ah...D.C. I love it! always have...always will.

    You gotta love DC!

           if you can afford it...that is.

     DC is a great place...easy to get around in...and lots of things to see...including some of the most beautiful females on the planet.

     The problem is...they are more into their jobs than into guys.

     The radio station closed down at sundown...even the FM which nobody listened too as it just simulcast the powerful AM programming.

     So...as of about 5 or 6 o'clock I was free to wander along the Mall...browse the museums sit in the Senate  and watch political stars like young Jack Kennedy...old Eve Dirksen...and on rare occasions Richard Nixon who was Vice President at the time.

     Then as I mentioned in an earlier posting..my friend Jerry Kearns and I would hang out at the Blair House where his Grandmother ran the place.  

     We washed our cars in the back...ate the food...smoked the Cuban cigars and on one occasion I slept in a real feather bed (great!) in the maid’s quarters. (no maids around) and took a dip in a gold plated bath tub made especially for Queen Elizabeth’s visit earlier.

     After a few months of this fun...I got word that someone in Baltimore at WCBM had heard my PM drive show and might be interested in my services.  A bit of research told me it was a Plough station...one of a chain of stations owned by the big drug company.

     As they also had WJJD Chicago...I jumped on the idea of joining them.

     

     Before I left WPGC Mac Richmond came to town and invited me to dinner. He wanted to sell me the FM...WPGC FM.  He said the power bills just running the transmitter were driving him nuts...and I could believe him..Mac was the kind of guy who had the first dollar of profit in his billfold...and he bragged that he had a code system worked out with his secretaries so that he could call them and get his point across without being charged.  At about 10 cents a minute back then..that WAS being cheap.

     I remember him offering to sell WPGC-FM to me for about $30,000 with just 5 or 10 thousand down.  I told him I didn’t have that kind of money but he said my Dad did...that I should call him.

     I joked that my Dad didn’t even favor me being in the radio biz!

     What’s the worth of that station today?  It’s been number one in that market for years...so I couldn’t even guess.  A lot of “millions”.

          BALTIMORE

     My stay at WCBM there was ever so brief.  
     But I loved cruising Inner harbor and eating the best fries in the world (second only to the fondue restaurant in Germany).
     I was just a jock (DJ) doing an early evening show...but there was an opening for a combo Program Director/DJ at WJJD Chicago and I contacted the national program guy in Memphis...a decent gentlemen (few of these in our business)...Gene Plumstead and he took an immediate interest and I was soon on my way back home.
     So goodbye Edgar Allen Poe and hello to the "windy".

stanmajor@aol.com