A favorite toy; online Sears catalogs

Do you perhaps remember this toy? Here it is as shown in the 1964 Sears catalog. I believe it was made for Sears by a Newark, NJ company called Remco, who, per my online research, made a very similar-looking model sold as a kit that also had a transmitter and took two extra batteries. Remco made a few similar products, too, as well as many other toys of the 1950s and 1960s.

The reason I ask is because this was one of my favorite toys when I was about 5 years old! I used to pretend to do radio programs using the push-to-talk microphone and loved looking at the electronics in the open back. The image of this toy has been in my mind for a few years and I wanted to see if my memory was correct. It took a long time to find a picture, but I'm sure this is the item. I can see my parents buying this at Sears, too, since the store on William Penn Highway (still there) was the closest store to our house in Churchill.

Did this toy have anything to do with my eventual (or perhaps then-existing) love of radio? Surely! I also recall building Heathkits, "repairing" my dad's old high-fidelity tube gear and Garrard changer, making radio programs and comedy skits on reel-to-reel and cassette tape in 5th through 8th grades, a pretend 6th grade radio classroom station my friend Matt Shaffer and I operated, and a few other apparent foreshadowing events.

This toy really mesmerizes me, though, as it was undoubtedly my first foray into radio play/pretend -- at age 5. I did not remember this toy clearly until three or four years ago (as I get older, I'm finding that different memories "bubble up" from time to time). It clearly had an impact on me, though. I hope to ask my parents how they came to choose it for me (did I ask for it?) and will report back what I learn.

By the way, here's a cool website that helped me find this picture -- http://www.wishbookweb.com. This contains complete Sears catalog scans from the 1940s to 1980s (and some from other stores) and may help you find some lost memories, too.

Congrats to Robert Morris University

I attended the grad opening of www.rmuradio.com in Moon Township today. Michael DiLauro and Joe Hale of RMU contacted me about this project almost a year ago. We shared alot of information and ideas from SLB's experience in studio design, and it was rewarding to see that RMU had followed alot of our suggestions. Michael and Joe are great people and it was a pleasure to attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony they held today. The university community has some noble ideas for the facility, too, from public affairs to live music and more. It's nice to see emphasis on radio. The fact that the project stemmed from the desire of students to have an on-campus broadcast facility is inspiring, too.

I otherwise spent most of the day at home as I've generally been taking Mondays off. All in all, I'd like to go into our offices on Mondays but I'm trying to make Monday an "SLB is closed day" lately to be sure we all pace ourselves, especially given how buys the weekends can be.

Today's radio program...

A few thoughts on today's program...

1. As is sometimes the case, I wish I had arrived just a little bit earlier! The SLB studios spoil us. We do all of our preparation in advance and stage things in the studio on Friday. In the old days, I always had to arrive at least 90 minutes before the start of the program. These days, we can roll in at 5:50 a.m. or so if we feel we need a little extra time at home for a little more sleep, another cup of coffee, etc. Because I did not leave the museum until after 8 p.m. last night and knew today would be a long day, we chose to arrive a little later. But the way this forces us to rush start-up (and the fear that traffic could delay us, etc.) really makes me conclude that we would be best to always arrive by at least 5:30 a.m. After 4 years, we still have not convinced our bodies to comply, though :).

2. Our Historiddle drew some very nice calls. It was fun to hear Ted from Squirrel Hill talk about having heard Ayn Rand lecture several times. Tom from McCandless and Dr. Beth added great insights, too. Other early callers this morning included Maxine in Oakland (who talked about her grandfathers lumbering activities, in which the crew would build a raft from their harvest and use it to float the wood through the Tigris valley. Shirley from Avalon Heights shared her experience with "Laughing Yoga" which, just as it sounds, involves yoga along with ad hoc laughing. It reminded me of a story I once heard about walking into a roomful of people laughing (or crying) and how a person who does so usually picks up either emotion. This is a good reminder to be cheerful and positive; and to try to surround yourself with people who also are.

3. The Afterthoughts Puzzle and Wonder Word puzzle were fun. Dr. Dan (a dentist) gave a great interview regarding the importance of good dental care for children.

4. Our Saturday Stumper elicited some great callers as did our Crossword Puzzle of the Air. A 6-year old named Edgar was especially memorable. As we were talking about his interests, he mentioned chess. Edgar revealed his favorite chess piece is the rook (because it is the second-most powerful piece in his estimation). This was a great conversation; Edgar was with his father when he called and its the exact type of involvement we like to see (and hear) during SLB.

