including Larry King, and Larry Bird was there, and John Havlick, and I guess a number of other people also spoke at his funeral. John Kerry was there and all that. [01:16:50] Speaker E: I was somewhat surprised by all the non athletic types who came out for the funeral. I had known that he was very big in the world of sports and entertainment, but I didn't realize that he was as well known and well loved in all different communities. [01:17:05] Speaker B: I guess in general, Gene Shallot of NBC, the movie reviewer man, and extremely bright guy who comes to this area quite often, I think he's had some children who've gone to school in this area, something. Anyway, he shows up in this area quite often. He was one. And we mentioned Kerry. That's true. And Joe Kennedy, US representative Joe Kennedy was there, and a number of others in addition to the sports people. I remember one time I had lost a job somewhere, I can't remember where. And even if I could, I wouldn't tell you what station it was because it probably was about every station in Boston at one time or another. And Bob Wolf called me and said, let me help you get another job, Norm, and there'll be no fee. He just wanted to do it out of the goodness of his mean. Here's a guy who was representing everybody in the entire world and has done extremely well at that and just kind of was ready to reach out because we had known each other for, I guess, for a number of years. And he always was so grateful for the fact that he grew up in not too expansive surroundings up in Portland, Maine, which is where his home is, I guess. His wife Anne is from up there also. And he always pinching himself to think, here's this little kid from Portland, Maine has done just so very well in sports. [01:18:32] Speaker E: Another story similar to yours that I heard was from Harry Sindon. I guess he's the general manager for the Boston Bruins and he and Mr. Wolf went head to head many times with different players salaries and contracts and whatever. And when Harry back, I guess in the early 80s, I'm not sure exactly when it was when his contract was up for renewal of some kind bob Wolf said to him harry, let me help you out here. Let me tell you what to do. No charge, no nothing. Just want to give you a few hints on what to do. I saw that on the TV news. [01:19:04] Speaker B: Oh, really? No kidding. I hadn't seen that. That's the kind of guy he was. It always surprised me because he always seemed so gentle and always was smiling and so pleasant. And you don't think of a guy negotiating big time contracts with big stars for big bucks as being like that. You think he'd be a table pounder and all that and a strict tough guy, that people would shudder. But maybe that was his charm, the fact he went in and he disarmed you just by the fact that he was such a charming man. [01:19:38] Speaker E: And I'm sure that when other player representatives pass on such as, let's say when Don King finally goes on to his great hairy reward maybe his reward will be a giant can of moose. Anyway, I'm sure he's not going to get the accolades and the tributes from around the country and around the world, probably that Mr. Wolf has gotten no, probably. [01:20:02] Speaker B: I guess. I would guess not. I would guess no. Bob Wolf was somebody very special. Okay, we'll take some calls right after this. But first. [01:20:17] Speaker C: How you doing, young fellow? [01:20:19] Speaker B: Okay. How are you doing? [01:20:21] Speaker C: The first time you and I ever met, you were on a boat up in Wattport on Vic and Franny's boat. [01:20:33] Speaker B: On whose boat? [01:20:35] Speaker C: Vic and Franny. [01:20:37] Speaker B: The VG vic and Franny's boat. [01:20:41] Speaker C: Yep. [01:20:42] Speaker B: When was that? [01:20:44] Speaker C: Oh, my God. Let's go way back now. Tied up at. [01:20:53] Speaker B: Franny. I never thought he was Frank to me. I never thought I was Franny. Yes, that's right. That's back in. [01:21:02] Speaker C: You bet your life. [01:21:04] Speaker B: Well, wait a minute, I haven't set a date yet. It was back in the guess back about 30 years ago. Yes, that's the first time we met. [01:21:16] Speaker C: Then we met at Lenny's. [01:21:18] Speaker B: Lenny's on the turnpike. You bet your life, you bet, you. [01:21:22] Speaker C: Bet your life I was a jazz person. [01:21:24] Speaker B: Jazz person. You bet your life you were. [01:21:27] Speaker C: And last