Tom Dooley Interview

Tom Dooley did afternoon drive at WAKY twice: in 1968 and 1974-1976. In this 2005 phone interview with John Quincy, Tom speaks about his trip around the country as a jock at some of the biggest Top 40 stations of the '60s and '70s, his musical career, the inside story of his famous exit from KHJ in Los Angeles, the folks he worked with at WAKY, his "Lone Ranger" bits, and how he finally found true peace.

So, tell me – where are you from and where did you work before WAKY?

Oh, my. You're asking me to remember all this?

Just make up something.

This is now, John. Oh, my. WAKY. The first time or the second time? The cotton balls are falling around. The cobwebs and the cotton balls. Let me see.

WAKY. I first went to WAKY in 1968, and I came there from WSAI in Cincinnati, and before Cincinnati was KNUZ in Houston, where I was a nighttime, you know, teen kind of jock there, in the glory days of Top 40 Radio. And then before KNUZ, I was at WQAM in Miami and did mornings there after Lee Sherwood went off the air and became full-time program director.

And before that, KELI in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and before that. How far back do you want to go here, John?

So, you worked at a lot of big markets before coming to WAKY the first time, a lot of larger markets than Louisville. Any particular reason? I know WAKY was a great radio station and had a great reputation nationally. Back in the 60s and the 70s, any particular reason why you would go from, like, Miami to Louisville?

Yeah. I was in Cincinnati right before WAKY. And we had a band. You know, I was always a musician and a singer and performer, first. I did radio to kind of make a living, really, to tell you the truth. But my primary interest was my music.

We had a band in Cincinnati that did very well called the Casinos. And Gene Hughes and the Casinos played at a club up there and had a big, big hit with a song called “Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye.” And that was on Fraternity Records out of Cincinnati.

And then I wanted to have my own show band. And the whole band market was just tremendous in Louisville. There was a whole culture in Louisville, kind of like Austin is now, to the music scene.

So I went to Louisville to really start my band, which is what I did. I went to work at Wacky, W-A-K-Y, and had a band called Tom Dooley and the Love Lights. And we put out records and played all over the area, played all over the country, and had a couple of hits and did very well.

But that was my main goal and ambition back then was to do the music thing.

How long were you at WAKY the first time?

Oh, I guess a couple of years, 68 to 70, somewhere in there, a couple of years.

And what shift did you do at the time?

Afternoon drive, always did afternoon drive at WAKY.

All right, and why did you leave WAKY in 70 or so?

I guess I took my band on the road, man. The band was the big deal, and we had become a huge nightclub act. And we were going all over the country playing the big nightclubs.

And it just got to be untenable to remain on the air and have the band. Of course, I just wanted to make hit records and be famous and have a big band and all that. So that's why.

Instead of playing somebody else's hit records, you'd like to have somebody else play yours, right?

Well, at least that was the target back then, yeah.

Were you with the Casinos when they had the hit “Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye,” or did you come afterwards?

No, I was with the Casinos. I was sort of on and off with the Casinos, to tell you the truth. But yeah, I was there for the whole ride. Gene Hughes was actually the lead singer. And soon after that, the Casinos kind of broke up, and Gene went out on his own.

All right, who were some of the guys that you worked with the first time at WAKY? I didn't become aware of WAKY until about 1970. So, anything before that I'm just kind of catching up.

Well, the first time I went there, Bill Crisp was the program director.

Bill Bailey, of course, did mornings. No, Bill Bailey was on WKLO. What am I saying? Bill Bailey was on KLO at the time, our competition across the street.

There were two Top 40 stations in town, WAKY and WKLO. WKLO spent their entire existence always trying to beat us and never could quite do it.

Why do you think that is?

Because of the huge talent pool.

WAKY was a great personality-oriented station. And frankly, it was a much more powerful station with a bigger reach and just had a bigger image. It was like other secondary top 40 stations in other markets, like Miami, for example.

All the industry publicity, always with WFUN Fun Radio. But the fact is WQAM was the number one station in Miami, and 'FUN never even came close. But there was a couple of close battles between WAKY and ‘KLO, but WAKY always came out on top.

I forget who was doing mornings, to tell you the truth. There's an old line that kind of comes to me now. Walter Matthau was asked one time if he thought he was difficult on the set of shooting movies because rumor had it that he was difficult to work with.

And his answer was, “Yes, that's right. All I see is me, me, and me, and everything else is just a dull blur.” And so, back in those days, I sort of subscribed to the same philosophy. Everything else was kind of a dull blur.

