Gobler Mercantile Company

Gobler Mercantile CompanyMy make-over of “KBOA: The Early Years” is far from complete. But I had to share a snippet from one of the pages. A Tribute to a Country Store was written (and self-published) by Virginia B. Branch. It’s probably the only history of this small country store that got big. Not Wal-Mart big but something of a phenomenon where I grew up. Here’s the paragraph that caught my eye:

“About 1952 television had come to Gobler and each night, out back on the porch of the furniture department, one of these new inventions was displayed for benefit of the general public. It was here that most of Gobler’s citizens saw their first TV. A good-sized crowd was on hand every night. There was only one channel at the time so no disagreements could arise as to program choices.”

And now it’s Tivo, iPods, AppleTV and all the rest. From one channel… to thousands.

iPhone Confessions: George Kopp (Week One)

George is a serious Techno Boy. He has a geek job with the state for his day job (all Windows) and moonlights on Macs (and some PC’s) for love (and a little money).

George knew he’d eventually own an iPhone but thought he could wait awhile. He made the mistake of stopping by the AT&T store (Day Two) for a look-see and wound up springing for the 8 gig model.

George’s love-of-all-things-Mac is tempered by his no-bullshit-geek-o-rocity. By that I mean, he expects much from his techno-toys. But once he got the iPhone in his sweaty little hands, it was prom night. I got caught up in that as we talked and had to edit our chat more than I intended. Sorry, George.

Listen/Download: 5:30 MP3

iPhone Confessions: Dave Morris (Week One)

Dave MorrisDave Morris is the voice of great radio stations and television stations, film studios, syndicated shows and more. World wide. I know this because it says so on his website. He’s also a blogger (a good one). And a gadget junkie.

He was one of those crazies standing in line the day the iPhone went on sale, so we called him up for a report on Week One.

Unlike some of the others we’ve chatted with for this series, Dave is not a Mac guy. Windows all the way. But he’s only slightly less “gushy” about Apple’s latest creation.

Download/Listen: 12 min MP3

Never wear a neck-tie around a monkey

“I thought of (the advice of my former professor) when a little kitten came unglued, jumped into the air, executed a 180-degree mid-air pinwheel, and latched onto my neck-tie (I had neglected to zip my lab coat).  As the kitten swung back and forth like Tarzan, I was transported in time to hear the voice of the master: “Never wear a neck-tie around a monkey.”  Words to live by.”

— Your Pet’s Best Friend

MiPhone

Dave Morris took the plunge and writes an excellent review of  his new iPhone:

“How many phones do you have, and am I too late?” It was 5:55 pm, a full FIVE MINUTES before the doors opened. He gave me this little wink that was simultaneously geeky and cocky… and one of those dorky tongue clicks. The only thing missing was the finger-as-pistol “Shooter McGee” motion. He fished around in his pocket. This was his moment to shine!

“Here ya go.” He handed me a voucher that guaranteed me the right to purchase a phone. A little quiver passed through my body… much the same feeling as when you find out your application for auto financing has been approved.”

“Do you know who I am?”

The woman smiled, waiting patiently. My mind is frantically processing data, running through thousands of images and names. I bullshit for time…

"Hey, I almost didn’t recognize you! Man, how long has it been?"

But people can always tell.

"You have no idea who I am, do you?"

(Click!)

"Debbie! Debbie Elting!"

Debbie and I attended Southeast Missouri State University in the late 60’s. Worked on college plays together, partied together. Haven’t seen each other in 30 years. Turns out we’ve been going to the same dentist all these years. She drives down to Cape from St. Louis, I drive down from Jefferson City. The staff thought it would be nice to arrange a surprise reunion and scheduled our check-up’s on the same day.

The next time a woman I don’t recognize asks, "Do you know who I am?, I’m going to say –without hesitation– "You’re Jennifer Anniston. What are you doing here?"

Cueing records

I love this photograph of my father. It was taken in the control room (Studio A) of KBOA in Kennett, Missouri, probably around 1950.

Anyone that has ever “cued” a record recognizes that sense of touch and the delicate balance of the heavy tone-arm on the oh-so-easy-to-scratch record.

A skill (if you could call it that) that hasn’t been needed for many years. I’m glad I didn’t miss those final years of high-touch, hands-on radio.

We had one of the early automation systems (for our FM station) but it felt like telling someone how to make love to your girl friend.

And the thrill of having the program director walk into the studio while you were on the air and put the hot new single into “current” box. Is it as much fun to see the new single come into the rotation on a computer monitor?

Before I get carried away, allow me to say –for the record– I don’t miss using a grease pencil and splicing blog to edit tape. If I had to choose, I’d be th digital boy I have become.

The Basement Diaries back online

I still have several hours of work to resurrect The Basement Diaries, but have the site back online (5 min slideshow: Basement Diaries . It has been something of a nostalgic deep dive in that I created the site in 1998 (almost ten years ago) about events that took place in 1968 (almost 40 years ago).

Most of the work involved rescanning images. We had really crappy cameras in those days and I did little to optimize the scanned images back in ’98. So I rescanned about 100 photos, but this time I parked them on flickr. I still have a good bit of caption’ing and tagging to do. Basement Diaries alums might enjoy the slideshow of our Halloween party pix.

This rehab has moved me a little closer to my goal of 1,000 images on flickr. A target I’l easily reach when I get around to KBOA830.com.

Objective: 1,000 photos on flickr

That’s my goal. And I’m about half-way there. I’m using flickr to host images for the rebuild of The Basement Diaries which should be far enough along for a link by next weekend. A lot of the prints are 40 years old and weren’t great to begin with. But I’m not trying to win a contest, just share some memories with old friends.

And there is something so satisfying about getting these images out the shoe boxes and up on the web where anyone can find them. That means a lot of scanning (I might try one of the services I’ve read about). From now on, if  the image is worth keeping… it goes on flickr.