When you're local radio guy and you watch the news before you go to bed, sometimes you wake up with ice mares.
After taking in a day's worth of warning from the Chicago networks (trying to boost ratings) and the national weather service (trying to do their job) to public school superintendents (trying to do their job better than last winter) to the lady at the gas station where I went to fill up at 9p, you know, just in case it's stormageddon.
My guess is that it won't be. I did wake up from an ice mare in which I'm walking along a road in a snowstorm and I can't turn on my microphone. Not because I don't have a microphone. Yes, there's one in my hand. But that my hands are so frozen that I can't turn on the little switch on the side of the metal stick. My gloves are too thick and covered with ice. What will I do? I go on the air in five seconds. Now four. Uh-oh ON THE AIR.
Instead of going to DEAD AIR, I wake up and stumble to the bathroom. I'm awake. It's the middle of winter and I'm local radio guy and the one thing I can't do is show up late this morning, unprepared. So instead I read the papers, listen to the radio, read old Jean Shepherd stories about going on a blind date. Anything but go back to sleep and not wake up in time to be the man with the snowstorm answers precisely at 5:30am.
WBBM's Stephen Haas says at 3:58 there's snow on the ground and that side streets haven't been cleared. "All of the roads are moving much slower than usual." It's pretty much what I'll be saying for the next few hours. And despite not being able to sleep during snowstorms, I'm OK with that. One degree at O'Hare. Wind chills of 20 to 40 below this week. Another ice mare cometh tonight, no doubt.
After taking in a day's worth of warning from the Chicago networks (trying to boost ratings) and the national weather service (trying to do their job) to public school superintendents (trying to do their job better than last winter) to the lady at the gas station where I went to fill up at 9p, you know, just in case it's stormageddon.
My guess is that it won't be. I did wake up from an ice mare in which I'm walking along a road in a snowstorm and I can't turn on my microphone. Not because I don't have a microphone. Yes, there's one in my hand. But that my hands are so frozen that I can't turn on the little switch on the side of the metal stick. My gloves are too thick and covered with ice. What will I do? I go on the air in five seconds. Now four. Uh-oh ON THE AIR.
Instead of going to DEAD AIR, I wake up and stumble to the bathroom. I'm awake. It's the middle of winter and I'm local radio guy and the one thing I can't do is show up late this morning, unprepared. So instead I read the papers, listen to the radio, read old Jean Shepherd stories about going on a blind date. Anything but go back to sleep and not wake up in time to be the man with the snowstorm answers precisely at 5:30am.
WBBM's Stephen Haas says at 3:58 there's snow on the ground and that side streets haven't been cleared. "All of the roads are moving much slower than usual." It's pretty much what I'll be saying for the next few hours. And despite not being able to sleep during snowstorms, I'm OK with that. One degree at O'Hare. Wind chills of 20 to 40 below this week. Another ice mare cometh tonight, no doubt.
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