The Mother Of All Farts

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The Summer of 1968 turned into Fall, then Winter.  Throughout I was constantly on the run promoting shows and dances, and pocketing the cash.  I'd have several appearances every week, and collect a hundred or two for each one.  That's 1968 money folks, today that hundred dollars would buy $627 worth of goods or services.  Serious money by anyone's standards.  We had some great times too.  All of the groups were easy to work with, especially The Pack and The Amboy Dukes.

Everyone in the area knew that The Pack would eventually make it big, but nobody could ever have guessed just how big they would become.  When I booked them for shows, they were a 4 piece, pseudo R&B band.  Don Brewer was easily one of the best rock drummers I had ever seen, how Rolling Stone could ever have concluded that his playing would “drive you up the wall” is beyond me.  Mark Farner possessed an enormous charisma, he was a handsome, muscular young guy with long, flowing hair.  He'd perform shirtless, and go into his “riding the microphone” routine, hair flying and girls screaming.  They were the show closer every time, but we just couldn't figure out how they'd make it big given their repertoire.  When they latched onto Mel Schacher, they became a hard rock power trio and as Grand Funk Railroad, became the most popular band in the world.

Nugent was another pro.  As wild and crazy as the guy can be onstage, he was quiet and business like off.  He would go to any extent to give a great performance.  I can vividly recall him standing in front of a huge bank of Fender Dual Showman amps playing the feedback from his guitar.  He was such a great performer, I imagine he must've lost 20 lbs from the sweat alone.   I recall a show at the local college when he cranked up those amps and blew the power out.  He sat on the stage and threw a temper tantrum, sitting cross legged on the floor banging some maracas until the lights came back on.  When Ted was in the middle of a show, he was in a different world!

The MC5 were a special treat.  They were the baddest, fire breathin'est band on the planet.  Managed by John Sinclair, they traveled with a coterie of handlers, groupies, roadies and various hangers on.  Their “spiritual adviser” "The Prophet Of Zenta Brother J.C. Crawford" would make the opening invocation.  “You must choose brothers and sister. Are you part of the problem, or part of the solution?  I give you a testimonial... THE M...C...5!!!!!!!!!”  At which point Rob Tyner would run up to the mike and scream “KICK OUT THE JAMS MOTHER %$#@ERS!!!!!”  I vividly recall the first time Deb and I booked these guys into a show in East Tawas.  When Tyner let out the “F” bomb we just looked at each other in disbelief.  Moments before we'd been backstage with them, and they were as polite and agreeable as you could imagine.

I'm bettin' the little, old ladies that chaperoned THAT show never did another!

The Frost was the band everybody thought would make it big, though somehow they never did.  They could pack a venue and whip the crowd into a frenzy.  Dick Wagner would later team up with Steve Hunter and tour with Ursa major, Lou Reed and finally Alice Cooper.  Dick wrote many of the Alice classics including “Only Women Bleed."  Dick and Don Hartman would trade guitar riffs making for some of the best rock guitar I've ever heard.  Bob Rigg would send the place into overdrive with his extended drum solos.  Bob was easily  one of the best drummers in the world.  It was a good thing I wasn't playing professionally anymore, I'd have been seriously out of my league!

Superstardom was still a couple of years away for these performers, and I could still book them for $400 per show.  A couple of years later you couldn't have touched Grand Funk for less then $100,000, that's nearly 700 grand in today's money!

But as I mentioned earlier on, radio has a tendency to kick you in the rear just as things are going as smooth as can be, and that's exactly what happened at WKNX.  Part of what made the job at 'KNX so great was the unlimited plugs we could give out for our appearances.  My salary at the station was only $125/wk, even back then that wasn't much.  It was the several hundred I'd get for appearances that made that job worthwhile so as you might expect I was greatly discouraged when the station manager announced that, heretofore, our access to this benefit was to be greatly reduced.  Apparently my dances were cutting into HIS business, and that was seriously unacceptable!  To add insult to injury, I was on the air when he came into the studio to tell me.  Now I was pissed, really, REALLY pissed!

I'd stopped off for lunch a few minutes before I went on the air, and whatever I'd eaten was not agreeing with me at all.  This of course made matters even worse.  I was contemplating what my next move should be.  I'd gotten good ratings up to now, and a station in Detroit had recently contacted me about working there.  Detroit was a top-10 radio market, and would be a real asset to my resume.  I'd done OK in Saginaw so maybe it was time to leave, but not without a grand gesture of some kind.  The indigestion was starting to become painful by this point, something was going to give... if I could just hold on for a couple of moments to allow maximum pressure.  Finally the record ended and I cracked the mike:

In my best radio DJ voice I announced “I quit!!!!!” then placed the mike within' fallout range of my rear-end, and let 'er rip.

BBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!

It was without question one of the loudest, rudest incidents of crepitation in the history of the world.  Indeed THE loudest and rudest.  Not only that, but the aroma was beyond anything Dow Chemical could have ever put into the air back in Midland.  To make it worse, the thing was being amplified and carried across the airwaves by 10,000 watts of pure, unadulterated radio horsepower.

The manager came running into the studio as I was walking out. “What in the hell was..” then he caught a whiff  “JESUS....” he screamed as he turned around and headed out of the studio.  By this time I was at the door, headed for my car. That was my last show at WKNX.  

Then again, maybe not.  

Radio signals leave our atmosphere and travel, unencumbered throughout the universe.  I'm told that solar systems similar to ours exist about 40 light years from here, which means that my gargantuan fart from 40 years ago is just now arriving there.  Now suppose there's intelligent life on those planets.  What if some little green folks are riding around in their anti-gravity cars right now listening to that show and they hear that fart?  Don't you know the guy in the back seat is yelling “Oh MAN, open the window for cryin' out loud!!”

The Credanian, interplanetary warships are probably being loaded with negative ion anti-matter cannons right now!

Wheel Of Mis-Fortune!!

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To say the WKNX gig re-energized my radio career is a vast understatement.  Let's just say that if it hadn't come along, I'd probably still be stamping out spark plugs (or whatever they do to make them) somewhere.  It was a perfect collusion of timing and opportunity which, when you think of it, is the real definition of luck.  You're lucky if you're in the right place at the right time, which means you had to have been in the wrong place every other time.

I began to exploit my situation shamelessly, promoting dances and concerts whenever and wherever I could.   Working with local promoters, I'd line up Dick Wagner and the Frost, The Fabulous Pack, The Cherry Slush, Bob Seger, The Rationals and any other Tri-Cities based group I could find for shows throughout the immediate area, and later throughout the east side of Michigan.  Deb and I would jump in the car and head up to East Tawas where I'd make an appearance with, say The MC-5 then zip up to Alpena for a show with ? And the Mysterians, The Pack and, maybe the Amboy Dukes.   We had no dearth of willing promoters who would happily give me whatever I wanted in exchange for the unlimited advertising I could offer.  We could pack any venue we chose given the popularity of the acts, and the enormous reach of the station.  Life was seriously GOOD!

Within a short period of time I decided I needed a much more appropriate ride, so I went out and bought a T-Bird and some custom pillows which matched the leather interior, that I could use to nap on while Deb drove from gig to gig.   The schedule was exhausting, especially since I had to do the morning show on Saturdays, but extremely rewarding.  Financially, we did just fine.

My personal life was going through some rocky times however.  It had become emphatically clear to me that my marriage was doomed.   Teenage marriages rarely last, and mine was no exception.  My life and Judy's had been going in different directions for years.   In radio I would always be a Nomad, never staying in one place too long.  

Here's the dirty secret about that business.  When you walk in the door for the first time the clock starts ticking, one way or another you WILL leave that job.  Whether they get you or you get them is a matter of timing.  The very first thing you do upon accepting a new radio job is to update your resume because you never know how long the thing will last.  If you've ever wondered why your favorite DJ is no longer on the air at your favorite station, chances are that he/she is wondering the very same thing.   It's a brutal industry, and extremely unfriendly to families.

On the up side when things are going well they're REALLY going well, and things were really going well for me at WKNX.  I had a four hour air shift and one hour of production...recording commercials, station promos etc... plus I often did the booth announcements for WKNX-TV.  On occasion I was called upon to fill in for one of the TV folks to do a weather cast, or something such as the daily prize wheel game.

The prize wheel was a lead in segment to the afternoon news cast.  As I remember it was a 5 minute segment that ran at :55 past the hour... I believe 5:55PM.  The idea was the host would reach into a barrel and pull out a postcard, then spin the wheel.  If the prize on the card matched the prize on the wheel, the contestant won.   Simple right?

Not always.

