Radio Daze

I am going to start writing ashort stories about my days in radio. If Debbie mcamber and Danielle Steele can do it. Maybe I am one in the making....

Chapter 1

          Thirty years is a long time to work at a place.  It used to be common for someone to graduate high school and get a job and retire there. It is not the case anymore in this lean and mean take-no-prisoners workplace.  Theresa thought about that as she went to work each morning.  She had started as a part time person working Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. That's what you did to pay your dues in radio. It was expected for you to work holidays and weekends and even overnights if it was needed. You did whatever it took to "make it". Things had changed a lot since those days.  When you interviewed people for a job now you had to tell them that the job required weekend work and holidays. You just couldn't assume that they knew.  Some of the people that you interviewed wanted a weekday job and they made it clear that they couldn't or wouldn't work weekends.

    Radio used to be a local fast paced interesting job, but to Theresa it had gotten stale.  They began to use voice tracking which may have been an efficient use of manpower, but in emergencies it wasn't good. There was no one around who could tell you what was going on, with a car pile-up or a chemical spill. When people would listen for information all they got was "canned music and talking".  Theresa liked the old days of covering news and elections and being on the scene to be the first to get information out. Things weren't that way anymore.  One of the things that Theresa loved was interviewing artists and community leaders. She excelled in this. She had a down-home "lets talk" style that put most people at ease. She could relate to people on many subjects and she loved to read.  She had dreams at one time of doing a talk show.  It never happened. "Just one more foolish dream," she thought as she got dressed for work.

     There was a dread about going to work today. That wasn't that unusual. In the last few months it became very hard to work in the environment of the radio station. She had to deal with people who needed their ego stroked and you had to tell them what they wanted to hear or else. Sometimes it got so intense she would slip out of the back door, once her work was done.  She had said to a friend, "if I knew years ago what I knew now, I would have never chosen a career in radio."  Who was she kidding? She always wanted to work in radio since she was in fifth grade. She was ten years old and they bought a reel-to-reel tape recorder to class. Everyone else was scared to talk in the microphone. Not Theresa, she gave a book report about a vet's adventures with his pets.  She would later ask for a tape recorder for Christmas, so she could record things off of the radio and interview people.  Things had changed a lot since then.

     Theresa Traynham was a tall blonde. She liked wearing the latest fashions and high heels. She had stopped wearing the heels so high after she started having problems with her knees.  In her younger days people considered her a "Brick House". As she got older she was considered classic.  Lately she wasn't trying to freshen up her image. She was going back to school to retrain for a new career. There was no future in radio anymore and she was in a dead end job.  She was always the person who loved change. Change excited her, but now she was in a rut and needed something to stimulate her brain. A change, something different. 

  
     There were several girls just out of college that she had trained that suggested that she go back to school and teach.  Theresa had a lot of knowledge and experience and figured maybe they had something there.  She began to explore the possibility of teaching even at the community college level. Wasn't she too old to go back to school?  She had talked to people who went back to school as older students. They would tell her that was the best thing they had ever done. Theresa was considering it.  She would have to work around her work schedule some, but why not?  It would be an adventure.  Something to stimulate the brain somewhat...