stormyjim

The Nadeau Family Photo Album

2012-01-01T21:32:00.000-08:00

Front row, L to R: Mary Eichner, Grandma Regan, Aunt Kate, Granny. Second row, L to R: Aunt Nell McCulloch, Irene Gratop, Grandma Clara Nadeau, Emma Hearsnep. Taken at Parker Villa farm.

Raymond Nadeau, August, 1909 - age 11 months.

Mary Thompson & Grandma Clara Nadeau with Jip the dog. Picture taken at 4411 Iroquois, Detroit.

Art, Mary Jo & Kay Sariee, 1943.

Are Sariee at home, Easter Sunday, 1959.

Barbara Heddle at King-Seeley Company in Ann Arbor, early 1950s.

Barbara Nadeau (Heddle), high school graduation.

Michael Sariee.

Michael Sariee, age 18, 1965.

Mary Jo & Michael Sariee in front of their house on Rosemont Street in Detroit.

Bobby Liedel. Left-graduation, 1968. Right-1956, 6 years old.

Little Mel, Yvonne & Bobby Liedel.

Bobby & Mel Liedel with Grandma Clara Nadeau & Yvonne Liedel in background.

Barbara Heddle, Grandma Clara Nadeau & Yvonne Liedel with Bobby & Little Mel Liedel.

Patsy Nadeau.

Patsy Nadeau, 1961.

Little Mel Liedel, 1956 - 9 years old.

Mary Ellen Braun, 1960.

Barbara Braun - 1960, 1962, 1964.

Barbara Heddle with Barbara Braun.

Yvonne , little Mel & Bobby Liedel, Mary Jo & Michael Sariee.

Patsy Nadeau, unknown, Michael & Mary Jo Sariee.

Gerry & Patsy Nadeau, Kay, Michael & Mary Jo Sariee, Yvonne & Bobby Liedel.

Eddie & Gloria Nadeau with Jimmy Heddle at Heddle's house, 1957.

Kay Sariee, Grandma Clara Nadeau & Barbara Heddle at Sariee's house.

Donna & Barbara Heddle, little Mel, Yvonne & Denise Liedel at Liedel's house, 1959.

Grandma Clara Nadeau, Gerry Nadeau, Clara Braun (with baby), Kay Sariee.

Barbara Heddle, Mel & Yvonne Liedel at Heddle's apartment on East Stadium, early 50's.

Eddie Nadeau & Barbara Heddle with baby Barbara Braun, 12-2-51.

Gerry Nadeau & Yvonne Liedel at Heddle's house.

Bobby & Yvonne Liedel.

Mary Ellen & Clara Braun.

Grandpa Edward Nadeau & Grandma Clara Nadeau at their anniversary party, 1958.

Barbara Braun holding baby Donna Heddle, 1957.

Grandma Clara Nadeau & Yvonne Liedel at Heddle's house, December 1964.

Donna Heddle ready to take on any Harper Woods ruffians, 1958.

Donna Heddle & Denise Liedel. Left in Liedel's backyard, 1959. Right at Houghton Lake, 1960.

Left: Donna Heddle & Denise Liedel on Denise's new Stingray, 1965. Right: Jimmy Heddle, Denise Liedel & Donna Heddle in Sariee's backyard, 1961.

Front row: Donna & Jimmy Heddle, Denise Liedel. Back row: Gerry Nadeau, Kay Sariee, Grandma Clara Nadeau, Yvonne Liedel, Mary Jo Sariee. In Sariee's backyard, 1964.

Yvonne Liedel, Grandma Clara Nadeau, Gerry Nadeau & Kay Sariee (sitting) at Liedel's house, 1965.

Grandma Clara Nadeau, Jimmy, Fred & Donna Heddle. Rochester, N.Y., 1961.

Jimmy Heddle, Karen & Keith Nadeau & Donna Heddle with Grandma Clara Nadeau, Fred Heddle & Eddie Nadeau in background. Naragansett Bay, 1961.

Left: Karen, Eddie & Keith Nadeau. Right: Grandma Clara Nadeau & Donna Heddle at Naragansett Bay, 1961.

Grandma Clara Nadeau, Donna & Barbara Heddle at Sariee's house, 1965.

Kay, Mary Jo & Art Sariee with Grandma Clara Nadeau, Easter Sunday, 1965.

Donna Heddle and Art Sariee at Sariee's house, 1963.

Kevin Nadeau, Donna Heddle & Karen Nadeau at Heddle's house, 1967.

Barbara Heddle & Yvonne Liedel at Silver Lake, August, 1968.

Cousins Donna Heddle & Denise Liedel. Left at Silver Lake, August, 1968. Right at Liedel's house, 1966.

Benmiller - 1959

2012-01-01T21:22:00.000-08:00

Taken on the front porch of the Gledhill house in the summer of 1959. Top - Donna, Barbara & Jimmy Heddle with Jim Heddle & Verne Gledhill in background. Bottom - Donna, Fred & Jimmy Heddle with Verne in background.

These pictures were taken on the front porch of the Gledhill house in the summer of 1959. Top picture is of Jimmy Heddle with Verne Gledhill in the background. Bottom picture is of Jimmy & Donna Heddle, again with Verne in background.

O, Canada - Part 4

2009-09-27T21:11:00.001-07:00

Del Shoebridge, Willa Gledhill, Barbara Heddle

Willa Gledhill & Fred Heddle

Verne Gledhill, Willa Gledhill, Myrtle Heddle outside Benmiller Inn

Myrtle Heddle, Barbara Heddle, Willa Gledhill outside Benmiller Inn

Myrtle Heddle, Willa Gledhill, Fred Heddle, Verne Gledhill

Willa Gledhill's 90th birthday party, 1983

Donna Heddle, Willa Gledhill, Barbara Heddle, unknown - 1983

Willa Gledhill, age 90

Willa Gledhill & Barbara Heddle, December 28, 1979

Orel Carter, Willa Gledhill, Stu Carter at Willa's 90th birthday party, 1983

Fred Heddle, Bill Carter, Phil Carter & Stu Carter with Willa Gledhill at Willa's 90th birthday party, 1983

Willa Gledhill, November 1979

Benmiller Inn, 1975

Gledhill House

Barbara Heddle & Willa Gledhill overlooking the lake in Goderich, 1979

Willa Gledhill & Fred Heddle, December 28, 1979

Willa Gledhill & Del Shoebridge at Willa's 87th birthday party in Grand Bend - 9/8/80

Willa & Verne Gledhill, August, 1975

O, Canada - Part 3

2009-09-24T22:45:00.000-07:00

Willa Nivins Gledhill, age 18 years

Andrew Heddle and Sarah Hart Heddle

The Heddle girls - Frankie, Margaret, Aggie, Bess, Belle & Molly

Willa Gledhill, Fred Heddle, Myrtle Heddle at Grandpa Heddle's house, about 1921

Willa Gledhill, Myrtle Heddle, Gertie Carter, Madge MacKay

Jim, Barbara & Fred Heddle - outside Benmiller Woolen Mill, 1973

Bill Ross, Myrtle Heddle, Fred Heddle, Willa Gledhill, Eb Ross, Verne Gledhill - 1973

Barbara Heddle, Verne Gledhill, Willa Gledhill - 1962

Fred Heddle, Willa Gledhill, Verne Gledhill - 1962

Willa & Verne Gledhill, 1962

Fred Heddle, Jim Heddle, Verne Gledhill - 1968

Front row-Donna Heddle, Willa Gledhill. Back row-Myrtle Heddle, Jim Heddle. August, 1968

Barbara Heddle, Myrtle Heddle, Willa Gledhill - 1968

Willa Gledhill with Paul & Peter Nivins - October, 1969

O, Canada - Part 2

2009-09-22T21:40:00.001-07:00

Jim Heddle, Del Shoebridge, Grace Wood, Orel Carter, Willa Gledhill, Myrtle Heddle, Stu Carter

Picture taken at picnic at Goderich Lighthouse Park. Willa Gledhill is the woman on the far left. Myrtle Heddle, Verne Gledhill, Ed Carter and Jim Heddle are in the back row. Gertie Carter is in the sweater on the right.

Picture taken on the steps of the Gledhills' old house. Back row-Fred Heddle, Jim Heddle, Verne Gledhill. Middle row-Myrtle Heddle, unknown, Andy Heddle, Charlie Stokes. Front row-unknown, unknown, Willa Gledhill (with dog).

Verne's motorcycle

Benmiller postcard

Verne Gledhill (far left)

Verne Gledhill

Willa & Verne Gledhill

Verne & Willa Gledhill

Willa & Verne Gledhill

Gertie Carter, Madge MacKay, Willa Gledhill

Willa Gledhill

The Spirit of '66!

2009-06-26T21:30:00.000-07:00

Happy Holidays

2008-12-20T16:24:00.001-08:00

Winter scene, backyard of 1031 Morningside with McPhee farm in background

Christmas stockings for Donna, Bootsy & Jim, 1966.

Barbara Heddle, pregnant with Jimmy, Christmas, 1953

Myrtle, Donna & Jim Heddle, Christmas morning, 1961

Jim Heddle hanging his Christmas stocking, December 24, 1961

Donna, Myrtle & Jim Heddle, New Year's Eve, 1961/62

Fred & Donna Heddle, New Year's Eve, 1962/63

Myrtle & Donna Heddle, New Year's Eve, 1964/65

When his name was Jimmy

2008-12-20T16:07:00.000-08:00

Farmer Jim

The future voice of Michigan Hockey

Jim & Fred Heddle, 1956

Jim Heddle, 1957

Jimmy the musician (yeah, right!)