When I did the show I had to grab a WKNX jacket and run like hell down the hallway to the TV side, where the floor director would hang a mike over my head.  The camera would already be focused on a tight shot of the spinning wheel while I got into position behind the barrel.   I always thought that prize wheel was fastened onto the hub a little to loosely, but I never gave it much consideration.   On this one particular day, while I was getting the mike set up, they must've spun the wheel a little too hard when they set up the tight shot because the damned thing came off it's axle and rolled off to the side of the room, all on live TV.  The director hustled me into place behind the barrel as the crew chased the wheel down.

“No sweat guys, while you rig the wheel back up, I'll draw the card”

So they cued me to start my opening rap.  As I was delivering the lines I began to turn a the crank on the end of the barrel to mix up the cards, the idea being that I'd then dramatically reach deep into the barrel to bring up the postcard.  Only this time someone had forgotten to fasten down the door, so when the barrel turned over half the cards fell out in a heap on the floor.  By this time the entire crew was laughing their asses off, which got me to laughing too.  As we contemplated our situation... prizewheel rolling across the room... postcards all over the floor... we laughed harder and harder until all of us were completely dysfunctional, roaring our fool heads off.  The director... incapacitated as well by laughter... tried to get the news guy (I think it was Dick Fabian) set up for the cast.  Needless to say, The Prizewheel Game was pre-empted on that particular day!

Ah yes friends, live TV.  Just like I'd remembered from the Howdy Doody days!!!

The 1210 Music Men

Dick Fabian, one of the best morning men to ever crack a mike!
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 The Fall of 1967 found me packing up family, belongings and pride and heading to Yankton, SD, I'd managed to find a job at KYNT.  I arrived on Thanksgiving, and was put to work immediately tracking beautiful music albums and running religious programs, about as far as one could ever get from where I wanted to be in radio.  It didn't get any better either, my shift consisted of playing some records, running the board during an afternoon talk show, reading the occasional news cast and... most importantly... the Daily Rosary.  If I had been Catholic, I'd have put in an extra prayer for the good Lord to get me out of there!  It didn't take long for that job to go south.

So I decided to return to Michigan, at least there I'd be able to take a job at G.M. and make enough money to live on.  Maybe this radio thing wasn't really worthwhile after all.  When we arrived I stashed Judy and the girls back at her parents place... boy were they happy about THAT... and accompanied my dad to the A.C. spark plug division of G.M., where he was sure I could get a job immediately.  Who knows, in 10 years I might even make foreman. 

YAHOO!!!  

Much to our surprise, however, there were no jobs available at the moment.   The kindly interviewer assured me that he could get me in fairly soon, as they were always looking for veterans to fill the assembly line ranks.  I can't say I was disappointed, the last thing on earth I ever wanted to do was to work at G.M.  Just for the hell of it, I stopped by WTRX in Flint and inquired about a job.  Nothing there, but the P.D. Knew of an opening in Midland, about 20 miles up the road.  I spoke to the manager of WMDN, and he hired me right away.  After assuring my dad that I'd grab a G.M. Job as soon as possible, and hearing him tell me for the 1000^th time, “radio is a low paying field, there's no future in it” I lit out for Midland.

Midland was the home of Dow chemical, and back in the late 60's was the closest thing to Hell on the planet.  There was an omnipresent cloud of toxic, chemical gases which made the whole place stink to high Heaven.   The station was a tiny, 1000 watter which featured a mix of programming based on daypart.  I signed the station on in the morning and ran transcriptions of the Grand Old Opry for an hour, then did a morning newscast followed by some light, pop music and a talk show from 9-10.  Not a Rush Limbaugh style talk show, mind you, but one in which I was to remain completely neutral so as not to offend anyone, such as the John Birch Society loony that called every day ranting about the creeping socialism that was destroying our country.   I was actually hoping that G.M. would have an opening after all.  

Fortunately, the end came quickly.

On June 5, 1968 I signed the station on as usual and started tracking The Grand Old Opry.   While the show was running, I went to the newsroom to clear the wire.  In those days we used A.P. And U.P.I teletype machines.  The paper was a cheap, porous kind of newsprint which had a tendency to jam, when that happened all you could do is clear the mess and wait for the next feed.  It was jammed big time that morning.  I had about 5 minutes left in the Opry so I hastily searched the garbled up mess of paper, about 20 feet of it, and cobbled together enough copy for a news cast.  OK so it was from 5 hours ago, who's going to notice right?  In my most stentorian news voice I confidently read that Robert Kennedy had delivered his victory speech for the Democratic presidential nomination and signed off.  Within seconds the station manager was on the phone... “He was shot. What's wrong with you, didn't you read the copy?”   I tried to explain that the wire was jammed, but he was hearing none of it.  One more radio job down the tubes.