Bill Crisp, yeah, he did the mornings, that's it. Bill Crisp did the mornings, and he was program director. Jim Fletcher did 10 to 2. I did 2 to 6. Weird Beard, Bert Markert, did the 6 to 10 slot. And from there on, I forget. I don't remember.

Alright, so you went on the road and evidently did that for a while, and then decided to get back into radio because I know you were at least one radio station, KHJ, before you ended up back at WAKY.

Well, what happened was I lost my voice. After smoking and drinking and singing and dancing and chasing women, I just sort of did myself in and lost my voice, got pretty ill, became ill, and ended up back in Memphis, actually, after all of that, at my mother's house.

And got married to a gal in Boston that was from Boston. We actually got married on the dance floor of a nightclub in Indianapolis called the Holly Oak, where my band was performing. And it was just one of these crazy, crazy, idiotic whirlwind kind of things.

Well, it lasted a couple of years, and she went her way and I went mine. But I had to have a couple of operations and got my voice back. And by that time, the whole music scene and the whole band thing had just fallen apart, and I would have had to go back basically ground zero.

I needed a job, so I went back to work in radio and went to WMPS in Memphis. Went to work doing mornings at 'MPS. And from there I went to WORD in Spartanburg, South Carolina, because I wanted to get into programming, so I became program director there for a while.

Decided I didn't want to really do that and ended up at KRIZ in Phoenix working for Dan Clayton. Was very successful there, and then got a call from Jay Cook at WFIL in Philadelphia. So, I went to Philly in 1971 from Phoenix.

We got the Station of the Year Award that year, and probably at that time the standard bearer of Top 40 radio in all of America, WFIL.

They were a great radio station.

We were, man. It was just unbeatable. It was like a Super Bowl team every day on the air.

So you've always used the name Tom Dooley, which is your real name, right?

George Patrick Thomas O'Dooley, Jr. And no, I didn't always use my Tom Dooley name.

One time I went to work at a radio station in Tulsa, Oklahoma. K-E-L-I, Kelly. And all the disc jockeys up until that time were all named Kelly.

It was Tom Kelly, Bob Kelly, Bruce Kelly. It was kind of a shtick for the radio station.

That's like half the air names in America.

Right, right. Well, I got there, and I was the one who broke the mold. I said, I'm not doing that.

But they wouldn't let me use Tom Dooley. And so I became Bob Holly, of all things. Go figure, just a name they pulled out of the hat.

And I became Bob Holly. At one time at WNOR in Norfolk, Virginia, I was Doc Dooley because there was already a Tom. No, there were two Toms. There was Tom Scott and some other guy named Tom at the radio station, so they didn't want to have three Toms on the air. So, I became Doc.

All right, so was WFIL the station you were at before you went to KHJ?

Yeah, I was at 'FIL and fell in love with my wife, met her there.

She was working at the station and didn't get my contract renewed. I was back to my wild days and led a pretty dissipating lifestyle there. So, they didn't renew my contract at 'FIL, so I was out of a job again.

I ended up at Charlotte, Big Ways, WAYS. Went down to Charlotte, went to work for Jay Thomas, Jay Thomas the comedian.

Now, what's Jay like to work with?

He's great. He's great. And did mornings, I did afternoons. And worked for Stan Kaplan there, the owner of the station.

But, again, got into trouble, just got sideways. And my ego was much larger than my mental capacity to contain it, direct it. So, I got fired a lot because of my mouth and got in trouble.

Sounds like you worked at some great radio stations along the way. I mean, some of the legendary call letters of the 60s and 70s.

Oh, yeah.

You spent some time there.

Yeah, I was at a bunch of stations, and I was at a bunch of dogs, too, man. So, you know, that knife cuts both ways.

So how did you get to KHJ?

Well, let me say, I'm trying to make the rounds here. Went to Rockford, Illinois in the dead of winter because I needed a job and had a wife. From there, couldn't stay in that place for too long.

And went to Cleveland to work for Joseph, whatever the guy's name is. I can't remember. The big consultant.

He's actually the guy who created the format for WFIL. He was in Cleveland, so I was impressed by him and went there. But that was not a good deal for anybody who went there.

It was just one of those really weird, strange deals. I can't remember the call letters now. Big station at the time.

But didn't last too long there. And went back to Philadelphia because my wife wanted to see her family. Went to work at WIFI, 92 WIFI.

Found out we were pregnant. I was doing 10 to 2 at night in Philadelphia at WIFI. They wanted to move me into Afternoon Drive and do production but didn't want to give me a raise.

