Fifty years ago to the day ...

     It's not too often that you can say exactly where you were on any given day in the past.  Major news events are one thing, because you have the media that informed you as a memory to guide you.  Family matters are something else entirely.     
     I can tell you exactly what I was doing, and where, and who else was involved on this day in 1959.
     I was serving as an altar boy, along with a classmate named George Bailey, at my Brother Rick's wedding to Patricia Ann Baranoff.  The service was at Our Lady of Perpetual Help RC Church on Fellowship Road in Maple Shade, NJ, and was officiated by the parish Pastor, Father Thomas Nolan.
     This may have been something of a trend setter:  an essentially agnostic young man of Dutch and German descent who once considered a vocation as a Priest in the Catholic Church (and who would soon convert to Orthodox Judaism), the son of a convert to Catholicism and a dyed in the wool agnostic, marrying a Jewish girl of Russian descent at an RC church in a primarily Italian city officiated by an Irish priest.  Talk about your diversity!
     I can only imagine the way Father Nolan justified all this taking place on a Saturday afternoon in his newly constructed church.  This was, by the way, the same church that, many years later agreed to hold a Catholic funeral service for our Father following his cremation.  We never made it easy for OLPH, especially when I was in school there.
     And today is Rick and Pat's 50th wedding anniversary.  Their kids have set up a renewal of vows in Israel, where the family has lived for years.  I can't be present, but I did an Obama and sent a video.
     Rick & Pat, Mazeltov! And may you have at least fifty more!

Da Jules is back in town ...

Secret Squirrel: Jules Riley to return to STL as PD of KSLZ and The Sound. She starts Jan 4.

Riley achieved great success here at Bonneville's The Arch; she later joined Greater Media's Ben-FM in Philadelphia and that gig ended this past October.

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Winter

Years ago, Microsoft had a better idea ...

Way back when, MS offered WebTV, a system that had a keyboard that addressed your television through a box that was hooked up to a dial-up internet connection.  It took you to email and websurfing in a closed and graphically-challenged way that was just okay for folks who couldn't handle connections to the net with a computer-connected modem, even operating at the then-available slow as dirt speeds.  Kinda like AOL for 'tards.

Now the gubmint wants to bring it back, but a little faster:

Looking to pare the shrinking but substantial number of Americans without high-speed Internet, federal officials are considering taking advantage of a technology that practically everyone has at home: the TV.

The Federal Communications Commission wants to revamp the market for set-top boxes — the channel-switching devices that cable and satellite subscribers typically lease for $5 or $10 a month — and equip the machines with Internet-surfing capability.

The thinking is simple: 99 percent of households have a television, and 76 percent have a personal computer. So why not piggyback on the TV to extend the reach of high-speed broadband, which lawmakers and regulators see as a necessity for anyone to function in the 21st century economy?

If the commission is successful, it could usher in an era in which people use a single gadget to watch cable shows, download movies from the Web and surf the Internet — all on their TVs.

So what do you think?  Do you want the government to channel internet useage?

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If you're over 40 years of age ...

...please take our quick movie quiz:

-- When was the last time you went to a theater to see a movie?
-- When did that happen?
-- What movie was it?
-- Did you take your family or just a date?
-- How soon do you think you'll go to a theater again?
-- How often do you rent movies for home viewing?

Answer at the STLMedia Message Board.  (Registration required)

Merry Christmas from all of us at STLMedia!

Cross your fingers the weather stays reasonable and the power stays on until dinner is cooked!

Just a reminder...it's tonight!

Clear Channel's 100.3FM to go 90's/80's ...

Whilst DX-ing the Christmas secret radio exec two-way frequencies, he heard this:

CONFIRMED. GEN X RADIO COMES TO 100.3. MUSIC OF THE 90'S AND 80'S AIMED AT GEN X. EXPECT STUNTING AND A LAUNCH RIGHT AFTER FIRST OF THE YEAR. THE ARCH IS SCREWED.

Squirrel asks that you forgive his raised little rodent voice.  He was excited, being a Gen-X kinda dude.

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KBAT Radio, high on the hill ...

Gene Barry, who passed away a few days back, starred in the TV show Bat Masterson.  Here's a screengrab from 1959, captured by an eagle-eyed video engineer.  Take a close look at the area highlighted in red...see anything out of place/era?

Thanks to Frank Absher.

UPDATE: Al Germond id's the mystery antenna

Bob Fescoe out at KFNS ...

As an emailer wrote me this morning: From the Globe. Not sure who this is. 

Maybe that was Bob's problem.

Bob Fescoe out at KFNS
By Bob Mayhall
Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Afternoon drive-time co-host Bob Fescoe has left KFNS. Station President David Greene confirmed, in an e-mail to the Globe-Democrat, that Fescoe quit on Thursday citing personal reasons. Various people will be filling in this week as the station decides what it will do.

Fescoe was the co-host with Jay Randolph Jr. Sources say Fescoe is leaving to go back to Kansas City, where he worked prior to coming to St. Louis. It¹s not certain if he has another job in Kansas City at this time. Calls to reach Fescoe have not been returned.

Kansas City radio types have had traditionally bad luck moving their act here.

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Officer Don Miller passes away ...

Farewell to the dean: Officer Don Miller passes away

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) -- A familar name to many longtime KMOX listeners has passed away.

Officer Don Miller provided traffic reports on KMOX from 1972 to 1991 when he retired. He was a pioneer in the field of traffic broadcasting in St Louis.

His family says he passed away at his home in OFallon Missouri Monday afternoon. Officer Don Miller was a Marine and served on the St Louis Police force. He was 84.

The KMOX website also has a remarkable tribute to Don, written by his daughter, Casey.

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Paul Harvey Christmas audio, 1962 ...

By Frank Absher

Theater of the mind isn't something that is limited to old time radio dramas. In fact, it's my Christmas present to all of you this year. It's the best of the best.

Paul Harvey recorded this broadcast for Christmas Eve, 1962. If you listen closely, you'll see why no one - No One - came close to him in quality or presentation.

First, realize that he conceived and wrote this. He's reading from a script.

Second, appreciate that he used all the great cliches of remote news broadcasts, even to the point that it reminds me of the Hindenburg broadcast.

Third, realize that, as you listen to this, you are visualizing the entire story.

Fourth, take note of how flawlessly, and with wonderful theatrics, he pulls it off, even integrating the commercial.

And last, have a Merry Christmas.

Listen here