I should probably say that I was sorry, but I wasn't.  I was seriously ready to kiss the whole radio thing goodbye and do my time as a shop rat.  Just before I set out for Flint to check on an opening at the A.C., however, I decided to call Dave Kushler at WKNX.   WKNX was a 10,000 watt monster located in Saginaw.  I loved the station and listened to it constantly.  They had Dick Fabian, a brilliant morning man who was funny, informative and irreverent. They had Bob Dyer, a tri-cities institution for years and Jim Bauer, one of the most knowledgeable air talents around.  Although the station was licensed to broadcast in the daytime only, during those hours it boasted 35 share ratings in the tri-cities (Saginaw, Bay City and Midland) and could be heard from Detroit all the way to the Straits of Mackinac, nearly 300 miles.  When Kushler told me they had an opening and to hurry down with a tape, you couldn't have caught me with an F-106!

I was hired on the spot and became one of the 1210 Music Men.  I took over the highly coveted afternoon shift... easily the best job on the planet, at least from MY point of view.  It meant that in addition to my salary from the station I'd be able to promote dances and appearances from which I'd make far more than my radio salary. That's the way it worked back then, the radio salary was secondary to the money one could make from dances and appearances.   I could pick up an easy $400 on a weekend without blinking an eye.

We were all expected to attend the station's functions such as the weekly dances at the Bay State Park Roller Rink, an outdoor roller skating facility which became a huge teen dance on Friday nights.  At the time, Michigan was the epicenter of a rock-n-roll revolution.  There was a local music scene second to none,  I daresay even L.A. Or San Francisco.  Just consider the level of rock royalty that we could book into our dances; Alice Cooper (at that time there was no Alice character, just a lead singer named Vince Furnier), The Bob Seger System (Bob could put 20,000 people into Cobo hall, and no one outside of MI and OH ever heard of him), The Fabulous Pack (later Grand Funk), The Amboy Dukes (featuring a lead guitar player named Ted Nugent), The Popcorn Blizzard (with a lead singer they called Meat Loaf), The Psychedelic Stooges (featuring a weird cat named Iggy Pop), the list goes on and on.

I felt like I'd died and gone to heaven, but it got better... Deb wanted to join me.

King of the Road

Beautiful, boomin', bouncin' Grand Forks N.D.

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When it came time to leave Minot for Grand Forks, I felt that I could best deal with the packing and moving by myself so I sent Judy and the girls back home for awhile until I could get established.  I stuffed everything we owned into a rented U-Haul, hooked it up to the car and hit the road.  With the help of Leslie Maupin, the station manager at KLPM, I'd managed to line up a job at KILO in Grand Forks.  When I arrived, I was put to work immediately as a mid-day host on the station, this consisted of playing a few records and running the board for CBS news feeds and local programs that had been pre-recorded.  Not exactly an action packed, top 40 show but it was a job.  Meanwhile I signed up for classes at U.N.D, I'd decided to major in Journalism with a minor in radio and TV.

For living quarters I'd managed to find a month to month rental on what was essentially a store front that someone had equipped with a kitchen, and turned into a makeshift apartment.  It was priced at the same level as a regular apartment but there were none of those available, so I took what I could get.  I figured I could find a regular place later, once classes had begun.  The station paid next to nothing, but I thought I could pick up some gigs in the local bars as well.  Unfortunately, unlike Minot there were no gigs available.

I'd like to say that everything worked out tremendously in my first, full-time radio job, but nothing did.  I didn't get into radio to ride gain on some grain futures feed or some hillbilly playing guitar and belly-aching old country songs for all the “sick and shut-in friends.”  I still hadn't learned the first rule of radio... that you program your show for the local audience.   I recall one day we had a huge storm in Grand Forks, which made some of the roads virtually impassable . I mentioned how much difficulty I'd had getting to work that day, and the phones immediately lit up with calls from people who'd had a similar experience.  If I'd had half a brain I'd have put those calls on the air immediately, but it went completely over my head.  To me radio was rock-n-roll songs back to back, and that was it.  I still had a LOT to learn, but you couldn't tell me that!

I was similarly disappointed with my classes at U.N.D.  On the first day, I attended my radio/tv class and was shocked to find out that the class project for the first semester was to produce a radio play.  A radio play?   Radio drama had disappeared from the face of the earth years ago; there was no more Lone Ranger.  These people were so far out of touch they might as well have been in suspended animation for the past 10 years. In addition, my wife and in-laws were bugging me to hurry up and get a place.  The fact that there were no suitable places available was of no consequence to them whatsoever, all they knew was that it was crowded back at the old homestead.  I was beginning to think I should never have left the Air Force.