And I said, you know what, guys? I can live a lot better on the money you're paying me in Memphis. The cost of living is much cheaper. My wife is pregnant. I wanted my family to get to know her. So, c’est la vie, we're going back to Memphis. So that's what we did. Went back to Memphis and went back on the air at WMPS. Did mornings again at 'MPS. And was number one.

First guy to ever beat WDIA in the morning. WDIA was the big 50,000-watt black station. Nobody ever beat WDIA. Just was a foregone conclusion. They were number one. That was the way it always was.

We managed to beat them. Did very well. I think it was 'MPS.

No, it wasn't. No, it wasn't. I think it was FM100.

There's a lot of stations here, John. A lot of stations, man. I think it was FM100.

One of those stations. I don't know. But, no, no, no. Scratch all of that, John. It was WHBQ.

How could you forget WHBQ?

I grew up with 'HBQ.

The only reason it comes to mind is because Paul Drew was the head of RKO at the time, and George Klein, who was a dear friend of mine of many, many years, was program director. I went to 'HBQ. That's where we were when we had our first child.

Paul Drew came in and offered me KHJ in LA. I didn't want to go. I'd done a radio thing, and I wasn't impressed by that.

Why? He said, well, because I'll make you almost rich. He waved all this money in front of my face. So, I said, okay, I'll go.

So we had the baby, packed up everything, and went to KHJ in LA. Started off doing 9 to midnight, and as usual, ended up doing afternoon drive, and became number one in LA in 1974.

So what was KHJ like to work for?

It was a toilet. It was an absolute toilet. It was the worst place I ever worked in my life. I worked for a lot of jerks in my illustrious career, but I never held a grudge.

I'd be the first to admit there were several times that I deserved being fired. As a matter of fact, if I ever see Jay Thomas again, I owe him an apology for being such a jerk, because I got fired, and I deserved to be fired. So, I'd be the first one to agree with most of those people.

Never held a grudge, never was mad at anybody, but KHJ was just a very dark and evil place. So I walked out of there one afternoon. I couldn't take it anymore. Just left. Went back to WAKY.

Yeah, tell us about that story. Johnny Randolph already filled us in on a previous installment, but I want to hear it straight from the horse's mouth.

Wait a minute, what did Randolph say?

I think it's kind of one of the legendary stories in radio about the Richard Nixon thing. As a matter of fact, I think I've heard the aircheck of that at one time.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

What was the straw that broke the camel's back where you said, I just have to get out of here, and here's how I'm going to do it?

Because those people thought they really owned your soul. You know, Charlie Tuna had a great line on KHJ.

It was during Christmas time, and Charlie Tuna had an unforgettable line. Well, he had several, but this one I really remember. He said, well, it's Christmas time in Hollywood.

It's a time when you peel back the tinsel and glitter, and you find more tinsel and glitter. So Hollywood was just that way, and we were right there in the thick of things. And, you know, I'm a corn-fed, Midwestern kind of guy.

And I did not like L.A. My wife did not like it. We didn't like the radio station. We created this contest called “The Trap,” this magnificent contest, which went on to make me a lot of money and did very well in a lot of markets.

And basically, RKO tried to steal it from me. And they were going to put it on all the RKO stations and not pay me for it. So, I said, no, I don't think so.

And I worked for RKO, and they were all, you know, big Nixon people. And I knew that, and I knew Nixon was a bum and a crook. I knew that since I was five years old. You know, kids know stuff. You sort of have a little insight. When you were a kid, you looked at Nixon, and you went, ooh. You know, you sort of backed up from the TV every time you saw the guy.

So, I just went on the air one day and said, you know what? It would be a really good idea if Richard Nixon and his cronies were investigated, thoroughly investigated for the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, along with J. Edgar Hoover, and played “People Gotta Be Free” by the Rascals and got up and walked out.

That was it.

And how did K-H-J take that?

Not well. Not good at all.

But, you know, I didn't care. I was young and crazy. I didn't care.

Was it true that you were already packed to go back to Louisville when you just jumped in the U-Haul and took off? Was that true?

Oh, that's true, but there was a little detour. I was very stressed out by the whole KHJ thing. Like I said, just from my perspective, you know, my opinion, and the opinion of a whole bunch of other people I've talked to over the years who worked at that horrible place.

It was just an evil and dark place. So, I had to detox. I just said, you know, I've got to go someplace and just cool my jets.

