RuthAnnHarnisch.com

You’re Gonna Cry

by Ruth Ann Harnisch on 04/06/10 at 12:01 pm

Day 96

I was going to write about something else entirely today, but then I noticed it was Day 96. 

When I first mentioned what a number conjures up for me, I heard from many people who wanted to share what certain numbers mean to them. I have really enjoyed this dialogue,  so I’ll continue to contribute to the topic today.

It’s probably an American baby-boomer teenager thing, but if you ask “96 what,” the answer might come back “tears.”  The boomer may break out into a painful rendition of  ? and the Mysterians‘  one hit .*

That led me to thinking about the time I was riding in a car with my mother.  I was 16.  She was accommodating my plea to listen to one of my favorite radio personalities on my favorite radio station – the one where I was a Teen DJ.

The opening notes of “96 Tears” blared through the tinny speaker.  The familiar voice intoned, “Here now, Question Mark and the Mysterians, with the Ruth Ann singers in the background…”

I thought my mother was going to wreck the car.  I thought I was going to…well, let’s just say “wreck the car” also.

Working like a grownup at that radio station, all those years ago,  I began to become a full-fledged citizen, a member of the community at large, a corporate worker, a professional colleague, a friend.  I did things that shaped me forever. That job made me cry and terrified me, put me in situations I never should have been in and some that I absolutely needed to be in. It helped me grow up and it burned my love of broadcasting in like a brand.

It was what you might have called an “unpaid internship.”  Long story, which may have been written elsewhere and upon which I might elaborate another time.  Bottom line:  the most important education I would get anywhere, ever, came to a screeching halt because somebody’s mother turned the radio station in to the Labor Department.

This brings to mind the New York Times story about unpaid internships  and the crackdown on companies “exploiting” interns at the expense of regular (“more expensive”) staff.  I know that some companies do exploit teens, because I loved being exploited by a cheap radio station owner who was famous for pinching pennies.

I LIVED for that unpaid job.  According to today’s law, I couldn’t have had that job. It’s insane. That job was probably the most important crossroads experience of my life.  And today I couldn’t have it because of laws that mean well and do harm.

So, almost half a century ago, that mom told the Labor Department we were real disc jockeys just like the other disc jockeys and it wasn’t fair that they got paid and we didn’t.  And even we kids could see that the “Teen Program Director” worked longer hours and was more productive and professional than any of his “real” front-office counterparts. Turns out The Unknown Mom was right.**

But it backfired. The company began whacking Teen DJs from the schedule immediately. Soon after the first (and maybe last?) paychecks had been issued, lightning mysteriously hit the FM transmitter.  All of us Teen Personalities, junkies for the broadcasting life every one, were out of a job. ( At least, that’s how I remember it. Your mileage may vary. It was the sixties.)

We went on to get our broadcasting fixes elsewhere.  In Buffalo, Kevin O’Connell  is still a hometown favorite weatherman.  He did a national gig a few years back, so you might know him too.  I’ve often wondered what happened to the rest of the cast of characters from AM and FM.  WKRP in Cincinnati  used to make me homesick for them.

Me? I’m in recovery now, thanks.  No longer have the adrenaline rush around a studio.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  When I see what my former colleagues have endured as the business we loved and craved fell apart around us (and in some cases because of us), I say grateful out-loud thanks that I got out while the getting was GREAT.

And as for the man whose voice came through the AM radio on the family’s Chevy Impala that day, tsk-tsk.  Today, a man like that woul’d be crying more than 96 tears.

  * It’s come to my attention that some of you don’t know that if the copy is blue or purple you can click on it and you’ll find some relevant material.  Today for example if everything’s working properly (and thanks to those of you who promptly report broken links) you can click on “? and the Mysterians” above and be taken to their Wikipedia entry (fascinating!) and if you click on “one hit” you’ll be taken to a YouTube clip of “96 Tears.”

** We always suspected it was Teen PD’s mom and that he put her up to it because he was so ego-needy, legalistic, detail-oriented and snitchy. If I were to write a movie, this character would be Neidermeyer  played by a starved-t0-geek-skinny-for-the-role Jon Heder  styled like a 1950s-era Napoleon Dynamite , even though it was the sixties. What else do you need to know?

However, if I ever find out it was my own mother, acting out of “concern,” I will be like Paulie Walnuts getting the news.