When competing station KNOX offered me a job to do a night-time rock show I didn't hesitate 10 seconds, I took the job.  The two or three months I'd spent at KILO weren't completely wasted however, I'd met someone there who would change my worldview completely.   Her name was Debbie Strutz, and she was an enlightened and gregarious young lady.  She possessed an enormous level of self assurance and charisma.  She was a close friend of Rick Kelleher, a U.N.D, student working part time at the station.  He introduced us, and we instantly became inseparable.   It was a platonic relationship at first, but on every other level it was very intimate.  One thing was certain, she was quite unlike any woman I'd ever met.

The KNOX show gave me an opportunity to try out my rock-n-roll chops.  It was supposed to be a no holds barred, full bore rock show with all the bells and whistles.  I got to select the music, decide what contests to run, and provide all the programming elements.  I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven, but a few weeks into the thing I began to get calls from the Program Director.  “Was that record a hit?” “Do you have to talk so fast?” “How about mixing in some stuff from non rock performers?”

Once again I hadn't thought about what the audience wanted to hear, only what I thought was good.  I remembered listening to “John R” on WLAC in Nashville, and tried to emulate him.  He'd pull out some R&B tune from the Jewel or VJ or maybe Duke labels, plop it on the air without even auditioning it first, and when the lyrics would get a little raunchy he'd break in and say something like “welllllll, ah think this here is jus' a leetle bit too much.  Ah think I'll jus' play somethin' from my old pal Rufus Thomas right heah!” 

Here's the problem, I wasn't John R.  John R knew his audience, and they knew him; he'd been a Nashville institution for years.  I was the new kid on the block, and should have limited the playlist to the hits.  The show was off the air in a couple of months.

Judy and the girls arrived only to find that I'd screwed up the radio job and dropped out of college.  The nomadic life of a radio DJ was about to claim yet another victim.

Marriage #1 was about to go down the tubes.

FIGMO (F*#K It Got My Orders) at last!

 FIGMO, or "Short Timer" ribbon from a Seagrams bottle
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1966 proved to be a pretty easy stretch for me.  I'd gotten used to North Dakota winters by the time Fall rolled around, and knew how to deal with the weather.   First and foremost, you had to get the car ready.  That meant you had to check the block heater... that's a heating element that you install on the engine to keep the oil warm, if it got too viscous the starter wouldn't turn over.  When you see cars with electrical plugs hanging out the grill, that's what they're for.  You actually plug your car into an electrical outlet when you park it.  You made sure that you installed your snow tires, or checked your chains.  Proper tire inflation was a must too, otherwise in the really cold weather you'd have flat spots on your tires until they warmed up.  You bought little, clear, plastic ovals that you stuck on the windows so that when the window was frozen over, you had a place to see out.  On the coldest days the radio speaker would freeze, until it warmed up the thing sounded like you'd blown a transistor.

Dressing for the weather was the most important thing you could do for your own safety.  Getting frost bite was a Courts martial offense, so you made damn sure you wearing Bunny Pants, Mukluks, 3 layers of gloves including heavy mitts, insulated underwear and a gigantic parka with fur around the hood.  If you had to walk more than ½ mile in that weather the moisture from your breath would freeze and ice up the fur, your eyebrows and your nose hair.  I kid you not, your nose hair would freeze!

On numerous occasions we'd hear of a farmer somewhere who went outside, grabbed a pump handle with his bare hands and froze to it.  Someone would have to come out with hot water and help him.

Driving in that weather wasn't as difficult as it might seem since the snow was so cold it never got wet and slippery.  It was just like driving on pavement, but people did get stuck from time to time and that could kill you.  You ALWAYS carried an emergency pack in your car consisting of food, some blankets and some long lasting candles.  Lighting one of those and setting it in the ashtray could warm up the interior of a car enough that you could survive until someone dug you out.

One reason that North Dakotans are so friendly I suppose, is because of the harsh environment.  People have to rely upon one another, you always looked after your neighbor.  If you were going out for instance, you told your neighbor where you were going, the route you planned to take, and how long you thought it would take for you to get there.   If you hadn't checked in within a reasonable time limit, they'd head out to check up on you.  That's just the way it was, you got used to it.