week we were talking about Hampton Beach and Salsa Beach and the whole ten yards. [01:21:33] Speaker B: We were talking about that. Were we? [01:21:35] Speaker C: Yeah, I believe last week, yeah, or whatever. [01:21:38] Speaker B: Yeah, of course. [01:21:40] Speaker C: Right after the war, there were five of us. We didn't drink, we didn't do anything. We were beach bums for the summer. Just hung around, slept underneath their white boats and whatever. Yeah, but grabbed the bus from Hampton to Salisbury. Yeah, because it was a jazz place down there. [01:22:05] Speaker B: Where? [01:22:06] Speaker C: I can't think of the club down. [01:22:08] Speaker B: In Salisbury on Salisbury. [01:22:10] Speaker C: Yeah, it would go in and just sit there and all these fellas, like especially saxophone, trumpet, bass, the whole ten yards. It would just sit there and listen to them. [01:22:25] Speaker B: Listen to what? [01:22:27] Speaker C: Jazz. [01:22:27] Speaker B: Who? [01:22:30] Speaker C: Oh, no, that's what I'm talking about. [01:22:31] Speaker B: Right now we sound like Abbot and Costello with this routine. Have you done anything lately? What do you mean? Your age. No. You've given up on life, have you? [01:22:44] Speaker C: Oh, no way. [01:22:45] Speaker B: Well, now, what have you done lately? You're talking about things that happened 40 years ago. [01:22:50] Speaker C: That's right. [01:22:52] Speaker B: Didn't nothing happening since then. [01:22:55] Speaker C: I had my job and my public safety and the whole ten yards, but. [01:23:01] Speaker B: No, hold on a minute. Let me write that down. The whole ten yards. I like that. That's good. The whole ten yards. Okay. [01:23:11] Speaker C: Those were the days, my friends. [01:23:14] Speaker B: Were they what about public safety? Are you a police officer? [01:23:19] Speaker C: I'll never tell. [01:23:21] Speaker B: You said public safety. What does that mean? [01:23:23] Speaker C: Firefighter. [01:23:24] Speaker B: Oh, firefighter, okay, good. [01:23:27] Speaker C: But whatever. The days of jazz went away to a degree. Especially when Lenny's went down and the whole ten yards. [01:23:35] Speaker B: The whole ten yards? That was the whole ten yards? [01:23:40] Speaker C: Yes, it was. Yeah, because that man had wow, you and I could walk into these hi there. And you wouldn't know who it was. [01:23:51] Speaker B: But I knew you. I wouldn't know who you are, of course. Is that what you i, you know. [01:23:57] Speaker C: I just say hi. [01:23:58] Speaker B: Okay, well, I appreciate this reminiscing people. I don't think I can stand anymore of it. But I appreciate talking to you. Thank you very much for calling. Oh, is that you, Beverly, coughing? We haven't even started the conversation yet. You're coughing in my ear. This is going to be a terrible night. I can feel disaster. [01:24:17] Speaker D: Good morning. [01:24:20] Speaker B: No, I screwed up in the opening thing. I talked over everything that I shouldn't have done. I couldn't remember to put the theme or anything. And then I get a guy who wants to talk about 50 years ago. Then you come on and you cough in my ear. [01:24:37] Speaker C: Sorry. [01:24:37] Speaker B: I mean, my job is hanging by a thread as it is. Don't ruin it for me. [01:24:42] Speaker D: I just like to wish happy Thanksgiving and holiday would you do me a favor? [01:24:49] Speaker B: Hold on just a minute. Take a deep breath and cough and everything and then talk. Are you okay? Now you can tell me. I'm a doctor. [01:25:02] Speaker D: Dear. I'm sorry. [01:25:05] Speaker B: If you wish to take off your clothes. Also, I will look at you in a professional way because I am a medical man. [01:25:13] Speaker C: A medical man? [01:25:14] Speaker D: Well, my mother is a medical woman. She's 84 years of age, and tonight she said she would like to listen to the radio. I said, Norm Nathan is going to be on tonight, so would you please just tell her to calm down and relax? Her name is Dorothy. [01:25:34] Speaker B: Dorothy, yes. Okay, we'll tell her that. But I think the same advice ought to go to you, too. [01:25:43] Speaker D: I'm going to go to bed. But I thought I said did you. [01:25:47] Speaker B: Want to announce that the 38 states in Canada is that what you called? Do you think, for example, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, they give a damn? [01:26:00] Speaker D: No, they don't. [01:26:03] Speaker B: