Like my new watch? This is the first watch I’ve owned in quite some time, mostly because I had demonstrated this uncanny knack for losing them- and the more expensive they were, the quicker they would vanish right off of my wrist and into oblivion. Part of the problem is that I didn’t really care for the feel of a watch on my wrist, so I would take it off any time I could- and from there Real Life would just take over. Then for awhile you could find these watches that hung from your belt loop, a little like one of those old fashioned pocket watches, but those seem to have slipped out of fashion. leaving me watch-less.
Until now.
The watch you see pictured above was given to me by Gateway Technical College, the owners of WGTD – to celebrate my 25th anniversary with the station. Unfortunately, Gateway’s recognition banquet was the same night in early February as Carthage’s opening night of “The Beggar’s Opera.” I had harbored some hope that maybe I could rush over for the end of the event as soon as the opera was done, but Julie Whyte – the secretary of GTC’s President Bryan Albrecht – chuckled at my naivete and said that the evening is always short and sweet – and even so, she said that before the final applause of the night has died away, half the crowd is running for their cars while the other half is already on the road and on their way home. In other words, there was no way was I was going to be playing for an opera and making it to the end of this banquet. So I sent my regrets, trusting that the powers that be would appreciate how an a capella performance of “The Beggar’s Opera” simply wasn’t an option.
So I got my new engraved watch this past Thursday, when President Albrecht paid his monthly visit to the Morning Show. And as he handed me the watch and shook my hand, I realized that these sorts of milestones happen once and only once in one’s life. But I also realized that what matters a whole lot more to me than that fancy banquet I had to miss is the quarter century I have spent in front of that microphone, playing great music and interviewing fascinating people. And every time I look at my watch, I am grateful all over again that in a business that is so volatile, I managed to land such a remarkably steady gig. Not that there haven’t been some bumps along the way- there were days in the late 90’s when it looked for all the world like our little station might wink right out of existence, or shrink to such a small size that my position would disappear. But wonder of wonders, here we are. . . better than ever, even as we hunker down and hang on through what promises to be a lean and challenging period for us and for all of public broadcasting.
25 years ago. On the one hand, it feels like the day before yesterday. On the other hand, it might as well have been 1898. It feels like it was another century, and in some ways it was. People still used typewriters. The predominant means of playing music was on long-playing records. Phones were still connected to the wall with a cord. And nobody . . . and I mean nobody . . . had a computer on their desk. WGTD did not possess a single computer of any kind. Our news was still received over the old-fashioned ticker machine, with those enormous rolls of paper churned out 24 hours a day. And the fanciest device in my car was electronic door locks. (I still had to crank open the windows.)
And yet, for as much as the details have profoundly changed, especially the tools of daily life and interaction, the fundamentals pretty much have not. It’s still about doing smart and engaging work . . . about speaking into that microphone as though there were someone sitting across from me . . . being prepared and yet allowing for the magic of spontaneity . . . being serious and yet having fun . . . valuing words and using them well . . . being open to perspectives and opinions other than my own . . . and, maybe above all, being enormously grateful for this work which I get to do – and wonder of wonders, get paid for it- and which, I hope and pray, I will be blessed to do for a long time to come.
And every time I look at that new watch, I am thinking about all that. . . and about how time really does fly when you’re having fun.