A Cold Winter Blast From The Past

Clearly, my previous comment about the "relatively mild North Carolina winter" was somewhat premature. We received between 3" and 8" of snow last night, depending on your location in WNC or Upstate SC.

Is this Nature's way of striking back against my anti-Kudzu campaign? One wonders...

The picture is of the "satellite dish garden" behind our facility here at Isothermal Community College. The footsteps are mine and those of Earl, one of ICC's always-helpful security guards. Here's the story:

Back in the early 1980s, when I was the Jr. Broadcast/Production Engineer at WXXI-FM in Rochester, NY, one of my responsibilities was to periodically climb a ladder and - using a push broom - sweep out accumulated snow and ice (which caused deterioration of our signal) from the NPR satellite dish. To say that I detested this duty is an understatement. When I left Rochester for the much more moderate winters of Charleston, SC in 1984, I couldn't help but torment my ex-supervisor (and one of my most prized mentors) - the late (and great) Garry Warren - by calling him up in the dead of winter (knowing he was freezing his handlebar mustache off in Upstate New York) and lamenting that I'd been forced to "sweep all the sunshine out of my satellite dish" that morning.

Garry would curse me profusely over the phone in response.

Well, here it is over 20 years later and guess who was standing in the freezing rain and 4" of snow reaching with a push broom to clear the snow and ice out of a satellite dish this morning?

Garry, wherever you are, I hope you got a good laugh out of watching me today.

Yes, the weather was foul, the streets were dangerous, the College was closed and the temptations to stay snuggled beneath the warm covers were difficult to deny. But, I have to tip my hat to WNCW's Morning Music Mix host Joe Kendrick, our part-time fill-in host Brad Watson and Program/Operations Director Dave Kester for joining me as survivors of the "Great Isothermal Blizzard of 2008." Kudos, gentlemen! And to you, too, Earl! And, let's not forget, to Senior Producer Kim Clark, whose POPAsheville interview was a fine addition to our "snow day" programming.

WNCW - if you'll pardon the mangled grammar - is great people.

And we all owe a debt of gratitude to Garry Warren - may he rest in peace - for giving me a marketable winter skill, which I somehow retained after more than two decades in the subtropics of South Carolina and Texas. As long as I know how to sweep out snow and ice from a satellite dish, I will be of some value to a radio station. Because of Garry Warren, WNCW was able to maintain its satellite connection and the BBC, NPR news headlines and World Café made it to your radios and computers.

Thanks, Garry.

Tune in. Turn on. But, don't drop out.

This is WNCW Spindale.

DEW