So, my wife and I and our new baby and our dogs and cats, we went and actually lived in a tent on the Missouri River for a few weeks and sort of just chilled. And then drove on to Louisville and went back to WAKY.

And you replaced, I guess, Lee Masters at the time? Was that Lee Masters?

No, Lee was still there. Lee was doing middays. I did afternoon drive. Okay.

Yeah, Lee was doing middays. Great talent.

I know Lee was doing afternoons after Burbank. He replaced Burbank. But he had moved to middays, I guess, probably after Duke Walker left.

I don't remember all that, John, but I think he was doing afternoons and they moved in the mid-days to put me in afternoon drive because that's where I was always number one.

And we did it again. One book, I was number one again. Randolph said it was like bowling a 300 game.

Well, yeah, it's surprising to hear that stuff about KHJ. Not that I don't believe it, but every disc jockey in America pretty much wanted to work at either KHJ or WLS or WABC. And it's weird. You think those things would be great and wonderful to attain, but you found out that it wasn't quite as good anyway.

No, I wanted to stand up on top of the mountain. Everybody wanted my job.

Every jock in the country, like you say, wanted to get there. And I wanted to wave my arms and say, Don't bother, don't come this way. There's no joy here. There's no love here. There's no joy here. So I'm sure there were other stations, but KHJ was just not a healthy place to be.

All right, well, let's talk about your second time at WAKY. Was that about 74, perhaps? Is that when you got back to Louisville?

Yeah, 74. Right after KHJ, yeah, 74.

I guess Coyote was the night jock and Bailey was there, Lee Masters. Do you remember who worked at night after Coyote?

I'm trying to remember. Dude Walker, he was in there somewhere. But I think it was my first go around.

Okay, yeah, he was the midday guy.

Yeah, great talent also.

Also from Memphis, I understand.

Well, all the great jocks are from Memphis.

Yeah, you and Burbank.

All the truly great monumental talent is from Memphis. That's me, Dude, John Rivers, Elvis, all of us.

So why do you think WAKY was such a great radio station in the 70s? Why did it have such a wonderful, not only national reputation, but also was a big radio station in Louisville and Kentuckiana?

Well, I think in large part that was due to great management that left air talent alone. And really, I mean, as long as you didn't get really nasty on the air or be negative on the air or do illegal things, they pretty much gave you carte blanche to be who you were. And allowed you to grow and blossom and really nurtured talent and rewarded it.

And so what you had was a great radio station that was not the brainchild of one megalomaniac-type program director who thinks he's God's gift to radio. But you had a stable full of real thoroughbred horses who knew how to do entertainment personality radio. And thrived in it and did it well.

Same thing is true with WFIL. And same thing is true with WQAM. And every other great radio station I ever worked for.

And I'm excluding KHJ because KHJ was not a great radio station. It was a toilet and treated people horribly.

I want to run some names past you, some folks you've already talked about, but if you could just elaborate on what you think of these guys. Bill Bailey.

Bill Bailey, the Duke of Louisville. Probably the greatest air talent to ever sit down behind a ten-cent pair of socks.

Bill Bailey is one of a kind. It gives a whole new definition to unique. Bill Bailey found a way to live his life live on the air, on the microphone in front of everybody.

When he was going through a divorce, he was on the air talking about it. As a matter of fact, when I went to visit, this is a typical Bill Bailey. When I went to visit Bill in Louisville just a few weeks ago, he was recovering from a stroke.

He was telling me a story about he had a grand mal seizure. And so, he has this seizure and he falls out. He wakes up in the hospital.

He says, Dooley, when I woke up, I'm looking up and the two women in my life, my daughter and one of my ex-wives, my latest ex-wife, they're staring at me. And there they were. And so I asked Bill, I said, well, your ex-wife was there? Yeah, yeah.

I said, well, Bill, did you miss her? He looked at me. Oh, Tom, yeah, I missed her. But I got a new scope for my rifle. I won't miss her again.

And so that's Bailey, man. That's Bailey.  That's how he was on the air. And he would stand up in the control room and sometimes stand up in the chair, pull the microphone up if he was on a real tear. He was just a great entertainer.

No holds barred. One of the absolute greatest air talents in the history of the world.

There certainly is nobody that I've ever heard that sounds anywhere close to Bailey. He is definitely unique.

You know, it's even hard to try to imitate the guy. You know, I can do like a caricature of Bill Bailey, but nowhere near the authentic. He's just, as I said, totally unique and had a sense of humor unlike anybody I've ever run across.

Okay, Lee Masters.