You're starting to snort now, Beverly. You're snorting. You're supposed to be a class act. And if I'm going to take you to the prom, I'm not going to take a lady who's all, do not. [01:26:14] Speaker D: Take me to the prom. [01:26:15] Speaker B: No. Right. She'll be in gown and I'll give you a corsage and you'll look so beautiful, but you'll snort. You know what the guys will say to me after that? [01:26:23] Speaker D: Starting to laugh so much. [01:26:26] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness. [01:26:27] Speaker B: I'll say, that was a beautiful woman you had, but why did she snort the whole evening? [01:26:32] Speaker D: You picked up the phone so quickly. [01:26:37] Speaker B: You are right. [01:26:39] Speaker D: It's coming down my eyes. [01:26:43] Speaker C: I. [01:26:48] Speaker D: Oh, dear. Heavenly Father. [01:26:52] Speaker B: I think this is our conversation winding up or we're leading into something exciting. [01:26:57] Speaker D: No. Could you please say dorothy, this is Norm Nathan. Calm down. I'm laughing so much, though. [01:27:11] Speaker C: Yeah, thank goodness. [01:27:15] Speaker D: Hello, Mother. [01:27:16] Speaker B: Okay. Hey, Beverly. This conversation is about as interesting as the last one I had. No, I am boring. I'm doomed tonight. This is the end of it. I felt like I had a few more years left in my nothing kind of career, but I think it's all over now. This is it. [01:27:36] Speaker C: I appreciate you. [01:27:38] Speaker D: Really. [01:27:38] Speaker B: Well, I appreciate you, too, Beverly. Want to fool around a little bit? [01:27:42] Speaker D: No, I'm going to bed now. [01:27:45] Speaker B: I see. [01:27:47] Speaker D: Now, this is a nice light show. [01:27:50] Speaker C: And I appreciate you. [01:27:52] Speaker B: This is like a bubblehead show so far. [01:27:54] Speaker D: And you're saying to me, Get off the phone. Right. [01:27:57] Speaker B: That's about what? In an indirect way, I was sort of suggesting that that wouldn't be a bad idea. [01:28:03] Speaker D: Okay. [01:28:04] Speaker B: I have a feeling the other stations in the city are not too frightened by what's been going on so far. [01:28:09] Speaker D: Oh, it's a lovely, cool evening out. [01:28:12] Speaker B: It is pleasant, though. It's not too terribly cool. Well, it's about 37 degrees. [01:28:18] Speaker D: Nice and refreshing. [01:28:19] Speaker B: Refreshing, I think, is the word. The whole nine yards. [01:28:22] Speaker D: I enjoy refreshing. [01:28:24] Speaker B: Okay, best of you. And best to you, Mother. [01:28:28] Speaker D: Okay. [01:28:29] Speaker B: Bye bye. Beverly. I am I'm in bad trouble. Offer with approved credit traded based on nada guideless damage dealer to subsidize 16 month payments to buyers source till March 94 discounts and rebates and low offer. Hey, Eddie, what do you how do we get copies of the old radio shows? Here's the scent for the catalog, and they'll tell you what they have. Heritage Radio Post Office, Box 16, Boston, Massachusetts. That's heritage radio, boston post office, box 16, boston, massachusetts. Get your free list now while there's still time to order the most nostalgia gifts of the season. So get the catalog now and see what you'd like to get. And then probably somebody in your shopping list, maybe you yourself would like an old time radio show or two or three or four. Again. That's heritage radio post office, box 16, boston, massachusetts, 2167. And give a distinctive vintage radio gift from Heritage. This is Guy, who is in the town of Westwood. Hi, Guy. [01:29:46] Speaker C: Hello, Norm. [01:29:47] Speaker B: How you doing? [01:29:48] Speaker C: Not bad. It's been quite the fun night, hasn't it? [01:29:51] Speaker B: Oh, it's been John. I'm just glad I came in, by gosh. [01:29:57] Speaker C: Well, I was talking to your producer just before I got on the phone, and I told him I wanted to discuss some jazz, and he asked me where that name came from, and I just don't know. And I have to ask you, Norm, where did jazz come from? [01:30:11] Speaker B: Nobody really knows for sure. In some cases. Some people say it's a word for an act of sex, because jazz originated much of it was played in brothels. Well, yes, and that kind of stuff. And so jazz kind of went along with that theme. I'm not sure that that's so. [01:30:39] Speaker C: Well, it could be. [01:30:41] Speaker B: It could be. I've read an awful lot about it and talked