Jim Heddle at 1200 Packard Street - February 19, 1957

Jim Heddle in the backyard at 1031 Morningside, 1956. Buildings and apple trees at the McPhee farm in background.

Jim & Barbara Heddle, November, 1954

Jim & Barbara Heddle, June 27, 1954

Jim Heddle, 1956

Jim & Fred Heddle at an Easter egg hunt on Miller Road, 1956

Jim Heddle taking a nap, 1964. Note his support for fellow Ann Arborite Neil Staebler in the Governor's race

Jim Heddle, Ann Arbor's #1 Packer-backer, 1962

The siblings

2008-12-20T15:56:00.000-08:00

Donna & Jim Heddle outside of Clague's Grocery Store, 1200 Packard, 1963

Donna & Jim Heddle, 1962

Jim, Fred & Donna Heddle, 1960

Jim & Donna Heddle, 1957

Donna & Jim Heddle, 1957

Storytime - Jim, Barbara & Donna Heddle, 1959

"Tell that joke again!" Jim & Donna Heddle, 1960

Jim & Donna Heddle, Easter Sunday, 1960

Horsing around

2008-12-20T15:53:00.000-08:00

Donna Heddle, 1959

Jim Heddle, 1956

Cool Cats

2008-12-20T15:38:00.000-08:00

Bootsy with Zelmira and Marina Guntsche of 1037 Morningside, 1965

Bootsy taking a catnap, 1963

Bootsy on the milkbox, 1964

Bootsy on the carport, 1966

Donna Heddle with Bootsy, 1961

Jim Heddle with Bootsy, January 21, 1967

Bootsy, 1960

Donna Heddle with Bootsy, 1959

Donna Heddle with Bootsy, 1964

Bootsy's best pose, 1964

Snoopy, 1967-68

Jody sees a squirrel, 1976

Donna (Cousin Itt) Heddle with Jody the kitten, 1970

Family

2008-12-20T14:47:00.001-08:00

Three generations: Fred, Barbara, Myrtle, and Jim Heddle

Jim, Donna & Myrtle Heddle, Straubie (Mrs. Straube), Fred Heddle at Kensington Park, 1964

Fred, Jim, Barbara & Donna Heddle at Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes, 1965

Myrtle & Jim Heddle with Jimmy, December, 1954

Fred Heddle and Barbara Nadeau at Whitmore Lake (?), summer, 1948

The Liedel family at 1031 Morningside, June 27, 1954: front - Little Mel & Bobby. back - Yvonne (holding baby Jimmy Heddle) & Big Mel

Eddie, Gloria and Keith Nadeau, Easter Sunday, 1959

Friends

2008-12-20T14:25:00.000-08:00

Barbara Heddle & Bona Prieskorn, 1970

Easter, 1957: Jim & Fred Heddle, Bona Prieskorn, Gerry Scofield

Atlantic City, 1963: front - Wendy Baker, Donna Heddle. back - Carl & Sylvia Baker, Barbara & Fred Heddle

Joe Kooperman, Lindy Stadel, Barbara Heddle, Carl Stadel, Lucy Kooperman - 1974

"GOOOOOOOD, KATIE!!" Katie Brief, Barbara Heddle, Monica Guntsche - 1966

Jim Childers, 1963

Donna Heddle and Karen Hartman, 1965

Kids in the backyard at 1031 Morningside, 1965 - Donna Heddle and Karen Hartman on blanket, Linda Brief, David Brief, Brian Schumacher (on knees)

O, Canada

2008-12-20T13:55:00.000-08:00

Gledhill residence, Benmiller, 1906-1977

Gledhill residence, Benmiller

Bill Ross, Jim Heddle, Donna Heddle, Eb Ross, Benmiller, 1973

Donna, Barbara, Fred and Jim Heddle, Benmiller, December 17, 1967

Donna Heddle (with toad in jar), Jim Heddle, Willa Gledhill - Benmiller, August, 1968

Ducks on the pond at Benmiller, 1962

Verne Gledhill and Fred Heddle at the dinner table, Benmiller, Ontario, June, 1976

Benmiller, Ontario, 1973: front row - Myrtle Heddle, Willa Gledhill, Barbara Heddle. middle row - Don McKay, Fred Heddle, Donna Heddle. back row - Verne Gledhill, Jim Heddle.

Donna and Jim Heddle at the beach in Goderich, 1965

When The Tigers Socked It To 'Em

2006-10-19T21:17:00.000-07:00

It was one of those rare moments in life when, as it was happening, I was thinking to myself - "I'm going to remember this for the rest of my life!" And I have.

It was Wednesday October 9, 1968. That afternoon the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals were squaring off in game 6 of the World Series. St. Louis held a 3 to 2 edge in the best of 7 series. I was attending classes as a 9th grader at Forsythe Junior High, and it was torture having to be in school instead of watching or listening to the game. Luckily my last class of the day was gym and the coaches had a radio in their office tuned to the game. Before we headed out to the athletic field they told us that the Tigers held a 2-0 lead after 2 innings.

When we went outside, standing next to the locker room door were a couple of our buddies holding a transistor radio listening to the game. Coach asked them what class they were supposed to be in, and they said that they had study hall that hour. Since our coach was just as interested in the game as we were, he let them "skip" study hall so that they could continue to listen to the game ... and provide us with updates.

Toward the end of class we were told that Detroit had scored 2 more runs to take a 4-0 lead. Then as we took a final lap around the football field and were walking across the tennis courts toward the building, it happened. Our pals with the transistor radio started jumping up and down, screaming at the top of their lungs.

"WHAT HAPPENED???!!!," we called out. "NORTHRUP HIT A GRAND SLAM!!!!!!! THE TIGERS ARE UP 8 TO NOTHING!!!!!!!" Pandemonium.

Can you picture thirty 14 year old boys racing toward the school, whooping and hollering and jumping for joy? That was us! But that was just the beginning of the celebration. Once we got in the locker room, the noise was deafening. Everybody yelling, clapping, pounding on the lockers. "SOCK IT TO 'EM TIGERS!!!" Jim Northrup's timing couldn't have been better. It's a moment I've played over and over in my mind all of these years, and undoubtedly my favorite memory of my 13 years as an Ann Arbor public school student. And now with the Tigers and Cardinals set to battle once more in the fall classic, it's all coming back again.

Oh, and the coach that let those guys skip class so they could listen to the game? It was Andy Anderson.

Memories of DAPCO Softball

2006-06-10T20:46:00.000-07:00

As I was watching the college softball tournament games recently on TV, I enjoyed seeing the talented University of Michigan pitcher Jennie Ritter in action. Since Jennie played her prep softball at Dexter High School, it got me thinking back to the original glory days of Dexter softball in the 1970s.

In 1974 I attended my first high school softball game between my alma mater, Ann Arbor Pioneer and Willow Run High. I went to the game at the urging of one of my sister's friends, Cindy Cabianca who was on Pioneer's team. I loved it and went back to see a few more games that season. At one of the games I began to chat with an older gentleman sitting nearby, and later I found out that he was there scouting for talent for his summer league team. His name was Bob Lambert, and his team was sponsored by a company from Dexter called DAPCO.

A couple of weeks back I did a Google search for "DAPCO softball" and nothing came up. Since anyone who was there in the 70s can tell you, those were great times that should be remembered, and I guess it's up to me to start by sharing my memories.

Bob ended up recruiting a number of Pioneer players for his team, in fact in the early years about half of the roster was made up of former Pioneers. They included Grace Harbison (who would later coach Pioneer's team), Terry Karnatz, Betty Smith, Roberta Zald, Cindy Cabianca, Sue Dye, Jane Anderson and Kathie Vidrih. Other DAPCO players in the first few years included Robin Baun, Liz Hibsky, Ethel Lambert, Betty Nalli, Nancy Pearce, Deni Reid, Kathy Rice, Liz Snyder, Karen Taylor, Marlene Uphaus, Carol Wall, Karen Craig, Kathy "Too tall" Miller, Shirley Bitters, Elizabeth Walli, Dora Huizenga and Tammie Johnson. Later other excellent players joined the team including Skip Horning and Julie Murphy who would later become Brighton High's coach.

In it's first 2 years of existence, DAPCO dominated the Ann Arbor City League. The team also went to the state tournament both years, finishing 3rd in 1974. DAPCO's games were a blast to go to, because the team had a large, vocal contingent of fans led by Kathy Miller's mom. I usually sat with Roger Passon whose daughter served as the team's bat girl. The team had many great moments, but there are 4 in particular that I recall vividly:

1. In 1976 DAPCO moved up from the City League to the Ann Arbor Major League. The doubters were saying that DAPCO would not be very successful against the tougher competition, but those thoughts were dashed in a hurry. Betty Smith was the first DAPCO player to come to the plate in a major league game, and she proceeded to hit an inside-the-park home run!

2. It was hard to believe, but late in the 1976 season DAPCO was on the verge of winning the Major League championship in their rookie year in the league. An overflow crowd at Veterans Park diamond #2 was roaring halfway through the game as DAPCO built a big lead over Gray's Sports Shop. But the veteran Gray's team rallied late in the contest to post the win.

3. A year or two later on that same diamond in the Stein & Goetz Invitational tournament, DAPCO staged a dramatic rally in the bottom of the 7th inning to upset the powerhouse Little Caesar's team from Detroit.

