Hard to believe that over a half century has gone by since Bob Dylan warned us that The Times They Are a-Changin’. Many of us born before the internet and smartphones might disagree on many things but I’m guessing there is still a consensus that in a lot of ways the times —our times since those times— have kept changing but not completely for the better.
Talk radio is one of those developments I’m pretty certain I could live without. Toward the end of his life my father had his car radio tuned permanently to Rush Limbaugh. When I visited and borrowed the car I got a quick earful. When he was driving and I was with him and Limbaugh was on the air I got a serious earful.
About the only thing I learned from Rush and his cohorts was that there's no issue too complex that it can't be reduced to fear and loathing. And if you’ll excuse my own rant, I’ll contend the majority of talk show hosts of any stripe are egomaniacs and many of their callers malcontents or morons.
The late governor of Texas Ann Richards was once asked why she didn't have a talk show. Her answer: "The people who have time during the day to listen to me on the radio are not the people I want to be talking to."
But I remember a kinder gentler era when talk radio was in its infancy and I was not much older. There was a program on AM radio in the city where I grew up in Pennsylvania that I'd often go to sleep listening to. Its theme music —big band clarinetist Artie Shaw's “Nightmare” —would play and Reading's Night Mayor was on the air.
It might not have been the first radio listener call in talk show in the country but I’ll bet it was close. Paul Barclay was the host and his day job was teaching high school. I'm guessing that back then his radio gig was barely earning him vacation money.
I don't think he was much of a local celebrity and he certainly wasn't into spouting his own opinions to his audience. No diatribes, no insults, no spin but something else was missing from Barclay's show that, despite his impartiality, made him a very singular voice back in his day. His was in fact the ONLY voice.
In that pre high tech era that seems so long ago either the technology to include the caller on the air didn't exist or the Night Mayor's radio station didn’t want to pay for it. So listeners to the program only heard one side of the conversation— the Night Mayor’s. Because of this much patience was required from the devotees of the program.
Calls all started the same way: "Hello, Night Mayor!” followed by a long silence as the caller made his point and the listener at home waited to hear Barclay repeat, and no doubt condense, what that point was. Each call was literally translated from English into English and listening to the conversations plod along was at times awkward and even tedious.
The Artie Shaw theme music kind of scared me back then but I couldn't resist tuning into the Night Mayor when I was growing up. My Zenith transistor with it’s leather casing brought me the world, although St. Louis was about as far as it could reach out into it on a good night.
Reading had three local radio stations and WHUM broadcast the Night Mayor on weeknights. Like any other city, its residents had complaints and of course Barclay heard more than his share of them— potholes, parking, barking dogs and of course the perceived stench of local politics and government. I remember once it was actually the real thing— complaints about tardy garbage collection. I tuned in for it all.
And then one night I decided to call the Night Mayor myself. I had to. Something incredible and disturbing had occurred on live television that afternoon and the Night Mayor was asking for an eye witness. I had gotten home from school and seen it myself on a kitschy variety show called County Fair hosted by “There she is Miss America…” himself, Bert Parks.
It was a stunt gone amazingly wrong. A woman from the audience was blindfolded and spun around while a lit fuse running on the floor was racing toward her husband sitting in a chair below a sack of flour hanging from the ceiling. The studio audience was implored to scream directions to help her find the burning fuse so she could stomp it out with her shoes.
Somebody thought it a good idea to attach a firecracker at the end of the fuse right beside the sack of flour and when his wife didn’t find it to extinguish it, KABOOM!!! The flour ignited and her husband instantly became a human torch. Aflame, he rose from his seat as Bert Parks ran to him and probably saved his life by covering him with his carnival barker’s blazer. YES, this really happened live on TV!
I could barely believe I had seen it but I had and I felt obligated to report it to the Night Mayor. As a loyal listener it seemed my duty. Well partly, but mostly I just wanted to be the first one to call in.
I dialed the radio station from the phone in my parents' kitchen— it was past my bedtime —and as it rang and waited my turn, my nerves started to get the better of me. Stage fright hit and I was about to hang up. I was a kid, not even a teenager. What was I doing? Only adults called the Night Mayor!
With the suddenness of a car crash it was too late. "Hello, Night Mayor." His voice sounded different on the phone. I surprised myself and didn't hang up and as best I could, began my account. The Night Mayor didn't ask me my age. He had a show to do and now I was part of it. I was relieved that nobody was hearing me but him.
He helped me along with tactical “ah hahs” and “um hums” no doubt honed from years of experience. I navigated around them and listened to the Night Mayor edit me as we went along. I reported what I had seen and The Night Mayor was relaying what I told him to hundreds, possibly thousands of others. Years later I became a journalist. Looking back now, I’d say this was my first effort at reporting a story to the public.
Was I articulate? Did I make sense? Who knows? But together the Night Mayor and I made it work and then it was over. I was alone in the kitchen and shaking a little but not embarrassed or scared. I was now officially a Night Mayor caller.
When I became a television news producer my accounts of news events reached millions. It was my career— what I did for a living. But to this day I have never called another talk show and until writing this I had never told anyone I had called this one.
Thanks much Coleman! Jo and I are in Berlin for two weeks and although I visited Germany over 50 years ago, it feels more strange than it did then. For me it’s like visiting a haunted place.
Best,
Peter
PS: the link to the Times account of the exploding husband does work. what a bizarre incident