Radio is dangerous...

It's true!  I found out how dangerous at my first job in Scottsbluff Nebraska.  The station was KNEB and the studios were in a bomb shelter outside of town, just down from the sugar beet processing plant.  Their drainage ditch went by the front door of the station and left a stench about 5 feet off the ground.  Short people were okay with it but us taller folk had to walk in all hunched over.  We all looked like one of the owners, but he never actually came out to the station.

The station was somewhat primitive with a homemade on air console, foodstuffs and geiger counters in the backroom and a World War II vintage transmitter capable of producing 50,000 watts of power.  That would have been a waste of power for KNEB as it had about as many listeners as my doorbell does.  Remind me to tell you about the time the transmitter got hit by lightning while I was on the air.

Anyway, I was the afternoon/night jock and my buddy K C Neff was the all night guy.  We signed off at midnight on Sunday nights, I think to save on labor cost and electricity.  K C stopped by the station at midnight and we decided to go into town for a quick beer before we did our production.  (a radio term for making commercials)

We returned to the station about an hour later to find the main door (the only door actually) broken in.  I backed up the 1973 Nova hatchback so the headlights were situated on the door in case the perpetrator tried to make a getaway.  Normally K C carried his .357 Colt Python with him.  But on this day it was conveniently at home.  We had a hammer,  which I gave to K C and I held onto a walnut billy club I made in 9th grade wood shop during Parent's Night. 

K C went around to the back of the station to examine and/or disable the burglar's car by knockning out the headlights.  He noticed that most of the station's equipment was already in the car.  As he was doing that, the burglar came out from around the other side of the building and approached me.  He was a short guy, so the beet fumes weren't affecting his breathing.  He came up and ask me what I was doing.  To which I cleverly replied, "What are you doing?"  He lunged at me like he was going to put me in a head lock, but instead was attempting to stab me in the stomach and in the face with the knives he held in each hand.  My reaction was swift and punishing.  I broke y cherished 9th grade wood project billy club over his head sending him reeling backwards onto the gravel and into lala land.  Meanwhile, I began bleeding from a small wound to the stomach and a small cut to my upper lip.

K C and I drug him into the station to find he had cut every phone line in the building except for the one that calls out.  All the rest were answering machines and such.  For the younger kids reading, telephones used to have cord attached to them that plugged into the wall.  You couldn't talk on the phone in the car unless you had a real long cord.

We called the police and they got there within 5 minutes and stormed in the door as I held the somewhat delirious assailant against the wall with his own knives.  I was the first target of the deputie's guns but I quickly pointed out who the bad guy was....and the puddle between my feet.

I called my folks at three o'clock in the morning and told them if they hear about it on the news, that I'm okay.  And they did hear about it on the news as it was AP's lead story that morning.

I think the guy got 6 months and we were back on the air in a couple of days.  I got a $15 bonus and was fired about two weeks later.  Don't be sad though.  KOLT, the big top 40 station hired me the next day and doubled my salary to $250 a week.  Man, that was big money back then....come to think about it, it's big money now to me! 

Yes, radio is indeed a dangerous profession.  Be careful out there!  That is all...Peters out!