4. After several near-misses, DAPCO finally won the Major League championship in about 1979. The title-clinching game was played at Vets #3, and when it ended the players were so excited that they didn't want to leave the field! They all stood along the 3rd base line as I and the other DAPCO fans in the stands snapped pictures and reveled in the moment.

More than a quarter of a century later, here's to the Orange and Blue - thanks for the memories!

2006-04-16T19:52:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Channel 9!
Earlier this year my all-time favorite television station, Channel 9 in Windsor, Ontario celebrated its 50th year of broadcasting. Back in the day, 9 aired what I found to be a very entertaining mix of local programming, Canadian shows and American re-runs. In the late 50s/early 60s in most of America, viewers had but 3 choices on the TV dial - their local affiliates of the ABC, NBC and CBS networks. But in southeast Michigan we were blessed with a fourth alternative, CKLW-TV, Channel 9, a CBC affiliate. I started watching Channel 9 frequently at a very young age. Channel 2 had B'wana Don and Morgus, 4 had Bozo and Milky, and 7 had Soupy and Johnny Ginger, but on Channel 9 there were 3 stars of kids TV - Captain Jolly, Jingles and Poopdeck Paul! Then there was Chez Helene, a 15-minute show that was done partially in the English language and partly in French, so that kids in Canada could learn the nation's other official language. I even remember tuning to the station early on Sunday mornings when they had a test pattern on! They didn't start regular programming until 9am, but we would turn it on to hear the bright, upbeat music they would play during the test pattern.

Imagine offering today's young people a TV set that only picks up 4 channels, and one of them has a test pattern! Later when I reached adolescence, 9 had two of my favorite shows: Swingin' Time with Robin Seymour and Windsor Wrestling with Lord Layton. And they also aired my all-time favorite TV show, The Adventures of Tugboat Annie!No mention of Canada or Canadian TV is complete without bringing up the sport of hockey, and over the years Hockey Night In Canada has been a godsend. It's hard to believe in this era where virtually every pro and college sports event is televised, but 40 years ago the only time we got to see the Red Wings play were those rare Saturday nights when they visited Toronto to play the Maple Leafs! And you didn't even get to see all of the game - they would join it in progress at the end of the 1st period! The Stanley Cup playoffs were a real treat because then they showed you THE WHOLE GAME! Bill Hewitt did the play-by-play and after the game his dad Foster would come over from the radio booth to announce the 3 stars of the game. He almost always picked a Toronto player as the number one star, even when they lost the game! I still get goosebumps whenever I hear the Hockey Night In Canada theme song, and if I heard it now during the NHL lockout I'd probably shed a tear.

Another reason Channel 9 is special to me is because my dad was born in Canada, and when I was a kid we still had lots of relatives living there. Watching Channel 9 was a way of staying connected to them, and to my heritage.Other programs I remember watching regularly included the panel shows Flashback and Front Page Challenge, the latter of which was on for decades and usually finished second in the Canadian TV ratings behind Hockey Night In Canada. Fred Davis was the host and the regular panelists were Gordon Sinclair, Pierre Burton, and Canada's answer to Arlene Francis, Betty Kennedy.Then there were the musical variety programs - Tommy Hunter, Canada's Pet - Juliette, and Don Messer's Jubilee. While I probably wouldn't have chosen to watch these shows myself, since my parents did watch they became part of the soundtrack of my childhood. In the 70s and 80s I enjoyed watching the British comedies Rising Damp, Yes Minister and The Two Ronnies on 9. Then there were the special shows like The Freedom Festival Parade with commentary by newsman Don Daly, the Mr. Belvedere Lookalike Contest (which was especially memorable for our family when unbeknownst to us, my dad's cousin Lester Heddle Sr. turned up on the show and won first runner-up), and Olympics coverage that put the U.S. networks to shame.

I left Ann Arbor in 1982 and when I came back in '94 a lot had changed, and most of the programming on Channel 9 no longer originated in Windsor. Still I would get a warm feeling every time I tuned the station in, and I especially enjoyed watching the hockey games with the cheesy, amateurish local commercials!Now I live a long ways away from Channel 9's coverage area, but I still satisfy my taste for Canadian TV by occasionally tuning in "The National" CBC newscast on the International News Channel. And I'm looking forward to subscribing to NHL Center Ice when hockey gets going again, so that I can watch Hockey Night In Canada with Don Cherry! Good stuff, eh?

Sweet 16 Radio

2006-01-28T20:58:00.000-08:00

WAAM Radio in my hometown of Ann Arbor used to publish weekly music surveys that I would pick up in local record stores and department store record departments. In the 60s the charts went through 5 different designs. The oldest WAAM survey I have is from the week of September 27, 1965. It's 8 and 1/2 inches wide and 7 inches tall and has very crude black mimeograph print on white paper. It's called the WAAM Sweet 16 Sound Survey and lists the top 16 songs of the week, plus 2 pick hits.
Early in 1966 a new much more colorful design debuted. The survey is the same size as before but now has a red background with the station call letters in white. It still lists the top 16 songs, plus a pick 45 and a pick album. This design continued until June of 1967 when the WAAM Sound 16 Survey was created. It was smaller, measuring five inches across by 8 inches tall, but it lists more music - there are the top 16 singles plus the top 16 albums, along with a premiere single and premiere album. It also had a red background with the call letters in white.
In February of 1968 the design changed again. Still the same size, now it has a primarily white background with red borders.
The fifth and final design of the 60s premiered in May of 1968. Continuing the red and white color scheme, the survey measures 3 and 1/2 inches wide and 11 inches tall. Now the Top 32 singles of the week are listed, plus the top 16 albums, the premiere 45 and premiere album.
The very last WAAM survey of the 60s was dated September 6-12, 1968. No survey was issued on September 13 because early that morning, a fire destroyed much of the station's studios on Packard Road. At that time the station signed off the air between midnight and 6, so no one was in the building when the fire broke out. For the next 11 months the station operated out of a trailer in the parking lot until the studios could be rebuilt. WAAM would not issue another survey until 1972 when they switched to an around-the-clock Top 40 rock & roll format.
Above is one of the surveys from 1968. The number 3 song is by an Ann Arbor band that recorded for Detroit-based Hideout Records - The Talismen with Vintage NSU. It's a medley of 2 Cream songs, NSU and Sweet Wine. The lead singer of the group was Mike Lutz, who would go on to become the original lead singer for Brownsville Station. Mike continued the medley idea with his new band when they released Be Bop Confidential, a medley of Be-Bop-A-Lula and High School Confidential, as their second single. Although the Talismen record never made it on Detroit radio, the group lip-synched the song and the b-side, a cover of the Beatles' Taxman many times in late '67/early '68 on Robin Seymour's Swingin' Time TV show on Channel 9.

A Merry Rock & Roll Christmas!

2005-12-20T17:39:00.000-08:00

‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the land
The radio’s playing, but the music is bland

From Podunk to Ypsi, Walla-Walla to Zion
Alternative, country and rap I ain’t buyin’!

You know what WE need for some holiday cheer
Is good-time rock & roll, that’s what I wanna hear!

Not grungy noise or hick corn-pone
But Elvis, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones!!

No rappin’ n’scratchin’ n’hippin’ n’hoppin’
Make way for Gene Vincent and we’ll REALLY get boppin’!!

The music that makes me feel happy and jolly
From the Kinks and the Who and the Troggs and the Hollies

And on Christmas Eve as we sit by the hearth
What will we listen to? Sure as hell won’t be Garth!!!

No, as we unwrap presents with ribbons and bows
We’ll be listening to OLDIES – the songs we love so!!!

A Make-Believe World of REAL Fun!!!

2005-12-15T21:15:00.000-08:00

I've often been accused of having a photographic memory, and so here's the proof: Back around the time that I was in the first grade, my dad bought a basketball hoop and put it up in one corner of our basement. It was a smaller-than-regulation-size hoop, and he attached it to a piece of plywood which served as the backboard. For the next several years my friends and I spent countless hours playing basketball in the basement.

Not being content to just shoot hoops though, my imagination quickly shifted into overdrive as I turned that basement corner into a make-believe basketball Mecca called Wines Field House. In the top picture, that's me posing in front of the basket holding a volleyball, which we used instead of a basketball, which was too big to fit through the smaller hoop. On the backboard I taped three homemade pennants representing the 3 high schools in existence in Ann Arbor at that time - Ann Arbor High, St. Thomas and U High. Then I bought a box of multi-colored chalk, and on the wall directly under the basket I drew the logos of all of the Big Ten schools.
On the wall to the left of the court I drew the logos of all of the area high school teams, organized by league. In the bottom picture which shows my friend Jim Childers lining up a free throw, you can see some of these chalk logos. Four leagues were represented - The Six-A, consisting of Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Jackson, Lansing Sexton and Lansing Eastern; the Catholic League which included St. Thomas, Detroit St. Hedwig, Hamtramck Immaculate Conception, Ypsilanti St. John, Wayne St. Mary and St. Francis Xavier; The Southeastern Conference which included Saline, Dexter, Chelsea, Lincoln and a couple of others; and a 4th league, the name of which I have forgotten that included U High, Whitmore Lake, Dundee, Carleton Airport and Manchester.