Lee Masters. Wow. Probably among the most intelligent, witty people I've ever heard on the radio. Just a genius.

The guy's a genius. And very insightful, very funny, but in a very cool, hip kind of way. Very smooth.

Not a guy with a big booming voice, but an intellect and a talent that mixed very well together to bring forth this great air sound. And he created, when Lee Masters was on the air, he created such a wonderful environment for the listener to walk into and sit down and just enjoy. More than anybody I think I ever knew.

Another monumental talent. Of course, you're talking about WAKY, so everybody there was great. Lee Masters was one of the best.

The thing about WAKY, as we're talking here, John, is Bill Bailey in the morning, then Lee Masters. Totally different air personalities. And that's what made WAKY great.

There was none of the sound-alike kind of stuff. There was no duplication. Everybody was totally unique. Lee was great.

Coyote Calhoun.

Oh, man. Gosh. Coyote Calhoun. Again, what can I say? Another monumental air talent.

Coyote Calhoun always had a wonderful attitude, no matter where he was or who he was with. He was always having a ball. Again, not a guy with a big voice, but a great big heart and a great big personality.

And funny, funny, funny. And just loved people. And it came through every time he was on the air.

You knew that you were listening to somebody who was just having the time of their lives and absolutely, thoroughly enjoyed being on the radio. Another unique, strong, wonderful personality that just made you want to listen to the radio.

Johnny Randolph.

Well, Johnny was the guy who sort of gathered us around him. And he's the guy who... I mean, let's admit it. He's the guy who held our hands.

He's the guy who babysat us, if you will. And Johnny was a friend to everybody. He was often a tough guy to work for because he would not let you get away with mediocrity.

He knew what you were capable of, and he would insist that you perform it at your highest level. But even-tempered. I'm assuming you're asking me how it was to work for Johnny?

Yes.

Okay. One of the best guys I've ever worked for, hands down. You know, you're talking about a guy who's more like my brother than my boss.

And I think Johnny had that effect on everybody who worked with him. You were safe with Johnny, and you knew it. There was no BS.

There was no hidden agenda. And that's the thing about WAKY, again. You were basically left alone to be the best you could be.

But Johnny, if he caught you not being your best, he would let you know. No uncertain terms. But a prince of a man.

When I think about Tom Dooley at WAKY, especially the second time, I always think about the Lone Ranger and Tonto bit you did.

I need to give credit where credit is due.

That originally came from a guy named Rick Shaw out of WQAM in Miami. And I had a lot in common with Rick in terms of just a real production sense, timing, and quickness. And so, he allowed me to borrow all that Lone Ranger stuff when I left WQAM and went to another market.

But it originated with Rick Shaw. And he's the guy who really made it get up and rock and roll. Everything I did with the Lone Teen Ranger was really a facsimile that was borrowed from the true master, and that was Rick Shaw.

So, you didn't have to splice all that stuff up to begin with. You already had it on reel.

Well, yeah, it was. But a lot of it was the recordings were kind of bad, and I went back and found some old Lone Ranger discs and did a lot of that myself after Rick gave that stuff to me. But most of it, yeah, I just carried it around on reels and used it in my own way.

What was that like to produce on the air? How many cart machines did you have going at one time?

Well, back in those days, John, the more cart machines you had, the greater the radio station.

One of the things you would always ask if you were being interviewed by a radio station, one of the questions every jock worth his salt would ask was, how many cart decks do you have? And inevitably they would say, oh, four. And you went, no, man, I can't work. I've got to have at least six.

And I think we had six or something like that at WAKY Spread all across. I mean, they would give you what you needed. If you went and said, look, I really have got to have this to do my best, well, they would get it for you.

And the only criteria was, look, if we're going to spend this money, you better use it. So I did. And, you know, they spent a fortune, WAKY did back then, they spent a fortune just on carts for me to store all that stuff.

So you were shoving carts in and out pretty fast then with that.

Oh, like lightning. Are you kidding? Just play the William Tell Overture and strap yourself in the saddle and hope for the best because, you know, those old cart decks, they were not often that reliable.

And, you know, they would jam or something wouldn't fire, and you would have to just ad lib and keep going.

And you'd hope the thing would have been queued up too, I guess, as far as queuing up the carts and stuff. I guess you were pulling them out before they had a chance to queue up.

Sometimes. You'd have to re-queue everything out. You're bringing back memories now because everything's computer now so you don't think in those terms.

But, yeah, depending on how long the bit was and, you know, what you were trying to accomplish, very often you'd have to stop a cart and pull it out before it re-queued.

