Wednesday, 2/4

It's probably the closest I'll ever come to fulfilling an impossible dream.

I think I've written in here before about a fanciful dream I have that was actually inspired by a real dream, a dream from a couple of years ago where I was walking through downtown Marquette with a camera. That's something I actually do quite a bit in real life, but in that dream I was walking through the downtown Marquette of the 1930s with my 21 megapixel Nikon DSLR, taking pictures (and hi-def video) of a Marquette long-gone, of buildings no longer there and businesses consigned to history.

It was an amazing dream. Sadly, I know a little bit too much about physics (and the impossibility of time travel) to know that it's a dream that will never come true.

Or...so I thought.

When I was doing prep work for the season of “Pieces of the Past” that we just finished, I came across a treasure trove of photos of Marquette of 1929. They were taken by Robert S Platt, a sociologist working for the American Geographic Society. He was working on an article for the AGS's magazine, and spent a week in Marquette that summer just taking pictures. Now, aside from being a sociologist, Platt also had an amazing eye for photography, shooting some of the iconic pictures of Marquette of almost 100 years ago.

He shot many of the same things I shot in my dream, and that I would like to shoot if I could break every law of nature and head back in time.

I used a few of his pictures in various videos, and then saved the lion's share—some of his best work—for the final episode of the season. I also made them into the last segment of mine during “Legends & Lore III” at Kaufman last month, and I still have people coming up to me to talk about a particular shot of Platt's that has stuck with them.

So, while I know that I'll never ever be able to go back in time and take those pictures and videos, I'm thankful that someone at the time actually did.

And because of that, I will forever be in awe of Robert S. Platt.

(jim@wmqt.com) 

Tuesday, 2/3

Today, whaddya say we have a little fun with numbers?

The first number is 45. In a rare instance of something the predates even me (and that's saying something these days), Q107-WMQT became Q107-WMQT 45 years ago this past Sunday (the 1^st). In a move that I'm pretty sure was borrowed from “WKRP in Cincinnati” an elevator music station flipped things on its head one afternoon, when the elevator music stopped and the rock music began, hosted by a very..unique individual named “Marcus Marquette” (in reality, station co-owner Bob Olson). The older people of Marquette County (including, if I remember correctly, my grandfather) weren't too happy, but a station was born.

And it's been around ever since.

A couple of years later, the rock music left and the station switched to pop music, where it's pretty much been ever since. I've been lucky enough to be the steward of it for over three decades now, and I'm always humbled when I think about the awesome staying power of this place. Very few stations are able to become “:legacy” stations—ones that multiple generations of a family grow up listening to—but this is one of them. Credit for that goes to Joe Blake and Marcus Marquette's alter ego, Bob Olson, as well as Tom Mogush, who picked up the baton from them, and passed it along to the people now entrusted with the legacy, the KBIC.

Of course, to celebrate the milestone we have a contest all this month, our “Hot Rockin' Flame Throwing 45^th Birthday Bash”, in which we're giving almost $2,500 in prizes to one lucky listener. So if you feel like it, listen for your chance to qualify.

It's our birthday, but you might walk away with the gifts. After all, that's one thing at which we've excelled the past 45 years.

And, hopefully, will excel at for the next four and a half decades.

*****

The other number I mentioned at the beginning of this? Well, that would be 18.6.

Why? The reason is right here--

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 2/2

This is going to be a weird week. After tonight, I don't have anything out of the ordinary going on.

As we all know, I've had an amazingly hectic past few weeks, with multiple episodes of “High School Bowl”, my weekly TV 19 appearances, a big History Center show at Kaufman, and the Noquemanon all pecking away at my time, my voice, and my sanity. Well, after I share a few numbers and make fun of Kevin tonight, I then have a week—a week—of nothing out of the ordinary.

Unless, of course, you consider radio as “out of the ordinary”.

I'm not quite sure how I'll handle it; after all, I've spent the past couple of weeks preparing for and then rushing from one thing to another that a few days of down time, a few days when there will be absolutely nothing pressing on my schedule, will seem strange. I can see myself waking up in the middle of the night, thinking that I forgot to do something or have a deadline to meet.

When that happens, I just hope I'll be able to get back to sleep.

How did all this happen? Well, after doing three episodes in the past ten days there will be no “High School Bowl” tapings until next Friday (the 13^th!), thanks to the schedules of the remaining schools in the competition. There's no big sporting event that requires my participation, and after dropping the last episode of “Pieces of the Past” last week I now have no official History Center duties for the next couple of months, when I have a new walking tour on the schedule.

See? It's gonna be a weird week, isn't it?

It's actually coming at a pretty good time, although between you & me it would have been better if it wasn't the beginning of February. In fact, can you imagine what I could do with a free week in, say, July, when there's actually no snow on the ground?

That would be magnificent. But seeing as how I could tell the strain on my voice was growing after shooting “High School Bowl” last Friday, I'll take what I can get.

Because, as we all know, nature abhors a vacuum, which means that before I know it, something—or many somethings—will soon be filling up my schedule and I'll be once again rushing from place to place wondering (as I did several times in the past few weeks) where I am and what day of the week it is.

(jim@wmqt.com)