with an awful lot of people. Nobody really knows. So I could make up a story, and what the heck, who could dispute it? [01:30:51] Speaker C: Exactly. Well, the reason I bring up jazz is because I'm kind of a young guy myself, and starting out in a band or with my friend. [01:31:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Now, what do you play? [01:31:01] Speaker C: I play the guitar and also the bass, and he plays the drums. And a lot of our music has absolutely nothing to do with jazz at all. [01:31:10] Speaker B: Okay. [01:31:11] Speaker C: And we thought that we really needed to get some jazz influences in there. Who's good? [01:31:18] Speaker B: Oh, gee, so many people. [01:31:20] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, he's into Benny Goodman a lot. [01:31:22] Speaker B: Well, yeah, you can suppose I'd go along with something maybe a little more daring than that if you're talking about traditional jazz, charlie Parker and Lester Young and Ben Webster among my favorite saxophone players, and there are a lot of good trumpet players and good vocalists and all that. I mean, Benny Goodman has had some good musicians and has done some nice work, too. But there's a whole other world beyond that. [01:31:54] Speaker C: Well, certainly. I mean, I've been exposed to so much music my mom into very religious music, but that's not my speed. [01:32:00] Speaker B: Well, no, I mean, a lot of jazz has come from gospel music and that kind of stuff from the church. So a lot of that's pretty hip, good stuff. What kind of you normally play? What's comfortable for you? [01:32:14] Speaker C: As far as musically? Yes, I'm pretty out there. [01:32:19] Speaker B: What do you play now? [01:32:21] Speaker C: Well, right now we're doing sort of a hard edge, melodic type of thing, something that really couldn't be categorized, and that's where we want to be. And if we throw some jazz in there, I just think it would be, like, the coolest thing. [01:32:35] Speaker B: I think that sounds nice because who. [01:32:37] Speaker C: Else is doing it? I mean, jazz is almost practically non existent on pop radio formats. [01:32:43] Speaker B: Oh, no, that's quite true. Can you hold on? Would you mind doing that? We'll talk after the news. [01:32:48] Speaker C: Certainly, Norm. [01:32:49] Speaker B: Okay, good. We'll put you on hold. [01:32:51] Speaker C: Great. [01:32:52] Speaker B: And the producer you talked to is John Kelly. Okay. We'll put you on hold, and we'll talk it right after that. [01:32:57] Speaker C: Thanks. [01:32:57] Speaker B: Coming up to the news now in about 20 seconds or so at 1230. And we'll get back to Guy. We'll get back to Anne. And you two at two. Five four. Fine. How are you doing? [01:33:07] Speaker D: Very fine, thank you. [01:33:08] Speaker B: Good. [01:33:09] Speaker D: Well, I just thought that you wanted someone to talk about what was going on now. Although, actually, the young man who was on a minute ago was talking about what he was doing now. [01:33:21] Speaker B: Yeah, no, any conversation is kind of nice. Just the other fellow that I was talking with was talking so much about what happened 40 years ago. I was getting kind of lost in nostalgia there. [01:33:35] Speaker D: Yeah, right. [01:33:35] Speaker B: I don't mind doing that, but what's happening today is kind of important, too. [01:33:39] Speaker D: Yeah, well, I agree. [01:33:42] Speaker B: Are you a very young person? [01:33:45] Speaker D: No, I'm not. [01:33:46] Speaker B: Okay. [01:33:49] Speaker D: I just sound that way. [01:33:51] Speaker B: You do. You have a nice voice. [01:33:54] Speaker D: Thank you very much. [01:33:55] Speaker B: I'm falling in love with it. [01:33:56] Speaker D: Oh, well, that's great. [01:33:58] Speaker B: I'll give you my home number later and you can make seen phone calls to me. I think I'm being silly. I'm being silly now. Sorry. [01:34:07] Speaker D: God, I wonder what I would do if I were going to make an obscene phone call. [01:34:10] Speaker B: I've never thought about that before, I don't think. I never got an obscene phone call and you never made one. So this can be our initiation into the world of decadence. That would be just so darn nice. [01:34:26] Speaker D: Well, I was going to tell you. Well, first of all, although this has not been praying on your mind. It hasn't been praying on mind either. I wanted to clear up something that I think I said incorrectly