My Radio LifeJED is me, Jim Dedelow,
owner of AM 1230 WJOB and 104.7 FM in Hammond, Ind. I host the morning show, do live videos, and write this blog. |
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Look up, see a
locomotive coming hard right at you. You freeze. Oh no. I’m dead from one bad choice. Enough about me. What are the three or four of you doing this Sunday morning? I write and I write about the death of radio and what it’s like to live a life of local radio – and what the Region is like – but I don’t you know if you also sit on the bed in your underwear living life through a laptop. Does your back hurt from sitting on a soft bed? Or is it your eyes from straining to read on a cellphone? Or are you barbaric – do you sit at a desktop computer and read this stuff on a 24-inch screen? The three or four of you are a mystery to me. Except, maybe, Carole Terry. You see her comments below on almost every post. She is a retired teacher of what once were called special education students. She has an amazing amount of patience. And if I don’t regularly write this blog, she would have no problem taking a ruler and wrapping my knuckles. That’s what Sister Lawrencia wouild do in third grade at St. Thomas More School. It doesn’t leave marks, but still hurts like hell. It is words that endure, and art, not radio, music, video or July fireworks displays. When it’s all said and done, the radio and video that I do will not be what broadcasting students at a small liberal arts school on the East coast 50 years from now discover. They will discover my words. Still, I wanna know if you sit on the bed reading this on your laptop or do you, God forgive me, sit on the toilet in the morning and read it on your iPad. I gotta know. I wanna be here when I’m dead. To write down history, you gotta write it down. Capeech, asshole? It feels good to use a swear word once in a while. For the students 50 years from now – we can’t swear on the radio. Imagine that. It used to be a bigger deal if an F-bomb or a “shit” slips out to the ears of a little kid listening in the backseat. But, for now, the courts ensure that swear words on the air are left in limbo. They’re a violation, but the FCC for some reason can’t enforce fines and sanctions. You get the feeling that the FCC is taking notes on every swear word that slips out on every station in America and when the courts turn them loose they’re fine the crap out of people. Fragile world held together by unseen forces that threaten to go away any day now. Last night I stopped by 219 Day at the Hammond Civic Center. It is a massive party to celebrate everything Region. If you don’t know what that is, students at a small liberal arts college on the East coast 50 years from now, it’s where we live. It’s really called the “Calumet Region.” It’s this area of northwest Indiana centered on two Calumet Rivers – the Grand Calumet and the Little Calumet. If you are from this area, you are very proud of where you are from. As a matter of fact, I get the feeling that a couple of the three or four of you who read this blog on a regular basis live somewhere else. I know that my sister-in-law Rose, who is visiting this weekend, reads this blog regularly. She also reads NWI.com for the latest news. She misses her sisters and the rest of her family. She and her wooden shoe husband from the Region, Brad Nyenhuis, miss the Region. Is it worth giving up mountains and sunshine to be around people with hearty laughs and strong hands, men and women? I think not. Every time Alexis asks – “so where would you like to go on vacation?’ I answer – “New Mexico.” I can see us living there or at least wintering there one day. That means that the three or four of you would have to hear about corn husks and dust, hiking big rocks and walking through really old churches. It might be interesting, but it wouldn’t be the Region. Flutter across, little birdie, take what you want from my backyard. I don't own it. Neither do you. The Civic Center was filled with people who are proud of the Region. Some people look down on us, especially in downstate Indiana. Try going to Indiana University or Earlham College and having this conversation with someone from Anderson or Jasonville. “Hi, where are you from?” “The Region.” “Are you carrying a gun?” “Yes. And if you don’t get your smelly hillbilly breath out of my face, I’m gonna use it.” That’ll get you to the front of the line in a cafeteria. Our aura is our strength, and our weakness. We come from steel mill and oil refinery stock. We use our nasal passages to say vowels. “Wisconsin” comes out like “WisKAHNsin.” Rose told Alexis and I a story last night. Sometimes in the running and hiking store that she used to own in downtown Los Alamos, New Mexico, she would run my show on the computer. It would be later in the day, so it would be a rerun. Rose and Brad miss the Region. You can tell. “Oh my god, that’s the most adorable accent I’ve ever heard,” this one guy said who came into the store. “Turn it up. Turn it up.” The guy sat there and listened for several minutes. He was evidently a world-reknowned cyclist who had traveled to a lot of places. “Where is that Milwaukee, Chicago, Erie, Pennsylvania?” “It’s the Region,” Rose told him. “That’s where I’m from.” A waitress waits for an order. Swivel hips say "Hurry up. It's time for my break." Nylons, white shoes. 219 Day was packed. You could hardly move. Loud music made it so that you had to yell to be heard, not altogether unlike the floor of a steel mill or refinery. We’re used to yelling to be heard. This blog might fall into that category. I was only there for a while - Alexis and Rose wanted John’s Pizza – but I was there long enough to yell with several Region Rats. A lot of them listen to the show. We laugh, make fun of being from the Region, talk with an accent that is unlike any other in America. Through it all, we’re proud as hell to be the Region. And that’s good enough for me. I gotta go. Kirk Minnow Smith is blowing up my phone. He wants to JEDgolf at Wicker. I just might. I can only go deep for so long. I know that it's wrong to linger or stifle, But this is me.
It’s 12:36 in the morning and, per usual, I’m wide awake. Alexis and I went to dinner at Doc’s in Dyer for Valentine’s Day. She ordered wings and brisket with cole slaw and potato salad. It’s enough food for Valentine’s Day meal and tomorrow at court.
“That’s what I do, too. it’s enough for two meals. One today, one tomorrow,” said the owner, a retired physician with children in New York and Columbus, Ohio.
The question as a radio operator is – where do we go from here? We have put together a lot of distribution points.
 Leroy Marsh, John Friend, Jason Grunewald Munster High School has only had three football coaches in its history. That’s Leroy Marsh on the left in the photo above. He got inducted into the Munster Coaches Hall of Fame last night during halftime of the Munster vs. West Side basketball game.
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