Swapping Old Radio Stories

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, social media is great for catching up with old friends. However, I can honestly say that it cannot beat catching up in person.

In 1988, my radio career started at WKSG, Kiss-FM in Detroit. I met so many great people there, and many I am still friends with. A couple years before I was let go, the station hired a new Production Director.

Cam Smith was no stranger to radio. He was in radio long before that seed was planted in my mind. As a matter of fact, he worked at many of the stations (or in buildings) that I would eventually work at, too.

He’s been living in Florida for sometime and we reconnected on Facebook quite a few years back. He recently messaged me to tell me that he was coming up to Michigan and wanted to get together while he was in town. He gave me some dates to look at and we decided that today would work.

As I left the house this morning, my wife said, “How long do you think you’ll be gone?” I told her that Cam and I hadn’t seen each other in 30 years, so it could be a bit. She smiled and knew that would be the case.

We met at the Tim Horton’s close to my house. The only thing that’s changed is we’re both a bit greyer and he still has more hair than me! We grabbed coffee and a sandwich and the radio stories began to flow.

He had already met with many radio folks over the past few days. He was posting pictures on his Facebook page. It was fun to see many of them, as I worked with some of them, too. He got together with the WSAM/WKCQ – Saginaw gang as well as the WTRX-Flint folks. He told me some great stories that I had never heard before about the hijinks from those places and the talk incorporated many of the mutual radio people we had both worked with.

It was so great to sit and talk about our Kiss-FM Program director, Paul Christy. Paul, gave me my big break in radio and he was there when Cam was hired. There were many stories about Paul and a whole lot of laughs. We were both laughing so hard at times, I thought they might kick us out.

Our age has caught up with us, though. There were way too many times that we were like, “What was the name of that promotions guy who was there?” or “Do you remember that one listener who used to come out to all the car cruises?” Then at the same time, there were plenty of things that jogged my memory about things I had forgotten. Things like former station call letters or formats, old promos that ran, and sales people I had forgotten. There are things that we talked about that I have saved as MP3 that he’s never heard that I need to send him, so I’ll be going through the hard drives later this week.

The sad thing is that there is never enough time. I know we could have easily spent another 4 hours telling stories, but I had to leave and head to work. I couldn’t be happier to spend time sharing stories and reliving great memories. I hope it isn’t so long between visits next time and that maybe we can get more folks together to share with us.

What a great time! Thanks, Cam! It was so great to see you. Safe travels back home, buddy!