1966 was also the year that the war in Vietnam was starting to ramp up to the point that it became a national obsession.  In March 20,000 people took part in a protest in New York City.  Also that year, numerous war vets attempted to return their decorations to the White House but were turned away.

The musicians of the day were turning out songs protesting Viet Nam, and war in general.  Barry McGuire's “Eve Of Destruction” was the first of many.   I began to sense a change in the usually, friendly attitude of some Minot residents.  There had been reports of scuffles between fly boys and locals at drive in restaurants, bars and other locations.  It got to the point where many of us refused to wear fatigues off base.  I changed into civilian clothes before I left work, and once I cleared the gate I pulled the identification sticker down from the windshield.   Better safe than sorry.

I was beginning to sense an ugly truth about our country's leadership... they had no clue what they'd gotten themselves in to.  The North Vietnamese weren't about to concede defeat to an invasionary force.  They were more than willing to fight to the death, and with Soviet and Chinese help, were a formidable adversary.  They were NOT about to give up, we all saw that but our leaders did not, and consequently nearly 60,000 US soldiers died in a war that never had to happen.

These guys never seem to learn do they?

Now even though I was a fully trained engine mechanic, and even though I was trained on the same inertial guidance system used by the F-4 fighters I was never in any danger of shipping to Viet Nam.  Minot was where I was, and Minot was where I would stay no matter what.  That meant I couldn't get a transfer if I wanted one, none of us could.  If you were a missile tech, you were stuck.  You couldn't get a stripe either, rank was frozen in our career field.  I saw squadron clerks getting stripes, but none of the techs could.  There was seriously no future in the Air Force.

Also I began to see another nasty side of the Air Force.  It seemed like every time one of our senior NCOs was approaching retirement, he'd be called in for a medical exam.  They'd inevitably find some medical issue and kick him out on a partial disability, thereby cheating him out of his full retirement benefits.  It was one of the sleaziest things I'd ever seen.  I understand that today's Air Force has changed completely.  That's nice, but what I saw was enough to make me sick.  I'd had it with the Air Force, I knew I was getting out!

By the time the Spring of 1967 arrived I'd taken several trips back to Michigan to scout out colleges.   I'd receive a generous veteran's benefit which would pay my entire tuition and most other costs.  I needed a school in a town where I could pursue my radio career as well, I had a family to support and needed full-time employment.  I looked into Michigan State, but couldn't be sure I'd get hired.  Same situation with The University of Michigan.  My last choice was the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, but with a job waiting for me when I got out U.N.D it was.

The retention officer saw the "Short Timer" ribbon... the ribbon from a Seagrams whiskey bottle... on my fatigues, and rhetorically asked:

“How do you want it, hell no, shit no or f%#k no?”

“Ummm, hell, shit f%#k no has a nice ring to it, just say that!”

I got my discharge papers on July 5, 1967.   I thought about making some kind of statement when I left, a grand gesture of some kind... maybe take a pee on the AP Booth or something. When my front wheels hit that gate all I could do was put the pedal to the metal, and get the hell out of there.  I kept glancing in the mirror, afraid that I'd see a blue AP truck following me with it's lights flashing and some guy yelling out the window “There's been a mistake, you have to stay in!!!”

After my discharge I was to serve several years in inactive reserve, so I was supposed to keep all my uniforms in good repair.

That night I started a nice bonfire and burned every one of them.

Ride That Floor Buffer Flyboy!

 

A fellow idiot takes the buffer for a spin

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By the end of the summer of 1965, things had improved significantly for me.  The Messengers proved to be the kind of band that could play anything, anywhere, anytime.  We we well versed in Jazz, R&B, and Rock-N-Roll.  Don Johnston was a tremendous piano player, and could arrange any song to fit any genre.  He could turn a jazz tune into quasi-rock and vice versa, consequently we could play everything from Brubeck to Beatles on any given night and usually did.  There were 3 clubs that used live music on a regular basis, The Holiday Spot, The Dutch Mill, and the North Main.  We alternated between them, and on off weeks we'd play parties, dances etc.

We also made the Winnipeg run from time to time this time focusing on the bars rather than the teen clubs, but we did manage to squeeze in a couple of gigs at the Hungry I.  On one trip to “The Peg” we checked out Arbuthnot Recording Studios.  Bill Arbuthnot had recorded several Winnipeg bands including the original Guess Who, and had a good reputation.  We decided to record our first album there.  “The Two Sides of the Messengers” was a clever idea, one side consisted of our normal, jazz oriented arrangements, the other of Beatles tunes arranged in a Ramsey Lewis jazz style.  On the cover was a picture of a white wall.  They took a shot of us peeking out from one side of the wall, wearing our normal hair cuts.  Then they took a shot of us with Beatle wigs and shot the same pose.  They reversed one of the pictures so it looked as if we were peeking out from both sides of the wall at the same time.  Cute!  I'd like to say that the album was a huge success, but it stiffed big time.  Soma, the label that released it decided to drop us from the roster and that was that.  No matter though, we were playing every night, and making good money.