Hanging from the rafters above the free throw line were homemade pennants for all of the NBA teams at the time. Included were such long-forgotten teams as the Minnesota Lakers, St. Louis Hawks, Cincinnati Royals and a team from Syracuse. The basement stairs served as the bleachers. Sitting on a small table courtside were imitation microphones that I made out of tinker toys. Placards in front of each mike identified the radio or TV station(s) there to cover the games. It wasn't WAAM, WPAG or WOIA that came to broadcast the games though, but our own make-believe stations like WJEH (James Edward Heddle) and WJSC (James Scott Childers). On 8-by-11 inch sheets of paper I drew pictures of TV cameras and placed them at various locations around the court.

Here's a story that goes to show just how hooked I was on playing basement basketball: One day the volleyball sprung a leak and started to deflate. For reasons that I no longer recall, my mom was not going to be able to take me to the store anytime soon to get a new ball. So the next day after school, I walked from our house all the way to Stein & Goetz downtown, bought a new ball and walked all the way back home!

Jim Childers and I would play these make-believe games where one of us would shoot for both teams and the other person would watch. One of us would do the broadcast play-by-play of the game, and the other would cheer and whistle in the background to simulate crowd noise. One year at Christmas I got a small tape recorder as a present and we actually recorded some of these games. Only a short 10-second snippet of one of these "broadcasts" has survived through the years, and I still get a kick out of listening to it.

Eventually I came up with the concept of a league made up of the 4 elementary schools that I was most familiar with: Wines, where I went to school; Burns Park, where my grandmother would take my sister and I to play on the playground when we went over to visit; Mack, where my friend Craig Curtis attended; and John Allen School, where another friend, Wendy Baker went. The powerhouse teams in the league were Burns Park and Wines, while Mack was a .500 club and John Allen was the bottom feeder.

As the teams came onto the court, I would play their fight songs on my little record player, from an extended-play 45 of military marches. Wines' song was Anchors Away, Burns Park's was As The Caissons Go Rolling Along, John Allen's was the Army Air Corps Song. The last "official" make-believe game played there took place early in 1966 with Wines beating Burns Park for the league title. I have to admit - the game was fixed! But how else could all of those years of joy be wrapped up, than with a happy ending!

Grillin' in Arizona - a year-round thing!

2005-12-14T21:33:00.000-08:00

When Memorial Day Was On Memorial Day

2005-05-30T01:13:00.000-07:00

I'm back in the booth this year at the Arizona Heat pro softball games, manning the Public Address microphone. In the booth with me is Walt, another radio veteran who plays the music between innings, and a newcomer named Dan who handles the message board. Walt is about 10 years older than me, while Dan I would estimate to be no more than 25 years of age.
During a lull in tonight's action Walt mentioned the fact that back in the day, Memorial Day was always observed on the 30th of May, regardless of what day of the week the 30th fell on. Our youthful friend in the booth couldn't believe his ears. "You mean even if the 30th fell ON A SATURDAY OR SUNDAY?," he asked incredulously. That's right, kid. If the 30th fell on the weekend, you didn't get an extra day off - it was back to work on Monday morning, and if you didn't like it, TOUGH BEANS!
In my opinion the average American's attitude toward work has deteriorated a great deal in the last 40 years, and the idea of stretching out these holiday weekends has a lot to do with it. I remember when virtually all of the men worked from 8 to 5, and all of the women were stay-at-home moms. In the middle of the day, you'd go out and there'd hardly be any traffic - just housewives going to the grocery store and delivery trucks. Now go to a department store any weekday and you can't help but wonder - don't any of these people work? Many people, including my dad, didn't just work Monday thru Friday, but on Saturday morning as well. Nobody complained that they were getting jipped out of a 3-day weekend if a holiday fell on Saturday or Sunday. Instead it was a special treat when you would get a day off for a holiday during the week.
First we had the government create these 3 day weekends by moving holidays like Memorial Day and Veterans Day to the nearest Monday. Then people started to take 4-day weekends when holidays like the 4th of July would fall on a Tuesday or Thursday. People used to go back to work on the day after Thanksgiving, now it's an unofficial shopping holiday. And heaven forbid if Christmas should fall on a Wednesday - that apparently gives you an excuse to take the whole week off!
Am I suggesting that we go back to the way it was? No. People would never stand for it anyway. And maybe I would be trying to weasel out of working too if I had a job I hated, but fortunately I work in a field where I can't wait to go to work each day. All I'm saying is that the traditional American work ethic has taken a big hit in recent decades, and I know that these holiday stretching attempts have contributed greatly to that decline.
So enjoy your day off today. Hey look, it's the 30th, what a coincidence. Then let's get back to work!

The End of Good Sportsmanship

2005-04-27T23:39:00.000-07:00

While watching a football game over the weekend, I was reminded of my elementary school principal, Emerson Powrie. I was a student at Wines School in Ann Arbor from 1959 until 1966. I never got to know Mr. Powrie that well because only the bad kids got sent to the principal's office, and I was a good little boy. Still, over the years I came to like and admire him. Often near the end of the school day, he would make an announcement over the intercom. He always began it the same way: "May I have your attention in all rooms please, may I please have your attention," he would say. We knew that he cared about us, because often the purpose of his announcement was to warn us of a storm that was moving in, and he would ask us to be especially careful walking home. I also remember that he would occasionally say something that we thought was funny, which we always enjoyed.Mr. Powrie was also a part of my world outside of school. My dad took me to lots of sports events when I was young, and I would see Mr. Powrie at many of them. He worked as the timekeeper at both University of Michigan basketball games and Ann Arbor High football games, and he also was public address announcer at the high school basketball games. I thought it was cool that my principal was the announcer there, and felt proud and honored many years later when I was offered and accepted the same position that he had held so many years before.For the most part, the personal lives of the adults at our school were a mystery to us, but occasionally we would hear little stories that we found quite fascinating. Once one of our teachers told us that Mr. Powrie did not have a TV set at his house. We were shocked that our principal felt no need to own an item that we considered to be one of life's necessities.The other story that puzzled us was when we heard that Mr. Powrie felt that booing at games and other public events was totally inappropriate. On these two issues, watching TV and booing, he obviously was in a distinct minority. At those Michigan basketball games where Mr. Powrie kept time, the boos and jeers of fans unhappy with an official's call routinely echoed off the ancient walls and tin roof of cavernous Yost Field House.Although I didn't entirely understand Mr. Powrie's stands on these issues, I admired him for sticking to his principles regardless of popular public opinion. And when I really thought about it, I realized that he was right about the booing thing - no one participating in or officiating at a sports event deserves to be booed. I have to admit that on many occasions I have joined in the jeering, seeing as it's hard to resist booing someone like Woody Hayes or Bobby Knight. Which brings me up to this weekend - what happened at the football game I was watching is routine these days, but it is something that I have never engaged in - the fans were booing their own team. I first experienced this phenomenon when I attended my first Detroit Lions game more than 40 years ago, and I quickly decided that if the "fans" of this team boo their own players, I wanted nothing to do with said team.When I heard the fans booing their team this weekend I thought about Mr. Powrie, and then I wondered to myself - if he was against booing, imagine how he would feel about what happened at the Palace on Friday night. And at that moment I realized that it was all connected - the booing of the officials at Yost 40 years ago happened because there weren't enough Emerson Powrie's around to stand up for what is right. First it was just booing the refs and the opponents, then it escalated to booing the home team, then it became OK to throw things on the playing surface and curse, and finally this disintegration of decency has resulted in the near-riot at the Pistons game the other night.A few years after I left Wines, Mr. Powrie received a promotion in the Ann Arbor School system and shortly thereafter was one of the top-ranking officials in the district. Then about 25 years ago he suffered a sudden illness and passed away at a much too early age.In light of recent events, it seems to me that a return to the principles and ideals of Mr. Powrie are long overdue. A good first step in this direction would be naming Ann Arbor's new high school in his honor - Emerson Powrie High.

Hold Your Breath Syndrome

2005-03-28T15:37:00.000-08:00

Growing up in Ann Arbor in a sports-oriented family, I thought it was a normal thing to expect your team to win. There is a special confidence that surrounds the University of Michigan and Ann Arbor (Pioneer) High School athletic programs. And why not? In football Michigan has won more games than any other University, while only one high school in the state has more victories than the Pioneers. The schools have a long, rich history in most other sports as well. While knowing that you can't win 'em all, there was an expectation that Michigan and Pioneer teams would win most of the time, including most of the "big" games, and they usually did.
When I moved away from Ann Arbor, I found out that the situation is very different in other places. The first town where I moved was Kalamazoo, and any time the K-Wings or Western Michigan had something good going, when they reached the make-or-break point in a big game the stadium or arena would go silent as the fans held their collective breaths, waiting for their team to "blow it again"...and they almost always did. I call this the "Hold Your Breath Syndrome" and it has been quite evident where I currently live, in Tucson. In fact I'm sure it has a long, sad future here after what happened to the beloved Wildcats in the NCAA tournament on Saturday.
Those of you who live in Ann Arbor or other similar places where this Hold Your Breath Syndrome does not exist should consider yourselves lucky. It's very different in most of the rest of the world, where this defeatist attitude unfortunately extends well beyond sports in many cases. GO BLUE!!! GO PURPLE!!!

