Well folks, I know all of you have at some point in your life cleaned out totes that contain your life’s experiences. I had a chance to do that just last week.
I knew there were some in the basement that had reel-to-reel tapes. That’s the kind that you place the reel that you want to listen to on the left and feed it to the empty reel on the right hand side of the machine. It’s quite a concept and one that worked for a long time in radio.
I was pretty good about labeling what was on each reel, but my only problem is that I may not be able to find a machine to play them on.
I found a tape that I used when I did my first morning sportscast on Sept. 11, 1973 on KKIN. It was sponsored by Gravdahl-Robideau, I believe located in Pequot Lakes. I had five minutes to report all the local sports I could get in and most days it was a struggle.
I found the tape of my first play-by-play assignment, the Gobbler football game at Detroit Lakes later that month. It was what I had wanted to do with my life since Ed Rosenbaum and I stood on the sideline at the football field and talked into the rolled up program.
He of course went on to become a doctor and I lived out my dream for two decades. By the time I had been there a couple of years I found out about a banquet that was happening in St. Paul where professional athletes from all sports would be in attendance. I got the station to buck up $25 and I headed down there to do some interviews. It was exciting for a young broadcaster who was about to meet some big time athletes. The master of ceremonies was a guy only people as old as me will know, comedian George Gobel.
This event came following the Dallas Cowboy playoff win at the old Met Stadium, the Drew Pearson push-off game that moved Dallas to the next round of the playoffs. Pearson was at the banquet and with a wry smile repeated that he had not pushed the Viking player out of the way to make the game-winning catch.
Indianapolis 500 winner Johnny Rutherford was there, PBA bowler Bill Bunetta represented that sport. André the Giant with his manager Bobby Heenan was there, hockey superstar Bobby Hull talked with me. There were others as well, but you get the idea.
As I searched other tapes, I found my interview with “Smokin” Joe Frazier, Twins players including Kirby Puckett and soon to be Olympic hockey player from Grand Rapids, Bill Baker, a member of the gold medal winning U.S.A. team of 1980.
I found tapes of special commercials I had done and news interviews with Gov. Wendell Anderson and Rudy Perpich, just a senator at the time, but also a governor of Minnesota.
I perused a dozen scorebooks from softball days coaching my wife’s team and a basketball scorebook from the early ’60s. A lot of memories came back as I dug through the totes, high school stuff, even a book from Brown Institute where I learned the radio business back in the day.
It was a fun afternoon and I still have a couple of totes to go, but that was enough for that day. Barb was helping of course and we even found some items from our wedding back in 1974. Yes it will be 50 years in June for this old couple and finding some cards and other things from back then was pretty cool as well.
As I said, I know most of you have had this day at some point or will soon and all I can say is you will enjoy it.
Memories are great to have and when you find things that spark those memories it makes it even better.
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