LATE NIGHT DELIGHT

 There was a time in my life when I slept even less than I do now.   I spent much too much time coaching sports and, during certain times of the year in the 1970s and 1980s, it occupied my mind into the wee hours.  This aided in starting a bad habit for me.

We were in a new home and our children were rather young.  Next to our bed we had placed an old fashioned stereo console.  In addition to good music, it had a very good radio.  This was a problem. 

Our home, being in sight of the WLW radio tower and a stone's throw from the Voice of America made radio listening difficult at times.  Each of them were aloud to broadcast at high wattage after midnight and into the morning.  I listened to VoA a few times but usually went around the dial searching for stations that the locals didn't drown out.  I'm talking about midnight to 5 am.  

The first I found was WBZ from Boston which aired a talk show by Larry Glick.  He is a legend up East.  If the signal was weak on a certain night, I could find his show relayed on a strong station out of Rochester, New York.  He was a gem.  He broadcast from the late sixties into the early 80s when, I suppose, he retired.  

Looking across the dial for a replacement brought me to Larry King.  He had a talk show out of Washington, DC at that time.  He had a different style but was very interesting.  Long distance calls were expensive back then and he advised callers to call and let the phone ring until he picked up.  He was strong through the 80s and into the 90s.  He shared his show with a guy named Jim Bohannon in the later years.  It wasn't the same.

So I went looking again and found my favorite in the late 1980s.  It was Art Bell.  He broadcast out of Las Vegas but lived in northern Nevada.  I got so that I just couldn't miss his show.  He had a nationwide network of stations and offered toll-free calling.  I would turn the dial to find the best signal on any given night.  I think I usually listened via KMOX in St. Louis.  

George Noory replaced Art in about 2000 and still does the show which is called Coast 2 Coast AM.  George doesn't suit me as well as Art did but I listen once in a while on local WKRC-AM.  

Just how many hours have I given up for this bad habit?  I do not know.