Tough show today. Murders, violence, death, holidays.

As the three or four of you know, we’ve been covering a lot of murders allegedly committed by young people. There’s the death of Adriana Saucedo, 27, of Portage. Police say she met some kids on social media, agreed to buy some weed from them, got picked up by them… and they found her body in a gymnasium of one of the many abandoned schools in Gary. One of the alleged killers is 15 years old.

There's the stabbing death of Erik Lozano, 34, at the BMO Harris bank parking lot in East Chicago. Police say four young men - one from EC, two from Hammond and one from Lake Station - drove Lozano to his bank to rob him, stabbed him, stuffed him in the trunk, bleached his body and dropped it in a pond. Alleged perpetrators are in their late teens or early 20s.

There’s Katelyn Golden, 26, killed in the parking lot of Coaches Corner in Hessville. We’ve also discussed recent shootings at River Oaks in Calumet City. I’ve come to the conclusion, by the way, that we should pay more attention to what’s happening right across the state line.

The three or four of you know this, but just in case a newcomer stumbles across My Radio Life – WJOB broadcasts almost exclusively about the Indiana portion of the Calumet Region, even though we’re a mile from the Illinois border. On Tuesday at 8am, I’ve agreed to do a half hour on just what’s happening on the Illinois side. This is something new. Murder and violence are not new, but it seems like there’s way more than usual happening on both sides of the state line.

Near the end of the show today, Ryan motioned for me to take a break –

“We have a news item,” he wrote on the board. I took the break and Ryan handed me a news release from the Griffith Police Department.

Shooting Death in Griffith

…. “A witness reported to have heard what sound like a gunshot… and upon going outside to investigate, found the victim lying injured in the lot.”
Another killing, this one in the parking lot of the old Mansards, which is now called Park West. Several callers bemoaned the violence. It is not a Merry Christmas in the Region right now. Our Region hearts go out to the families of all of the victims. There are several more of late that I can’t even get to in this blog.

…. At least there’s Petey. He and his wife, Tina, have been lighting up Hessville from 3033 Crane Place for 32 years. Petey stopped by in his landscaping attire and we talked about his man-made phenomenon.

• His display stretches across the front yards of five houses
• NIPSCO had to install special 200 amp service to his house
• On a clear night, 1000 people will stop by
• There’s a tunnel with 13,000 lights on it

Petey provided a respite from the doom. Petey says that the impetus for him starting this 32 years ago was his memories of the splendor of downtown Hammond in the 50s and 60s. This is the same wonder that Jean Shepherd depicted in “A Christmas Story.” Shep grew up a couple of blocks where Petey puts on his light show every Christmas.

“If you just drive by, you miss half the show,” Petey said. “You gotta get out of your car and push the buttons and listen to the corny jokes of Jack Frost. It reminds you of downtown Hammond back in the day.”
​
Thanks, Petey, for a ray of sunshine. Best way to find Peteyville is to search for it on Google, which has given him a landmark pin. Talk later. Keep the faith.

It’s about time we remember who this blog is for.
 
First, it’s for the three or four of you who follow along as I try a bunch of different stuff, most of which doesn’t work. 
 
Secondly, it’s for communications or maybe business students 50 years from now at a small liberal arts college in the eastern part of the United States. They’re up late working on a group project. They come across my forgotten blog from 50 years ago. They wind up getting an “A” on the resulting paper that they write about outmoded methods of communication. In this case, it’s radio. 
 
Oh, and during the researching, they smoke a bunch of weed the old fashioned way, rolled into a cylinder with a paper coating.  At midnight, they order a pizza, but everyone’s too paranoid to answer the knock of the delivery driver. They slip the money under the door and tell him to keep the change.
 
“But leave the pizza,” one of them shouts. 
 
This is quite a mission statement – to write a blog about My Radio Life for three or four people now and three or four people 50 years from now.  Let’s get on with it. 
 
… It’s the end of the Thanksgiving Day weekend. I went to several bars and talked with dozens of people. Alexis and I also saw a ton of family and watched nine episodes of “The Crown” on Netflix. We also watched “The Irishman,” a Scorcese movie about the mob, of course. 
 
In a few hours I’ll get up and do a morning radio and TV show. Ryan has already mapped it out. He’ll play some of the videos from over the weekend, including a highlight from Munster’s victory over Portage in boys basketball and Hammond mayor McDermott’s response to Sam Michel calling him a clown. 
 
Sam Michel works for me. He hosts the afternoon show and announces games. I did not know that he called McDermott a clown. Sounds interesting, though. Kids these days…
 
It won’t be a normal Monday. Typically, I do the show and go work out. Tomorrow, I’ll interview Indiana University announcer Don Fischer about IU’s backbreaking Bucket win over the weekend. Then Billy Baker and I will mess around for half an hour. Then I’ll interview the Sheriff. Then I’ll interview Dr. Mary Tilak. 
 
It’s a lot of interviewing for a Monday morning. After that, instead of working out, I’ll spend eight hours in a strategic planning session to map out the future of Purdue Northwest, where our WJOB studios are located. I agreed to do this because I love Purdue Northwest. It used to be called Purdue Calumet, but they changed the name. I forgot why. 
 
To prepare for tomorrow’s show, I read a strategic plan for downtown Hammond. It seems that a guy named Speck and a bunch of important people think that downtown Hammond is poised to rise from the ashes. I do not share their optimism, although I do hope that Mr. Speck and others can do what no one else has been able to do for 60 years. 
 
Here’s my hesitation about spending a bunch of money in downtown Hammond. 
 

1. In the late 1970s, my uncle, Duane Dedelow Sr., dumped a ton of money into a restaurant called “McGee’s” that was supposed to bring back downtown Hammond. It didn’t. My uncle lost a ton of money.
2. In the early 2000s, I established a trading center in downtown Hammond, aiming to “bring back downtown Hammond” as a mecca for financial transactions. My traders would walk out of the front of the building for a cup of coffee. They couldn’t find one. So I had to put in a coffee shop. We called it “Steel Toe Joe.” I left trading and coffee and, like my uncle, lost a ton of money investing in downtown Hammond.

 
Now there’s a commuter train poised to come through downtown Hammond. And, according to the mayor and a bunch of important people on the steering committee, this will be the kindling that sparks an economic development firestorm.
 
I hope it works. But as the three or four of you can sense, it would be a bit disingenuous of me to get behind such a plan, given my background. I’ll share my experiences and let people judge for themselves whether to support a big spend in downtown Hammond.
 
That should do it for tonight. See ya later.