October 20th, 2015

Bernie Zemen, Highland council

Tony Diaz dropping off WJOB recordings from 1941 and 1950

Mike Mellon and Ryan Walsh

More photos

9:47am on a Tuesday

Since it's Tuesday, I just spent four and a half hours with you or so. In that time you could have driven from the Calumet Region of Indian a to Indianapolis and back. At 80 miles an hour. If it's me driving to Indy and back, expect six hours. I drive slow. Live a reckless life and drive slow, I say.

Verlie Suggs joined me this morning, and that always makes for good radio. Always. She comes prepared with topics.. she has printouts and newspapers for me if I need them... and she can direct the conversation as well if not better than I can. In other words, she makes it easy to do radio. Easy Tuesday.

It wasn't so easy, however, once we started talking about the impasse between the local steelworkers and Arcelor Mittal and US Steel. Those negotiations just broke off... and there's all sorts of talk about a strike or lockout. This led to remembrances of what happened at LTV Steel and Wisconsin Steel, where they put a chain on the gate one day and that's that. Caller Mary told how her husband worked at LTV and they nearly lost everything in the aftermath of the mill closing. Yikes. It was difficult for Mary to get the story out. She stopped several times to sob. It's sad but it's real and sad or happy or weird of mundane... if it's real, it's good radio.

Cubs play Mets at home tonight. Cubbies are down 2-0 in the best of seven NLCS... and it doesn't look good. Turns out that Verlie, who grew up in New York City, has a history with the Mets. Her mom's a diehard... and her sister was the first Mets ballgirl (recuruited from St. John's College) and that her sister worked for the Mets 

"But since my husband Mike (Suggs) is such a Cubs fan, I'm rooting for the Cubs tonight."

I don't believe her. It may be the first time that I thought Verlie was lying. She can say that she'll root for the Cubs bkz of her husband, but those fan lines run deep. One local official, whom I believe is not a big fan of Verlie, texted me:

"Figures that Verlie's a Mets fan"

Mike Knezevich, the Hall of Fame soccer announcer, gave a preview of the high school soccer semi-state this weekend. Knezevich first previewed the sectionals on the show a couple of weeks ago... and you're never gonna believe this but the podcast of Knezevich's preview has had 850 listens at JED.tv. That's a lot for what we thought was a minor podcast. Just goes to show you.

Bernie Zemen, town councilman in Highland, made it to his show today. He's been diagnosed with prostate cancer and he's been really open about it. He gave his PSA count, which has gone down to 4.7 from 4.9, and he talked about the tumors in his body. It's a shocker but it's real and all radio that is real is good radio.

That should be enough for kiddies today. I'm sitting in the studio 25 feet from the truck traffic on US 41, so those rumblings you hear in the background of the words isn't my stomach growling for a sandwich... it's 18 wheelers carrying coils of steel. All radio that is real is good radio. You heard it here first.