This is The Insider so here's something I don't talk about too much since we like it to be magical -- it is very hard to create an atmosphere that allows this kind of genuine and interesting conversation and togetherness to occur. This is at the core of what we do -- everything we do -- and moments like Edgar's call still nearly move me to tears. Partly, because it's good radio and mostly because it's an indication that our concepts and methods are working.

5. The Numbers Stumpers game -- an old chestnut we've featured every 18 months or so since 1978, but not-so-often in recent years -- was a big hit, drawing lots of calls and creativity. It was nice to have Jeff on the air for this hour.

6. What can I say about the Cowboy Poets at 10 a.m.? The poems were incredible and the Ross and 16-year-old Oscar were unlike anyone I've ever met. Real working cowboys who prepare packs for animals. And who also happen to write and recite wonderful cowboy-themed poetry, a genre I never knew existed. Distinctly interesting people accomplishing things we don't often encounter -- another hallmark of our mission at SLB.

7. During our Breakfast Brigade segment, Stage 62 did a great preview of "Bigger than Life" and Mark Weakland turned in a wonderful performance, including -- for the first time -- poems as well as contemporary and classic acoustic songs. Our audience was large enough and attentive enough to allow singing and clapping, and all had a good time. Although broadcast from the Grand Hall and the museum cafe presents a number of technical challenges, all went smoothly.

After the show, I had a ball showing our visiting Tiger Cubs our real studio and demonstrating equipment. By 2 p.m., Rikki and I were heading back home for lunch.

I guess that "just-in-time" arrival I described above worked out okay!

Your comments on today's program are always welcome by email, phone or right here.

Do we have a role in preventing youth violence?

At a Leadership Breakfast sponsored by the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management this morning, United Way President and Chief Professional Officer Robert Nelkin made some opening remarks about the recent shootings of a teen on the North Side and another in Homewood, both traced to (likely inadvertent) neighborhood "turf violations" being "enforced" by gang members. A challenge was issued to the nonprofit community to think through how it could help address this problem.

While there are many factors here (economics, joblessness, family support, and more), one outside-of-the-box wrinkle I began thinking about was how someone who clings to and defends turf must otherwise feel very empty. I further thought about whether SLB could do anything to help change these feelings of emptiness. Encouraging kids to express their feelings (and frankly first identify them) and then explaining how these feelings are uniquely "owned" by the individual outright and forever could be a unique way of creating healthy personal turf. Imagine..."My voice...my turf..." It's just a thought, but one we'll look into more. And..on a more conventional level, we'll be looking into ways to get kids talking to each other and to adults about the root causes of violence.

I had the pleasure of meeting a gentleman from Hill House during this meeting (which actually was about IRS issues, believe it or not) and we made some connections regarding oral history collection. I also re-located an old friend who now works in corporate philanthropy. Meetings like these are always a great way to catch up and stay active within the community.

On the way back, I learned that a grant request has advanced to board review by the foundation. On return to the studios, I put finishing touches on tomorrow's show, had the pleasure of showing our studios to a few visitors, and worked through technical issues for tomorrow's Breakfast Brigade.

Snapshot of today...

I wrote and mailed thank you letters to two donors today. I really believe in getting these out within a day or two we receive a check and in handling this personally. This was my first priority for today. As an aside, our donor support has been so encouraging over the past 4 months and is at the highest its been in our 30-year history.

I then turned to a conference call with Allegheny Land Trust in which we discussed some ways we'll be working to educate listeners about greenspace in Allegheny County.

Then, it was on to finalizing a mid-term progress report on our after school work with Pittsburgh Public Schools. I don 't think anyone really likes writing progress reports but they bring to mind one of my favorite sayings -- "I hate to write, but love to have written." While writing the report took a long time (we also prepared an accompanying set of CDs), it was satisfying to see how much we accomplished in 4 months. Another saying I like came to mind as well: "I'm sorry this letter is son long: I didn't have time to write a short one!" (Mark Twain). We managed to capture our work in three succinct pages but, as you may know if you write for a living, succinct writing is time consuming.

