Tag: Somerset

Bob Comes To Visit

I’m writing this early Sunday morning. I want to make sure something’s posted for Sunday and I don’t expect to be home for much of the day.

My friend Bob Lacey came by tonight. Bob has lived in Charlotte, NC for the last 30+ years. First he worked for WBT-AM, then WBTV, and now the FM, “The Link,” where with Sheri Lynch he hosts a nationally syndicated morning show.

I met Bob my first day in commercial radio.

I broke in at WSAR in Fall River, MA by doing an hour of Bob’s show. Bob supervised. It was my first real on-air job. We’ve been friends ever since.

We’ve both been through a lot of living since that day in early fall 1969. I can’t go into all of it here, but there’s not much that’s remained constant, except our friendship.

Bob jokingly calls me his “Gold Friend.” It’s tough to think of anything anyone’s ever said of me that is quite that flattering.

In 1975 out of work and with my life falling apart in Phoenix, Bob flew out and together, we drove the Western United States and a small part of Mexico. That was an amazing trip.

When I think back of what we did, hitting Puerto Penasco, Mexico, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Barstow, Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, it still boggles the mind.

This was before cellphones and the Internet. We had a little cash and of the two of us, I had the lone credit card – an Esso card!

There were girls we tried to pick up… who blew us off, and two guys in San Diego who tried to pick us up! We cleaned our clothes by the dawn’s early light at a dusty laundromat alongside the railroad tracks in Barstow, CA. I spent all day playing $2 blackjack at Caesar’s.

We got along famously. Bob was my guiding light on that trip. By the time we returned to Phoenix, a new job had mysteriously appeared and I was off to Philadelphia.

Later today we plan on returning to the ‘scene of the crime,’ WSAR at the foot of Home Street in Somerset, MA. Then we head north to Boston and the Red Sox – White Sox game.

We don’t have tickets… but I’ve stuffed some cash in my wallet and we’ll hope for the best with scalpers. This will make three major league games in a month or so, after 15 years with none!

If everything works out as planned (and who knows) I’ll be on Amtrak before dark and in New Haven before midnight.

Photos and the actual trip report to follow.

My Friend Bob

Bob Lacey has been my friend for a long time… a really long time. I met him my first day as a paid broadcaster – a part time, minimum wage position at WSAR in Fall River, MA. “Ahoy there matey, it’s 14-80.”

WSAR was a great place to start. It was a small station in a small market. The studio and transmitter were located in a residential neighborhood at the foot of Home Street in Somerset, MA.

We were top-40 back when stations still actually played forty records. We even had PAMS jingles. If you weren’t in radio back then, this might not makes sense, but PAMS of Dallas was the gold standard of radio station jingles.

WSAR promoted itself as serving the Tri Cities: Fall River, New Bedford and Newport. Yes, they were physically close, but Fall River and New Bedford might as well have been on another planet as far as Newport was concerned!

I met Bob (he was Skippy Ross back then) that first day and we’ve been friends ever since. After Fall River, we also worked together in Charlotte, NC, where Bob has been for over 35 years. How is that even possible?

We don’t see each other as often as we should and we had trouble hooking up on the phone because his hours and mine are as opposite as can be. Bob is the guy half of Bob and Sheri, the nationally syndicated morning radio show.

Obviously I’m biased, but this is a phenomenal morning show. In the parlance of radio, it is female friendly. It’s funny… sometimes even sexual humor… but never smutty or sophomoric.

Bob is a technophobe. There are no two ways about it. If it’s electronic or technical, count him out. I always expected his first laptop computer would be steam powered. That’s why it’s so nice to have him finally sending email. OK – he’s a decade late, but he’s here.

I can’t begin to tell you how good it was to get a message from him, and then a reply to my reply, and another email later. It’s been a while since a good friend has come into the modern era. Email can be a wonderful thing.

There are so many people who feel our constantly connected world is driving people away from human contact. I disagree. A few sentences from a friend is the real power of the Internet, not its weakness.