Jack’s Mid-Missouri-Memory: Staying out of Sight

Staying out of sight

I thought of this after watching the “get acquainted with “segment on our KSIS website, that featured me on Monday the 13th of July. Like many people I believe I photograph terribly, and as the years have added more than a little weight to my frame, wrinkles to my face, and enough area to my forehead to post commercials, I have attempted to take less and less photos. The old saying that a person has a face for radio can plainly be applied in my case, which is why I have been satisfied to remain behind the microphone, a faceless voice to which people could add their own features.

I did this when I was a kid, and found I was usually much kinder than nature was to those people who voiced many of the radio shows I listened to as a kid. I do feel some kinship to those radio people of the past when someone recognizes my voice at a rummage sale or store, and while they are kind some wonder why I am not taller, thinner, and with more hair than they had imagined.

Like me radio has changed quite a bit since I was a young man. Radio has gone from a medium that presented stories like we watch on television now. As a boy I listened to what were the first sitcoms, dramas, and variety shows on the radio back then. The difference is in those days we put our own pictures with the words that came out of the radio. I rode the range with Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, rode a spaceship on Space Patrol, and watched Superman leap tall buildings in a single bound, all in vivid color pictures in my mind. Today’s radio is mostly talk shows, news, sports, and songs of all types, but no ranges to ride, or rocket ships to carry us into outer space. We do have stars on the radio today, but with the internet and television we usually know what they look like. Some of us however are better off keeping the mystery of what we look like a secret. That is why the next time they want to photograph me here at the station I think I’ll make it a voice over with one of the young good looking guys here at the station like Kalib or Derrick doing the picture part for me. Maybe then I would get some fan mail. Of course that could cause some shock at garage sales, or stores when someone recognizes my voice. I just they will remember if they do recognize my voice to be kind. I actually am taller and better looking behind the microphone.