to you a couple of months ago when I said that my initiation into the world of jazz this is talking about the past for a moment, was when I was about 15 at Storyville. But it wasn't storyville. It was the Savoy, I realized. [01:34:55] Speaker B: Oh, you were the Savoy up on Mass Avenue? [01:34:57] Speaker D: Yeah. Well, of course, it's an awful long time ago, and that's where I heard Edmund Hall and All Stars and Bob Wilbur. [01:35:08] Speaker B: You're talking about my people back. [01:35:10] Speaker D: Well, you know, you're going to think this is really crazy and this may be totally something I've cooked up in my mind since this memory has been dredged up, but I think I might have met you there. [01:35:23] Speaker B: I used to go there a whole lot. [01:35:24] Speaker D: I think I really might have. I met George. Wean used to hang around there. And I have this feeling that I was introduced to you. Were you kind of tall and skinny in those days? [01:35:37] Speaker B: Well, not any taller than I am now. Although probably I was I think I've shrunk a little bit, but I was quite thin. [01:35:45] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:35:45] Speaker B: And terribly good looking with a square jaw body of well, template, steel boyous grin, crooked smile, broad shoulders and slim waist. Is that what you remember most? [01:35:54] Speaker D: No, my mind is blank, I'm afraid. [01:35:57] Speaker B: Don't remember any of that stuff. [01:35:59] Speaker D: No, I don't. Okay, sorry about that. But anyway, it is possible. It is possible. So I was going to tell you what I did tonight, which I thought. [01:36:08] Speaker B: Might be okay, because just before you wind up the Savoy stuff, for people who are wondering where it was, it was on Mass Avenue near right near was that Washington Street? Where was the Hi Hat was around the corner. Was that Washington or Tremont? That was Tremont, I guess around the corner, maybe. And they had Wally's Paradise Room was there and Conley's was up the road. A lot of jazz places right throughout that mentioned you said Bob Wilburn, Dick Wellstud, who was the pianist with Think Sydney. Well, anyway, I won't go through all, but it was a great spot. [01:36:55] Speaker D: Yeah, it really was. So I became enamored of jazz, and I've loved it ever since. Not that I know, as much as I would like to about it. [01:37:08] Speaker B: Well, nobody does. [01:37:10] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:37:10] Speaker B: So it's okay. [01:37:11] Speaker D: Except for some musicians who look down their noses at the rest of us a little bit, but that's okay. But anyway, I went to the crafts at the Castle. Do you know what that is? Near the Park Plaza Hotel. [01:37:30] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah. The old armory there. [01:37:32] Speaker D: Yeah. Now, was that really an armory? [01:37:35] Speaker B: Yes, it was. Yes, it was. It was taken over by the people that own the Park Plaza Hotel. And that's sort of an adjunct to it. They have special functions and stuff. Now, what's over there now? [01:37:48] Speaker D: Did you just go there every year. And by the way, this is the first time I've gone on a Friday night, and it was practically empty. First of all, I could see the crafts very well, but also I could really see the building. And that's why I was questioning whether it really was an armory. Because at least the part that I was in doesn't look that armory ish. It's got all sorts of wonderful carved balconies and what have you, and the ceiling isn't that high, so it must. [01:38:16] Speaker A: Have been some part of those were some delicious leftovers that stuffed our ears with great radio. Before I make everyone sick with these lines, let's close the vault and leave this world a little sillier than we found it for Gene Aspen, the club available at better stores everywhere. Not bad stores, not the best stores, just better stores. Rich chocolate ovaltine heavy breathing mumbling having a voice that dimmed lights at Revere Beach toys are not us. Joaquin, Illinois car Puns uncle Ezra the Grand Old Opry, the WSM Barn Dance elton Britt, Charlie Van Dyke, the whole ten Yards jazz Fred from Medford, john Kelly, Mike Epstein, Sid Whitaker, Bruce Connolly and that terribly good looking man with a square jaw body of well tempered steel. Boyer's grin, crooked smile, broad shoulders and slim waist. Norm nathan. I'm Tony Nesbitt.