In November our second, little bundle of joy, Patty arrived.  With two little ones at home it was time to get a proper car so I took some leave, headed back to Michigan and purchased a shiny new 1966 Plymouth Satellite... a seriously fine ride.  In addition, I'd renewed my interest in radio.  During one of the Winnipeg runs I'd gotten acquainted with Jim Christie at CKRC.  He and I discussed the radio biz and he encouraged me to keep at it, so when I got back to Minot I took a part time gig at KLPM working the odd weekend shift just to keep my fingers in it.  Other than the insane hours, things were going along just fine as the winter of 1965 sat in.

By this time I'd been transferred over to the AGE shop.  AGE is an acronym for Aerospace Ground Equipment: trailers, test equipment etc.  As a mechanic I was seriously challenged.  I could handle the servicing chores, engine adjustments etc, but when it came to troubleshooting a missile I was completely lost.  I couldn't figure that stuff out for the life of me.  I guess the Air Force assumed that, since I showed a high aptitude for mechanical things, that I had experience with it.  I'd been a musician, and had NEVER worked on a car or anything mechanical in my life.  To say I was frustrated is the understatement of the year.  In the AGE shop I'd work on much simpler equipment which suited me just fine, I just wanted to skate through the final year of my hitch anyway.

Now the head NCO of the shop was... hmmmmmm, how do I put this?  He was a brilliant mechanic when troubleshooting, but sometimes the smallest, simplest stuff seemed to get by him   On one occasion we were to strip the paint off a service cart.  We used an acidic wash to soften the old paint, a gelatinous mass of glop that we applied with string mops.  We sloshed the stuff on the cart and proceeded to head out to lunch, the idea being that by the time we got back the paint would soften and we could just wash it off.  As we were piling into my car Sarge said “You know what?  That stuff is gonna dry on there, we'd better wash it off”   OK, out we got and washed the cart down.  As we were piling back in the car he said “Awww hell it'll be alright, let's put it back on.”  One more time we sloshed the stuff on with mops and one more time as we were getting into the car he had us wash it off again.  Finally, after several such escapades Sarge was convinced the glop wouldn't dry after all so we left it on and went to lunch.  

It dried!

On another occasion we were painting a flight line tug.  Sarge was watching us, carefully considering every move we made.  You could tell Sarge was thinking, and not sleeping because when he was thinking he'd rub his chin and go "hmmmmmmmmm."  Sarge was rubbing his chin and going "hmmmmmmmmm."  I was working on the wheel when Sarge piped up,  “You don't have to paint the under side of those wheel hubs Berg, they don't show anyway”  I looked at Dana Stoker my AGE partner, and he looked at me.  We did as Sarge said, started the tug, drove it about 3 inches and sure enough there were 4 big unpainted spots on the hubs pointing straight up in the air!

Sarge started rubbing his chin, "hmmmmmmmmm..."

Occasionally, when I wasn't working on some piece of ground equipment, they'd assign me "coffee shop detail."  It was a strictly make-work detail consisting of making coffee and cleaning up the squadron coffee shop.  "Cleaning up" entailed breaking down the floor and applying fresh wax every day, just typical Air Force chicken shit.  I learned that I could get on top of the motor housing of the floor buffer, lean over and grab the handle and if I shifted my butt just right I could ride the thing around the room.  So that's how I broke down and polished the floor, riding on top the buffer.  Once the commander poked his head inside and saw me chuglin' around on the thing.  He just rolled his eyes and closed he door, no doubt thinking to himself "well, we knew he was an idiot when he got here."

I may have been an idiot, but at least I got to ride around on a floor buffer!  How cool is that?

The Scariest Job In The Air Force

A Pratt And Whitney J52 engine

Hear pat read this entry

 Jet engine run up with MA-1A "start cart"

The Weeds and Seeds detail lasted most of the summer of 1965, what had started out as hard labor turned out to be a nice break.  At AMMS there would always be “busy work” to take up down time, at Weeds and Seeds I pretty much defined my own day.  At one point they lost track of me for 3 weeks.  I'd been assigned back to AMMS for one day in order to participate in an exercise.  The next day I reported at Civil Engineering.