How long were you at WAKY the second time?

The second time, let me see, I went back in 1974. Just about a year.

I went to work for the Carter campaign in Atlanta and moved down there and went to work at WGST. And we switched the station over from— we bought it from the University of Georgia. It was the college station.

Bought that station, worked there for a while, and I actually did all of the radio spots for the Carter campaign in 1975.

Wow. So that's the reason why you left WAKY, was to become involved with politics?

Yeah, yeah. I loved Carter. Still do. I think he's just, you know, a great and wonderful man.

So how long did you stay in radio after GST?

I'm still in radio. Man, what are talking about?

Commercial radio, going to, working at the radio station, pulling an air shift, that kind of stuff.

Let's see, where did I go from 'GST? The year was 75, 76.

Oh, yeah, I was on the road selling my contest, “The Trap”, to radio stations. So I did that, ended up programming a station in Knoxville. An old WFIL buddy of mine that I had also worked with at WNOR in Norfolk, Virginia, ended up in Philadelphia.

We worked together at FIL. And Bob, Jewish guy, I can't remember his last name.

Bob Barron?

Bob Gross, sorry. No, Bob Gross, another genius of a marketing mind, and would have made a great ringmaster for Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus. He was just that kind of personality. Just a bigger-than-life kind of personality.

But he was in Knoxville trying to make this little rinky-dink radio station compete against the big Scripps-Howard station there. And, you know, just wasn't going to happen. Could not compete with the signal, could not compete with the money.

Really kind of fought a losing battle there. So, I came in after he did and sort of cleaned house and put the station back together on a level it could operate and make money and survive. So I was there for a little while, and then back to Memphis for a while.

That's when I did FM 100. Yeah, that's when I did FM 100.

So, when did the life change come where you decided to get involved with Christian Radio?

Well, you know, when I was in L.A., and all my life I've been sort of a serious-minded kind of guy anyway. I'm just always thinking about these deep things of life. And, you know, search for truth, all that kind of stuff. And, you know, why am I here? Who am I? Why am I here? What's going on? What's the universe? Here I am, this little speck of nothing in this vast universe.

So, I got into Eastern mysticism real big and read books like Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. You know, interesting, light reading like that. And all this stuff would be called New Age today.

But I had known some Christians, but they didn't really make an impact on me. The Christians that I knew were either complete incompetent oafs I had no regard for, or they were basically not living what they said they believed. So, it made no impact on me.

You know, if you tell me that you're a certain way, that this is your belief, I'm going to watch your life to see if it has any effect on you. And I would hear these guys, you know, they were smoking as much dope as I was smoking, man. And I would say to them, I thought you were a Christian, you know.

And their comment to me would be something like, well, you know, you have to look at Christ, brother. You can't look at me. Of course, my response was, well, if Christianity hasn't made any difference in your life, what makes you think it's going to make any difference in mine? You know, these guys would be witnessing to me, telling me about Jesus, and, you know, while they're toking on the same joint I was smoking.

So I had dismissed Christianity altogether. And then I met a real Christian. I met a family in whose home, you know, Christ was real.

There was genuine love and peace and joy and all those wonderful things that we all long for. And my wife and I decided then and there, this was up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. We were visiting this family. 

They were a Mennonite farm. It was a Mennonite farm family. And they had a family of seven grown children that all were in the same house, and they all loved and adored and respected their parents, and their parents were joyful. 

And I grew up in a totally dysfunctional home, and I couldn't believe that, you know, I thought I was watching a TV show. This was too good to be true. These people actually loved one another. 

So, my wife and I both said, you know, whatever this is, this is the real deal. And it was Christ. And so, because of their involvement in our life, we became Christians. 

Got involved in a great church there in the Philadelphia area and studied the Bible and kind of grew and been walking with the Lord now for, gosh, 25 years, 27 years, something like that. 

Going back to WAKY, just some parting words. How would you sum up your experience there?

Well, obviously WAKY, WFIL, WQAM, probably 'HBQ, had a lot in common.

And it was just one of the greatest experiences of my radio career. And, you know, the old saying is true, you don't miss your water until your well runs dry. And now that kind of radio doesn't even exist anywhere.

And you really miss it. It's just like, wow, we didn't know we had it so good. I really miss it.

It was a great time in my life, both times I was there. And I keep going back to Louisville because I have a lot of friends there. And so, I'll keep going back.

And that's just part of the heritage. Still a lot of joy and a lot of love connected to WAKY. And just one of the privileged few who were part of the glory days of the radio station.