Along the way I took a few breaks to finalize a workshop with Northview Heights Elementary for tomorrow, arrange audio services for a meeting next week, interview a potential addition to our staff, be interviewed by an Allegheny College student for a radio drama project she's involved with, complete paperwork for our Washington & Jefferson intern, discuss a few operational issues with museum staffers, update Rounder Records on our growth and put the finishing touches on this week's edition of "Jazzin' Around", a separate public radio program we produce for Pittsburgh jazz radio legend David Jaye.

Believe it or not, I did leave a few things out but -- if I had to account for my time -- I think I hit the high points...although I did order toner for one of the printers, update our playlist...well, *most* of the high points ;).

BTW, the answer to the Haiku I posted yesterday is "hogan".

Cook Forest Trip

Rikki and I left for Cook Forest after I completed a Girl Scout workshop on Sunday. The workshop included 7 girls from Plum (6th graders) and we had a nice session covering the control board, various audio sources (demonstrating the phone patch by calling one of the moms' cell phones), digital recording and special effects. One nice surprise was seeing Barb Hall -- one of my closest friends in college -- in her role as a troop leader. Except for the yearly Christmas cards, Barb and I have not caught up in at least 10 years and it was great to see her.

We arrived at Cook Forest Sunday evening and were without television, cell phone, email or computer until Tuesday afternoon when we returned. Wintertime hiking can be fun and we managed to see some of great "high country" (with its dry, powdery snow and only a few footprints) as well as a few trails closer to river level. Rikki's pedometer showed that we hiked about 7.5 miles.

On returning to SLB today, there were quite a few phone calls and emails. We had a technical session today and established audio delivery to 91.7 WCUC Clarion as planned. Our debut there should occur this Saturday or next. Our colleagues at Clarion University of Pennsylvania have been great to work with and we are looking forward to extending our reach. I listened to WCUC quite a bit while in Cooksburg and enjoyed what I heard.

As positive as that development was, we finally updated our Antivirus software today -- only to discover that it causes a negative impact on our music playback system that manages nearly all of our 50,000-plus songs. Tomorrow likely will be an un-install, although I've learned to sleep on it. Perhaps it's simply a setting we missed.

While hiking, I thought of a new SLB puzzle in which we could describe an item by haiku. For example, can you name this word? Hint: We saw a model of one in the woods.

Quonset like structure
Giving shelter to natives
Starts with letter H

I'll give you the answer tomorrow.

Today's Show

Aside from a few technical issues, we were very pleased with today's program. Some of the highlights that stand out for me:

1. One of the callers during our 8 a.m. Saturday Stumper was a father and two sons en route to a wrestling camp. We're always happy when families are participating together.

2. A delightful call from 11-year old McKenna solving a puzzle.

3. Short interviews with the Penn Avenue Arts Initiative, Modern Formations gallery and Carnegie Museum of Art.

4. The enthusiastic live interview with Lisa Miles (author of "Resurrecting Allegheny City"), which drew calls from many listeners and called attention to North Side history. Lisa also played violin. One adult male caller noted being moved to tears by a John McCutcheon song ("My Old Man") in which the lyric pays tribute to "(m)y old man (who) grew up on the North Side". I'm glad he was moved by the song; and that I spent 30 minutes or so earlier in the week making sure we had the song; and that I remembered to play it. I had wanted to open the 9 a.m. hour with it, but there was a technical issue; instead I aired it at 9:40 a.m.. Perhaps the caller would not have heard it if I and played it at 9 a.m.

5. A visit at 10 a.m. from Cashew, a beagle at Animal Friends awaiting adoption...and a subsequent 11:50 a.m. call from Animal Friends telling us that listeners subsequently adopted him!

8. The appearance of Billy (11) and Big Brother Jeff during our Big Brothers Big Sisters segment. Both were articulate and loving people. Jeff, a Ph.D. candidate in chemical engineering at Carnegie Mellon explained how Billy helps him keep his life in balance. Billy, an incredible person with 7 siblings, explained why his relationship with Jeff is important to him.

9. The incredible harmonies and songs of Brewer's Row, our 11 a.m. live performers.

10. Hearing from online listeners in Maryland, Virginia and Florida.

Here's a secret...after all this is "The Insider" :)...

...it's our job to make SLB seem "easy". However, planning and executing the program is hard work. Achieving balance is critical, working 100% live can be a challenge, and mixing music with interviews and live performances requires alot of multitasking, thought and, frankly, risk.

Days like today make the effort worth it...nearly 30 years after beginning SLB, we wouldn't have it any other way.