“What are you doing here, you've been reassigned back to AMMS?”

So I schlepped over to AMMS

“What are you doing here, you're still on detail?”

So I schlepped back to Civil Engineering

“Hell man, I don't know. Take off for awhile until we figure it out.”

I spent 3 weeks at home.  Oh, I went in from time to time to check on my status.  They sent me home each time, until one day the First Shirt at AMMS called me “Hey you're off detail after all, c'mon back in."

During my time at Weeds and Seeds I met a fellow musician who hooked me up with an R&B group called “The Jades.”  We played the Officers, NCO and Airmen's clubs, plus we did dances in the area.  We also traveled up to Winnipeg, Manitoba from time to time to play at The Hungry I”, a teen club downtown.  Winnipeg was a serious hotbed of musical inventiveness at the time with Randy Bachman, Chad Allen, Lenny Breau and other first rate Canadian musicians creating some fantastic rock.  Every time The Jades played Winnipeg, we got a lot of attention.  Now I was a married guy, but I couldn't help but notice how friendly those Canadian girls were.  Had I not been married, I'd have taken full advantage of the situation believe me.

But here's the thing... I was surprised they even noticed me, they never had before.  I was what you might call a “late bloomer”, and now as I was getting older I guess I was becoming more attractive to women.  Maybe it had to do with the fact that I was beginning to develop that split personality that entertainers have.  I was still reticent as ever as Pat Bergin/Missile Tech, but quite outgoing as Pat Bergin/Musician.  I could back-slap and BS with the best of them as long as I was wearing the musician hat.

And son of a gun those Winnipeg girls were friendly!

I'd quit the radio job before hooking up with the Jades.  It wasn't going anywhere, and didn't pay squat anyway.  I made a few bucks more with The Jades, and had a hell of a lot more fun.

Back home, there had been some changes at the Bergin household.  Little Laurie Sue had come along a while back, and was walking and starting to talk now.  We'd rescued a little dog, and when she saw it she was thrilled. “Buppy... buppy” she called it, so “Buppy the Puppy” became part of the family.  There was another little one on the way, so I began to think we needed some reliable transportation.  I'd bought a '56 Chevy from another fly boy, but it was a junker and couldn't be trusted.  I needed some new wheels, and in order to get them I needed additional income.

The most popular group around Minot at the time was The Messengers.  Consisting of Don Johnston on piano and vocals, “Red” O'Connor on sax and Frank Longo on bass, they dominated the club scene in Minot.  One day I learned that their drummer had left so I got in touch with Don.  That same day I quit The Jades, and joined The Messengers.  It was a 6 night/week gig so the schedule was brutal, but the money was excellent.   In one day, I'd gone from a low income fly boy making a couple of bucks on the side, to an income level on par with a Colonel.   New car, here I come!

Back at AMMS, I'd been assigned duty in Combined Systems.  My job was to stand in the bay, and trim the engine.  Now for those of you who've never been close to a running jet engine before, let me tell you that sucker is loud!  I'd hook up a starter collar to the power take-off on the engine, and run the hose over to an MA-1A “Start Cart” which had it's own jet engine inside.  Once I fired that up, I'd stand back as the crew inside hit the switch which sent high velocity air into the hose spinning the spline inside collar, and subsequently the engine's compressors.  Eventually the engine would start, and I would crawl back underneath to remove the collar.

Then came the “fun part.”   The J-52-P3 had been designed to run at full-bore for an hour, that's it.  In an hour it would've reached it's target and blown the hell out of whatever it was programmed to hit, with a 1.5 Megaton weapon on board it would've flattened anything it was aimed at.  The engine had to be trimmed at nearly full power, a setting known as “Max Continuous.”   I had to get down under the running engine and install a small metal stop to prevent the fuel control from going to “Max Power” which would've caused an over heat condition.  If that happened the engine would have to be rebuilt.   Once the stop was on, they revved her up.  I could see 30 feet of blue flame coming out the end of the engine, the noise was beyond description as 7500 lbs of power strained on the test stand.  I could actually see the bolts trying to pull out of the floor as I got next the the thing and adjusted the fuel flow with my little Allen wrench.   Seriously scary stuff!!

The next time you settle in to a seat on an airliner, take a look outside at the wing and give a thought to the guy who had to crawl under it with an Allen wrench.  I'll bet he changes his underwear a lot more than you do!