The Power of This Blog

2005-01-25T21:41:00.000-08:00

A little while ago I wrote a piece on this Blog called "Last Of The Black and White's." It lamented the fact that almost all of the old black & white TV shows that I grew up watching have been taken off the air. There was one show in particular, "The Name's The Same" that I expounded on after discovering that it had been removed from GSN's schedule recently. So
you can imagine how surprised I was when I happened to tune to that channel last night, and guess what's back on - THE NAME'S THE SAME!!!!!! Obviously someone at GSN read my blog, realized the error of their ways and promptly put the show back on the air. For the uninitiated, set your TiVo's and VCR's for 3am eastern time, (or if you're a night owl like me, watch it at that time). You won't have to watch long before you'll see a woman wearing one of those funny hats!

Last of the black & white's

2005-01-13T01:06:00.000-08:00

In case you haven't noticed, our generation is being almost completely ignored by the mass media, and by television in particular. Several years ago when channels like TVLand and Game Show Network went on the air, their schedules were filled with all of the classic TV shows that we grew up with in the 50s and 60s. Gradually these shows have been disappearing, until today there are only a handful of them left - by my count, the only programs still being shown from the black & white era are The Munsters, Leave It To Beaver and the early episodes of Andy Griffith on TVLand, and What's My Line on Game Show Network.
I had intended to write this blog several weeks ago, but hadn't got around to it and now it's too late for me to recommend another ancient show that was on Game Show Network until a few days ago - The Name's The Same. The program aired originally from 1952 until 1955, and was hosted by Robert Q. Lewis. Mr. Lewis is a University of Michigan graduate and never was shy about stating that fact on the air. A hilarious moment occurred one night when Robert asked a contestant where he was from and he answered Detroit. Robert then asked him if he was a "Michigan Man" and the guy, who apparently was not a Wolverine but a Spartan, scowled at him and said "Absolutely NOT!!" One of the 3 panelists was Joan Alexander, who is probably best remembered as the voice of Lois Lane on the old Superman radio series. Even if the show had sucked, it would have been worth watching just to see her - what a doll! But the show itself was also quite entertaining, and combined with What's My Line made for a delightful hour of late night TV viewing. A month or two back they were showing the earliest episodes of these shows from the early 50s, and they were fascinating to watch for a number of reasons. One was to see the silly hats that the women contestants would wear. I vaguely remember my grandmother and some of the older teachers at my grade school wearing similar headwear - with flowers, pins and ribbons sticking out in all directions, and some coming complete with these weird fish-net contraptions hanging over the wearer's face. But beyond the odd fashion statements, the shows featured something sadly lacking from TV shows of more recent decades - good old-fashioned wholesome family entertainment. Young people today may not believe it, but once upon a time it was possible to laugh at something on TV that WASN'T dirty.
Unfortunately Game Show Network has replaced The Names The Same with Tattletales, a rather bland, boring show from the rather bland, boring seventies. The channel has even changed it's name to GSN and has added a number of "modern" shows like Extreme Dodgeball in an obvious attempt to appeal to a younger audience. TVLand has done much the same thing, replacing the classics with crap from the 70s and 80s.
My satellite dish pulls in well over a hundred stations, but night after night I check the program guide and find absolutely nothing to my liking. Believe it or not, on most weeknights at 9pm Mountain Time the "best" show that I can find to watch is Howard Stern! More often than not we end up turning the TV off. But if someone had enough smarts to start a new channel, say The Baby Boomer Network, and filled the evening time slots with the likes of The Honeymooners, Password, Ozzie & Harriet, Groucho Marx, Dennis The Menace, Candid Camera and Mr. Ed, my wife and I would be tuned in every night! Is anybody out there listening???

Memory weekend - 1967!

2005-01-10T21:33:00.000-08:00

This week on From The Vault we spotlight the music from April of 1967 on the re-broadcast of our WPAG Memory Weekend show. Artists featured this time include Michigan bands the MC5, the 5 Bucs and the Only Ones, plus you'll hear songs by Tommy James & the Shondells, The Who, Paul Revere & the Raiders, the Monkees, the Dave Clark 5 and more. Listen at www.annarboralive.com
I'd also like to encourage you to check out Scott Westerman's great Keener13.com podcast. Included are super-neat airchecks of Keener 13, interviews, music and a feature where I play one of my favorite oldies from the Keener Music Guide. Go to www.keener13.com

Memory Weekend Pt. 1

2005-01-03T16:35:00.000-08:00

It was 27 years ago this month that I started my radio career at WPAG in Ann Arbor. To mark the occasion, for the next 4 weeks we are going to re-air a show that I did at WPAG in April of 1980 called Memory Weekend. The shows will be on annarboralive.com - an internet radio station that broadcasts out of the same downtown Ann Arbor studios that WPAG used from the 1940s until the 1980s. This week's show features music from the year 1968, by such artists as Bob Seger, The Who, Tommy James and Edwin Starr.
Enjoy!

Forgotten Gold #1!

2004-12-27T20:01:00.000-08:00

On this week's From The Vault program, we present one of our "Forgotten Gold" Shows. In fact, this was the very first show of the series, originally airing on WAAM on January 6, 1996. The program includes a rare hit for the songwriting duo The Addrisi Brothers, a hard-to-find Simon & Garfunkel tune from 1966, one of the last hits from Chicago's New Colony 6 (and one of their best), and a song by a group who named themselves after the city of Ann Arbor! Listen at www.annarboralive.com

Don't miss our Christmas Show!

2004-12-18T15:49:00.000-08:00

This week on my internet radio program we are airing our annual Christmas show. It features our favorite rock & roll Christmas songs - we started doing this show way back in 1980 on WAAM in Ann Arbor and then continued to air it yearly in Grand Rapids starting in 1985, up through the early 90s. Some of the artists we feature include Bob Seger, Gary Glitter, George Thorogood, the Royal Guardsmen, the Kinks and James Brown.
I'd like to make special mention of the last song we play, which is my all-time favorite Christmas record - Jingle Jangle by the Rockfield Chorale from 1975. A guy named Greg Shaw is the one responsible for bringing this song to my attention, and sadly Greg passed away earlier this year at the age of 55. Back in the early 70s when roots-rock music was considered passe, Greg kept interest in it alive through his fanzine, Who Put The Bomp and with his Bomp record label. He tirelessly promoted the careers of bands he believed in, and he is largely responsible for the revival in interest for such musical styles as garage rock and power pop beginning in the late 70s. Greg absolutely loved the Rockfield Chorale record, and at one time he was quoted as saying that he planned to promote the song every year at Christmas until it became a hit. The song has been a hit in my book for 20 years, and each year we will continue to play it last on our Christmas show in honor of Greg.
You can hear the show this week at www.annarboralive.com

From the Vault - Show #2!

2004-12-13T10:14:00.000-08:00

Our second "From The Vault" show is on the air this week and it's all about forgotten follow-ups. Included is Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poney's follow-up to "Different Drum," Robert Parker's follow-up to "Barefootin'" and even Richard & the Young Lions follow-up to "Open Up Your Door"! Plus lots more surprises. You can find the show at www.annarboralive.com

From The Vault is on the air!

2004-12-01T22:24:00.000-08:00

Everyone is invited to listen to my new internet radio show, "From The Vault" beginning this Monday. To find the show, go to www.annarboralive.com. Here's when it will be on:

Monday, December 6 at 11 am on the local music channel.
Tuesday, December 7 at 7pm on the Cornucopia channel.
Thursday, December 9 at 7pm on the local music channel.
Friday, December 10 at 11am on the Cornucopia channel.
All times are EASTERN

This week's show will include some long-forgotten Detroit rock & roll, a few fun songs you MIGHT remember that were done by Canadian artists in the early 70s, plus records that were done by some legendary 60s Detroit dee-jays!

The End of Good Sportsmanship

2004-11-22T01:42:00.000-08:00

While watching a football game over the weekend, I was reminded of my elementary school principal, Emerson Powrie. I was a student at Wines School in Ann Arbor from 1959 until 1966. I never got to know Mr. Powrie that well because only the bad kids got sent to the principal's office, and I was a good little boy. Still, over the years I came to like and admire him. Often near the end of the school day, he would make an announcement over the intercom. He always began it the same way: "May I have your attention in all rooms please, may I please have your attention," he would say. We knew that he cared about us, because often the purpose of his announcement was to warn us of a storm that was moving in, and he would ask us to be especially careful walking home. I also remember that he would occasionally say something that we thought was funny, which we always enjoyed.
Mr. Powrie was also a part of my world outside of school. My dad took me to lots of sports events when I was young, and I would see Mr. Powrie at many of them. He worked as the timekeeper at both University of Michigan basketball games and Ann Arbor High football games, and he also was public address announcer at the high school basketball games. I thought it was cool that my principal was the announcer there, and felt proud and honored many years later when I was offered and accepted the same position that he had held so many years before.
For the most part, the personal lives of the adults at our school were a mystery to us, but occasionally we would hear little stories that we found quite fascinating. Once one of our teachers told us that Mr. Powrie did not have a TV set at his house. We were shocked that our principal felt no need to own an item that we considered to be one of life's necessities.
The other story that puzzled us was when we heard that Mr. Powrie felt that booing at games and other public events was totally inappropriate. On these two issues, watching TV and booing, he obviously was in a distinct minority. At those Michigan basketball games where Mr. Powrie kept time, the boos and jeers of fans unhappy with an official's call routinely echoed off the ancient walls and tin roof of cavernous Yost Field House.
Although I didn't entirely understand Mr. Powrie's stands on these issues, I admired him for sticking to his principles regardless of popular public opinion. And when I really thought about it, I realized that he was right about the booing thing - no one participating in or officiating at a sports event deserves to be booed. I have to admit that on many occasions I have joined in the jeering, seeing as it's hard to resist booing someone like Woody Hayes or Bobby Knight. Which brings me up to this weekend - what happened at the football game I was watching is routine these days, but it is something that I have never engaged in - the fans were booing their own team. I first experienced this phenomenon when I attended my first Detroit Lions game more than 40 years ago, and I quickly decided that if the "fans" of this team boo their own players, I wanted nothing to do with said team.
When I heard the fans booing their team this weekend I thought about Mr. Powrie, and then I wondered to myself - if he was against booing, imagine how he would feel about what happened at the Palace on Friday night. And at that moment I realized that it was all connected - the booing of the officials at Yost 40 years ago happened because there weren't enough Emerson Powrie's around to stand up for what is right. First it was just booing the refs and the opponents, then it escalated to booing the home team, then it became OK to throw things on the playing surface and curse, and finally this disintegration of decency has resulted in the near-riot at the Pistons game the other night.
A few years after I left Wines, Mr. Powrie received a promotion in the Ann Arbor School system and shortly thereafter was one of the top-ranking officials in the district. Then about 25 years ago he suffered a sudden illness and passed away at a much too early age.
In light of recent events, it seems to me that a return to the principles and ideals of Mr. Powrie are long overdue. A good first step in this direction would be naming Ann Arbor's new high school in his honor - Emerson Powrie High.

