Friday in my hometown began with an early wake-up call by my cat, Missy, whose weak leg became entangled in the bedroom rug. Quickly, our day started to unfold with my husband heading toward the city and me preparing for my Friday morning radio show.
By 7:15, my show was over and I was standing in the lobby of the radio station visiting with staff members when a local jeweler stopped by. "Here's the ring you brought by this week. Knew you wanted it in a hurry." He went on to say how much he'd enjoyed the show, but was off in a flash eager to get to his store.
Then on a whim, I joined in the remote broadcast of our weekly Flea Market program. Today's destination was our city park, and we set up shop amidst the swallows, squirrels and old pecan trees.
The show's regular host has worked for the station since he graduated from high school, and is more like family than anyone I know. Now a grown man (well, actually that's debatable), he looks after things as Operations Manager of my family's radio station.
Soon, calls began coming in with local residents listing items for sale. We went about our chit chat commenting on how many "moving sales" were taking place over the weekend and hoped folks weren't leaving on account of anything we said!
One caller advertised his truck stating, "It's got 10,000 original miles on it." To which I asked the host, "So what exactly does that mean ... original miles?" Well, I could see that it doesn't take much to get people stirred up. Soon we had more than our share of callers offering definitions and explanations.
My favorite caller remarked, "The main thing is, it's easy to start." That's a positive way of looking at most anything, and helped lift spirits at the receiving end of 1390 AM.
Our commercials, or "spots" as they are known in the biz, were piled on top of each other and kept the show's co-host busy back in the control room. Demand runs high for airtime on the Flea Market.
Vaughn's Backyard Garden Center, The Blair Shop and Scott's Furniture (just to name a few) benefited from our testimonials as we encouraged listeners to shop in our hometown with local business owners.
But come 9:15, it was time for me to leave the program for my weekly nail appointment. From there I stopped by the dry cleaners and then ran into my daughter. We grabbed a quick lunch.
All along the way, familiar faces eagerly commented, "Heard you on the radio this morning!" and a few felt it necessary to further define "original miles."
All I can say to this is, "Is this fun, or what?"