Happy Birthday Channel 9!

2004-11-12T11:48:00.000-08:00

Earlier this year my all-time favorite television station, Channel 9 in Windsor, Ontario celebrated its 50th year of broadcasting. Back in the day, 9 aired what I found to be a very entertaining mix of local programming, Canadian shows and American re-runs.
In the late 50s/early 60s in most of America, viewers had but 3 choices on the TV dial - their local affiliates of the ABC, NBC and CBS networks. But in southeast Michigan we were blessed with a fourth alternative, CKLW-TV, Channel 9, a CBC affiliate. I started watching Channel 9 frequently at a very young age. Channel 2 had B'wana Don and Morgus, 4 had Bozo and Milky, and 7 had Soupy and Johnny Ginger, but on Channel 9 there were 3 stars of kids TV - Captain Jolly, Jingles and Poopdeck Paul! Then there was Chez Helene, a 15-minute show that was done partially in the English language and partly in French, so that kids in Canada could learn the nation's other official language. I even remember tuning to the station early on Sunday mornings when they had a test pattern on! They didn't start regular programming until 9am, but we would turn it on to hear the bright, upbeat music they would play during the test pattern. Imagine offering today's young people a TV set that only picks up 4 channels, and one of them has a test pattern!
Later when I reached adolescence, 9 had two of my favorite shows: Swingin' Time with Robin Seymour and Windsor Wrestling with Lord Layton. And they also aired my all-time favorite TV show, The Adventures of Tugboat Annie!
No mention of Canada or Canadian TV is complete without bringing up the sport of hockey, and over the years Hockey Night In Canada has been a godsend. It's hard to believe in this era where virtually every pro and college sports event is televised, but 40 years ago the only time we got to see the Red Wings play were those rare Saturday nights when they visited Toronto to play the Maple Leafs! And you didn't even get to see all of the game - they would join it in progress at the end of the 1st period! The Stanley Cup playoffs were a real treat because then they showed you THE WHOLE GAME! Bill Hewitt did the play-by-play and after the game his dad Foster would come over from the radio booth to announce the 3 stars of the game. He almost always picked a Toronto player as the number one star, even when they lost the game! I still get goosebumps whenever I hear the Hockey Night In Canada theme song, and if I heard it now during the NHL lockout I'd probably shed a tear.
Another reason Channel 9 is special to me is because my dad was born in Canada, and when I was a kid we still had lots of relatives living there. Watching Channel 9 was a way of staying connected to them, and to my heritage.
Other programs I remember watching regularly included the panel shows Flashback and Front Page Challenge, the latter of which was on for decades and usually finished second in the Canadian TV ratings behind Hockey Night In Canada. Fred Davis was the host and the regular panelists were Gordon Sinclair, Pierre Burton, and Canada's answer to Arlene Francis, Betty Kennedy.
Then there were the musical variety programs - Tommy Hunter, Canada's Pet - Juliette, and Don Messer's Jubilee. While I probably wouldn't have chosen to watch these shows myself, since my parents did watch they became part of the soundtrack of my childhood.
In the 70s and 80s I enjoyed watching the British comedies Rising Damp, Yes Minister and The Two Ronnies on 9. Then there were the special shows like The Freedom Festival Parade with commentary by newsman Don Daly, the Mr. Belvedere Lookalike Contest (which was especially memorable for our family when unbeknownst to us, my dad's cousin Lester Heddle Sr. turned up on the show and won first runner-up), and Olympics coverage that put the U.S. networks to shame.
I left Ann Arbor in 1982 and when I came back in '94 a lot had changed, and most of the programming on Channel 9 no longer originated in Windsor. Still I would get a warm feeling every time I tuned the station in, and I especially enjoyed watching the hockey games with the cheesy, amateurish local commercials!
Now I live a long ways away from Channel 9's coverage area, but I still satisfy my taste for Canadian TV by occasionally tuning in "The National" CBC newscast on the International News Channel. And I'm looking forward to subscribing to NHL Center Ice when hockey gets going again, so that I can watch Hockey Night In Canada with Don Cherry! Good stuff, eh?

Radio oasis in the desert

2004-11-07T23:37:00.000-08:00

It's wall-to-wall music on radio KCDX, which broadcasts without commercials
By Thomas Stauffer
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
From Phoenix, California and New Mexico, they come to Florence, an unlikely destination for a pilgrimage.
"They get off I-10 and truck 30 miles out of their way and say 'Hey, where can we find the station? We just want to tell the guy it's the best format we've heard on any radio station,' " said Gary Faulkner, president of the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce.
"We've had at least four or five bands touring the United States drop in and say, 'We just want to tell the guy, great job.' "
They don't find "the guy"- Tucson-raised Ted Tucker- or any sign of KCDX 103.1 FM in Florence.
Though licensed to Florence, the station's radio tower is outside of Globe, its studio is nearby, and the reclusive Tucker could be just about anywhere.
A rancher of the airwaves, Tucker owns several Arizona radio stations and has sold several others, but he's never had one quite like KCDX. Described by a fan as "Tucker's personal jukebox," the station has broadcast for more than two years with nary a commercial nor a bantering deejay. It's wall-to-wall music, featuring a heavy dose of obscure cuts from the '60s, '70s and '80s, with no interruptions other than hourly station identifications.
"No commercials, and the choice of music is just incredible. The guy must be reading my mind," said Don Trible, a 51-year-old Phoenix resident who works for the U.S. Postal Service. "I can't get it in my house, but I don't turn on anything else in my car. That's it."
Disdain for corporate radio
Tucker makes no promises about the station's future, but his love for the golden era of FM radio and disdain for what megacorporations and deregulation have done to the medium are obvious.
"The big stations just try to squeeze in all the commercials they can. They would get rid of the content altogether if they could sell the commercials without it," he said. "Between all the unfunny talk and the commercials, there is really very little music, and the music that is there has all been tested and deemed safe, the safe cuts to play."
In e-mail chat rooms, fans ponder the station's fate, wondering just how long Tucker will run the operation with no revenue coming in before finally selling it, as he has done with other stations.
For Jim Brady, who got Tucker his start in the radio business at the legendary KWFM Tucson in the 1970s, Tucker deserves praise regardless of whether he eventually sells KCDX, he said.
"The fact that he's already run it for this long with no commercials and without asking for anything from anyone is just incredible," said Brady, owner of Jim Brady Recording Studios and a longtime Tucson disc jockey. "Even if he sells it tomorrow, count your blessings that you got to listen to it at all, because this ain't happening anywhere else. I can tell you that."
Signal comes and goes
For listeners in Tucson, which is nearly surrounded by mountains and thus not conducive to out-of-town transmitters, the station comes and goes on car radios. But it's available worldwide via live streaming audio at kcdxfm.com on the Internet.
"I get it on Orange Grove (Road) all the way to the freeway just fine, and in other places, well, it's worth a little static to have that kind of music," Brady said.
"That kind of music" is best described as "Desert-Rat Rock," said Dave LaRussa, a longtime Tucson disc jockey known by KUAZ jazz listeners for the last 15 years as David Close.
And Tucker is indeed a desert rat, having spent more than 30 years in Arizona. A graduate of Canyon del Oro High School and the University of Arizona, he's a shadowy figure whose Desert West Air Ranchers Corp. shows up in scores of FCC documents.
Tucker staunchly protects his privacy, refusing to be photographed or fill in many of the specifics of his business and personal life. As to how many radio stations he has sold, his only answer is "several."
Tucker has at least some financial interest in two other Arizona stations: KZNO 98.3, a station licensed to Nogales that plays Mexican music, and KKYZ 101.7, an oldies station in Sierra Vista.
A former hospital pharmacist, Tucker has spent about the last 15 years acquiring or creating radio stations in smallish markets such as Winslow, San Carlos, Oracle and Douglas, upgrading their equipment and towers and sometimes moving them to different markets. He's made a pretty decent living in the process, selling some of his stations; hanging onto and operating others.
"He plays fair. Everything he does is completely legal," said Dana Puopolo, a California radio engineer and entrepreneur. "He gets these stations in the middle of nowhere, fixes them up and before you know it, the station is up at 100,000 watts and worth a fortune."
What Tucker does is not unlike someone with a good eye for a fixer-upper house, Puopolo said.
Though successful radio stations in small markets across the United States can be sold for millions of dollars, sale figures can be very misleading, Puopolo said.
"It can run you anywhere from $100,000 to $300,000 a year to operate a station, and that's without making any improvements," Puopolo said. "A lot of times, you're sinking that kind of money into a station for years and years before you ever get anything back."
Recreates successful station
A former chief engineer at Tucson's KWFM, a progressive rock station hailed as one of the best in the country in the 1970s, Tucker has essentially recreated KWFM, Brady said.
"We had a wall of 5,000 albums, and up until they started doing formatting in the late '70s, you could literally play whatever you wanted whenever you wanted, and that's what Ted's doing."
It's a format similar to Tucker's first station - KTTZ, an Oracle station that LaRussa and fellow KWFM colleagues Bob Bish and Charlie Morriss worked at in the late '80s.
As with KCDX in Florence, KTTZ's music largely consisted of Tucker's own collection, LaRussa said. He remembers working for the Federated music store chain when he first met Tucker, he said.
"I was at one of our stores setting up their compact disc department and here was this guy with a basket full of CDs and I said something like, 'Must be nice,' and he said, 'Well, it's not for me. It's for my radio station,'" LaRussa said.
Tucker and LaRussa had been at KWFM at different times, but Tucker recognized LaRussa's work as a deejay and ended up offering him a job at KTTZ, LaRussa said.
Tucker employed an anything-goes music format that drew the ire of classic deejays like LaRussa, who "shaped their hours," he said.
"Your hour made sense. It meant something. You tried to put together an hour that flowed a certain way," LaRussa said. "Obviously, KCDX and for that matter, KTTZ early on, they just don't do that at all. There is just no thought from one song to the next."
It's that form of free-wheeling discontinuity that makes many fans appreciate KCDX even more, as it distinguishes the station from the kind of hermetically sealed, controlled music formats of corporate radio, said Faulkner of the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce.
"It might not appeal to everybody, but I haven't found anybody that doesn't like it," Faulkner said. "A lot of people around here, even high school and college kids, they say they don't listen to any other station, and a lot of them don't even play their own CDs anymore. They just listen to 103.1."
Not normally interested
Large media corporations such as Clear Channel Communications Inc. aren't normally interested in acquiring stations in the smaller markets that Tucker and his peers deal in, though Tucker did sell KTTZ to giant Journal Broadcast Group Inc., probably because the Oracle station could easily reach the larger Tucson market, Puopolo said.
Tucker, who is in his 50s and still has a home in Arizona despite residing elsewhere, doesn't deny his lack of artistic continuity as a music programmer. When told that LaRussa finds Tucker's playlist "truly exasperating," a modest but deep laugh creeps through the telephone's speaker.
"I don't profess to be a master programmer or anything like that. I'm just a guy who likes music," Tucker said.
On Internet forum boards, people have posted their own versions of how Tucker runs his radio station. Some believe he has the equivalent of a giant iPod or "500-disc" CD player constantly shuffling through songs, but listeners paying deeper attention note that certain artists seem to creep into the playlist at a rate that rules out random computer shuffling.
Tucker backs away from the subject, though admitting that the music, like at most stations, is programmed onto a computer hard drive.
"Leave me with some mystery. There is a bit of programmed themes and there is also some randomness to it, and I guess that's about all I want to say about it," he said.
What Tucker is comfortable talking about is the contribution of his son, Ted, who is in his 20s.
"He likes radio for radio, basically for the same reasons I like it, and he's really helped me a lot," Tucker said. "He does all the computers, the on-air computer, the Web site, the streaming."
The two do pretty much all that needs to be done at the station as far as maintenance and programming go, Tucker said.
"I have somebody that answers the phone and takes care of things, but since it's not a commercial station I don't have to have a lot of the people associated with that part of it," he said.
While the streaming broadcast at the station's Web site has listeners worldwide tuning in, the Web version lacks the magic of real radio, Tucker said.
"Just the whole idea that it's coming from real people in a real location, even the fact that there is static and it's hard to get in some places and it takes some work, that's part of what I really like about it, instead of just clicking your mouse," he said. "What I like about radio is that signals propagate through the air. I just like the physics of it, just the mystery of signal propagation."
Disturbed over sale
LaRussa makes no bones about the disappointment he had with Tucker over selling KTTZ in 1988, just when the station was starting to garner local ratings.
"We had assurances that he was going to stick with it and see this thing through, amidst these phone calls we'd get from people saying, 'You know he's trying to sell the damn thing,' and we'd say 'No, he's not, he told us he's not,' and he sure enough did," LaRussa said.
"That's not to say he didn't put a lot of his own hard work and blood, sweat and tears into it, but he got a pretty good return on his investment."
Tucker had owned the station and had pumped money into it for about eight years before he ever got it on the air, he said. Rather than trying to sell it, the rumors and calls that were circulating were from people who were courting him to buy the station. Eventually he simply got an offer he couldn't refuse, Tucker said.
"Quite frankly, at the time of KTTZ, Ted was not exactly financially super well off," Brady said. "I understand where LaRussa is coming from. Those guys were my friends and I sympathize with them, but I think Ted just had to make a financial decision at the time."
Tucker applied for the frequency for KTTZ in 1976, at a time when there were enough open frequencies around for little guys to get in on the action, and it took him 10 years to get the station on the air, he said.
It costs about $200,000 a year to keep a station like KCDX going, and eventually, something about the station will have to change, Tucker said.
"However, there is nothing on the horizon for changing the station other than to improve its signal and its content," he said. "Eventually, I might seek some commercial matter, but it would be in a very low-key way, nothing like people are used to hearing.
"If I'm able to to do it for a long period of time, I will, but if someone wanted to trade me an island in the Pacific or something like it, I'd probably make the trade."
Even with commercials, the rich diversity of music found on the station would still make it better than any other, Brady said. "I'll put up with commercials any time of the day or night if the format is interesting, and he's got at least 5,000 songs and counting, while most station don't have 200," he said.
"He's going to make something of the station eventually, so people should just enjoy it for as long as it lasts, and God bless him for doing what he's already done."

sample of one day's "Non-Stop Rock" on Ted Tucker's KCDX 103.1 FM
● The station also features a streaming broadcast online at kcdxfm.com
● Savoy Brown's "Street Corner Talking"
l Steely Dan's "Rikki Don't Lose That Number"
● The Guess Who's "Star Baby"
● George Harrison's "What Is Life"
● The Band's "Life is a Carnival"
● The Animals' "House of the Rising Sun"
● Looking Glass' "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)"
● Rainbow's "Street of Dreams"
● Steve Miller Band's "My Dark Hour"
● Andrew Gold's "Lonely Boy"
● Led Zeppelin's "Over the Hills and Far Away"
● The Beatles' "Blue Jay Way"
● Cream's "Badge"
● Carole King's "Smackwater Jack"
● Cat Stevens' "On the Road to Find Out"
● Aerosmith's "Lick and a Promise"
● Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz"
● Howard Jones' "Life in One Day"
l Pete Townsend's "Let My Love Open the Door"
● Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb"
Source: KCDX Web site

Please welcome - from Detroit! The ROMANTICS!!!

2004-10-27T22:20:00.000-07:00

This weekend in Tucson, I'm going to see one of my all-time favorite bands, The Romantics. It's the first chance I've had to see them play in over 14 years. Here are some little-known details about the early days of the group: It was around February of 1977 at a record collector's convention in a Detroit suburb when I was approached by a polite young man who wanted to tell me about the band he and his friends had just formed. At the time I was putting out a rock & roll fanzine that had received some favorable reviews in BOMP Magazine. The guy asked me if I might want to do a story about their group, and when I asked what kind of music they did he said their biggest influences were 60s British bands like the Kinks and the Yardbirds. He said their group didn't even have a name yet, and I told him we'd be happy to give them some publicity once they picked a name and started playing gigs.
During that time one of my favorite groups to see live was Sonic's Rendevous Band which featured former MC5 lead guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith, ex-Rationals lead singer Scott Morgan, original Stooges drummer Scott Asheton and Up bassist Gary Rasmussen. In August of '77 I went to an SRB show at Ann Arbor's Second Chance, and the warm-up act was a new Detroit group that was getting alot of positive talk on the street called The Romantics. When they came out to play I was happily surprised to see the young man I had met at the Record Con walk out and take his spot on the left side of the stage - it was lead guitarist Mike Skill! The band proceded to launch into a frenzied 10-song, 35-minute set that blew me and everyone else in attendance away. 9 of the songs were wild stomping rockers, interrupted briefly for the group's first ballad (pre-dating "Tell It To Carrie") with Mike on the Rickenbacker called "Stop Fooling Around." Several of the other songs they did that night were never recorded by the band - tunes like "So Fine," "No Responsibility," "I Hope Your Satisfied," "You Really Got Ahold Of My Heart" and "Change My Mind."
Also at the show that night was John Koenig, then the publisher of the fanzine Cowabunga and currently the editor and publisher of Discoveries Magazine. He was even more impressed than I was. When the Romantics' set ended, he came running down the stairs from the Second Chance balcony yelling "THEY'RE BETTER THAN F---ING SONICS!!!" And judging by their latest CD, they still are. Can't wait to see 'em again on Saturday night!

The Legend of Forsythe Hill

2004-10-25T01:07:00.000-07:00

I'd like to tell you about one of my favorite places. To the casual observer it's nothing special, just a landmark in the neighborhood where I grew up. But as for me, I feel more at home when I'm at this spot than at any other place. This is the legend of Forsythe Hill.
Forsythe Hill is located behind Forsythe Middle School in northwest Ann Arbor. It's right next to the tennis courts and overlooks the school football field. When I started kindergarten at nearby Wines Elementary School in the fall of 1959 there was no Forsythe yet, so it was just "the hill." There was a path we walked on that ran from Hillridge Street past the hill and all the way to the Wines parking lot. A year or so later, around the time that Forsythe was built, a sidewalk was put over top of the path.
Several years later when I was a big bad 6th grader I got a kick out of hearing the younger kids saying to their friends "I'll meet you at the path." They weren't old enough to remember when it was a path, but they had picked up the nickname from us older kids.
I attended Wines School for 7 years, and Forsythe for 3. During grades 1 thru 6 we went home for lunch, meaning we walked down "the path" 4 times a day. Quickly doing the math, I figure that my friends and I walked by the hill nearly four thousand times just going to and from school. No wonder it feels like home!
I began "hanging out" near the hill a lot when I was in the 2nd grade. Wines School was overcrowded and the new Forsythe building had some extra classrooms, so our class met over at the junior high for that entire school year. A group of us guys designated one of the trees at the base of the hill our "fort" and we would gather there until the bell rang.
I think that one of the attractions of the hill back in those days was that we kids considered it to be ours. Teachers and administrators ran the schools, our parents were in charge at home, but the hill was our territory. During junior high if you heard there was going to be a fight after school, you knew it would take place on the far side of the hill, out of the view of the adults at the school. And if you were lucky enough to convince a girl to go for a walk with you after the Friday night school party, the hill is where you would go to smooch.
Do I have any bad memories associated with the hill? Just one, and it also goes back to my days as a student at Forsythe. Whenever our physical education class would meet outside, we knew what was coming. Once we had finished our main activity of the day, whether it was baseball, track, touch football or tennis, we could count on our coach (Andy Anderson, Don Horning or Dick Dehn) to say "OK, take one lap around the football field, up over the hill and into the showers." We HATED having to run over that hill at the end of gym class!
Everybody needs a refuge, some place where you can go to ponder ideas, think things through, and be inspired. Remember on the TV show Dobie Gillis when the star of the show would go sit by the statue of The Thinker to try and figure out his life? The Forsythe Hill is where I went to do that.
In more recent years I have come to associate the hill with one of my favorite holidays, the 4th of July. When I was a kid we always spent the evening of the 4th on the other side of town to see the annual Buhr Park fireworks display. But later when the show was moved out to the airport and then cancelled altogether, I began going up to Forsythe Hill at dusk on the 4th. Back in the 70s and 80s it was a great spot to sit and watch the Barton Hills fireworks display. By some amazing stroke of luck, there is a break in the row of trees on the other side of the tennis courts that is right in line with the spot where Barton would shoot off their skyrockets. The first time I went to the hill on the 4th I was the only one there, but in subsequent years I was joined by other folks from the neighborhood.
Barton stopped holding their fireworks show about a decade ago, but I kept going to the hill because it was still a great vantage point to see fireworks that people in the neighborhood were shooting off in their own backyards. Then a couple of years ago a family started bringing some big skyrockets that they had purchased out of state to shoot off on the Forsythe football field. This "unofficial fireworks show" has drawn a big group of neighborhood residents to the hill on the 4th lately.
There have been a lot of changes in my old neighborhood over the past half century. Most of the people who built their houses there in the 50s and 60s have either moved or passed away. New houses stand where vacant lots used to be. Trees that used to be nothing more than little twigs now tower over the streets and homes. But I've always been able to take comfort in the fact that the hill is still there, looking exactly the way it did 40 years ago. The next time I come back to visit Ann Arbor, it will be one of the first places I'll go. Then I'll truly be "home" again.

Getting emotional about sports!

2004-10-21T22:42:00.000-07:00

Attending or watching a sports event that you have a rooting interest in is always great fun, and it's even more dramatic when there are 2 games going on at the same time that you have a strong interest in. I can think of a number of times during my "career" as a sports fan when I've been at one big game, while at the same time following the progress of another important contest going on simultaneously. For example:
December 30, 1964 - I was at the Michigan Coliseum that night for an Ann Arbor High hockey game, but it seemed like most everyone there had a transistor radio with them to listen to the Michigan-Princeton basketball game from Madison Square Garden. People at the hockey game were actually applauding when Michigan would score a basket! And as fate would have it, the two games ended at almost exactly the same time. As the icers skated off the rink, people in the stands huddled around those with radios to see if Michigan could finish off their remarkable comeback from 18 points down. It was the legendary battle between Cazzie Russell and Bill Bradley, and I can still hear Tom Hemingway's description of the last shot - "Russell in the corner with a shot at the buzzer - IT'S GOOD!!!!" A big cheer went up in the Coliseum, and as we walked through the lobby on our way out, the atmosphere was electric!
November 20, 1965 - It's hard to believe that there was ever a Michigan-Ohio State game where the fans seemed more interested in another game, but such was the case this day. Michigan State and Notre Dame were battling that afternoon in South Bend, and most portable radios brought to the stadium were tuned not to Bob Ufer on WPAG but to Bob Reynolds on WJR describing the other big game. I was rooting for Notre Dame that day - it was sort of like having to choose between the lesser of 2 evils, like Bush or Kerry. For whatever reason, most people at the UM-OSU game were pulling for the Spartans and a big roar went up when MSU scored the clinching touchdown. Oh yeah, and in the game we were watching the Buckeyes kicked a late field goal to win, 9-7.
November 22, 1969 - Now don't get me wrong, there was only one game I was interested in that afternoon, the one that resulted in the greatest win in Michigan history 24-12 over Ohio State. But there was another sports event played in Ann Arbor that day and I went to that one as well. Pioneer played Windsor Riverside that evening at the Coliseum and the delirium that engulfed Ann Arbor following Michigan's win was still very much in evidence. When I walked in the rink there couldn't have been more than 100 people in the building but there was this buzzing sound in the air as eveyone talked exitedly about the football game. Then when it came time for the national anthem to be played, as often happened back then the announcement was made, the lights were dimmed - but no music - somebody in the office either misplaced or forgot to put the record on. But what happened next was amazing - the Pioneer cheerleaders sitting in the front row began to sing acapella "Oh, say can you see..." and soon the whole crowd joined in. It was such a remarkable and moving moment that Pioneer coach Art Armstrong wrote a letter to the Ann Arbor News detailing what happened and stated that it was "the biggest goal scored all night." As for the goals scored on the ice, the winning one came off the stick of a sophomore forward who would go on to star for the Michigan football team and ironically would never taste victory over Ohio State - his name was Don Dufek. But that night the Pioneers prevailed 2 to 1 - how could an Ann Arbor team possibly lose on that day!
November 23, 1985 - It was a tough choice for me to make - in Lansing that day my favorite football team, the defending state champions from Ann Arbor Pioneer were playing Traverse City in the state play-offs. Meanwhile in Ann Arbor it was the annual showdown between Michigan and Ohio State. If Pioneer had been playing in the state championship game that day I would have been there, but it was the semi-final round for the preps so I went to the Big House. The high school game wasn't on the radio but they announced the score twice at the Michigan game - at halftime, and then the final. Pioneer was trailing at the half and at the time the announcement was made, Michigan was down in their game too so it was shaping up as a potentially disasterous day for me. Fortunately the maize and blue came back to win 27-17, though Pioneer didn't get a victory that day.
March, 1992 - This was my favorite. I went to Joe Louis Arena to see the Michigan hockey team take on Northern Michigan in the NCAA Regionals. At the same time, the Michigan basketball team was playing Ohio State in a March Madness regional final. Late in the second period things looked bleak for the Wolverine icers, trailing 6-2. When an announcement was made that the Michigan basketball team held a slight lead with about a minute remaining there was a stampede of Michigan fans up the aisles and out into the lobby to watch the end of the basketball game on TV. You may recall that OSU took several shots in the final seconds but couldn't score, and when Michigan came down with a rebound to seal the win the fans in the lobby let out a roar. I walked back into the arena just in time to see Michigan score a goal with 1 second to go in the second period, narrowing Northern's lead to 6-3. There was still hope, and during the intermission the Michigan pep band played "The Victors" with renewed vigor. Then the impossible happened - in the third period, Michigan scored 4 unanswered goals to win 7-6. I and the other Wolverine fans in attendance were delirious. In about an hour's time we had seen the Michgan basketball team qualify for the Final Four and then saw the hockey team rally to qualify for the Frozen Four! But my great night wasn't over yet - driving out of Detroit on the freeway I had the radio tuned to a show called "Back In The 60s" hosted by legendary Motor City disc jockey Lee Alan. It was a Sunday night and it brought back memories of listening to Lee's Sunday Night Solid Gold show nearly 30 years before on that same freeway. As a child we would often go to Detroit on Sundays to visit relatives, and I'd listen to Lee's show on my little Sony transistor in the back seat as we headed home Sunday evening. As I listened to him in 1992 I was thinking "it doesn't get any better than this!"
But it did. About a week later I met someone new - a woman named Vicki who would become my wife!