Category Archives: Personal History

The Summer of ’68

Posted on by
1

The summer of ’68 was a busy time for me. While many of my contemporaries were marching in the streets, I was sitting behind a microphone.

It really got started during April. The first week of April, I was was working fill-in shifts for a fellow Vanderbilt student who did the evening news shift at WLAC. WLAC is a 50-kW clear-channel station. Back in 1968, its daytime programming was aimed at middle-class white Nashvillians. At night, when its coverage area included 28 states and a large part of the Caribbean, it programmed R&B music. It was the #1 R&B station in the country. On 4 April, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated, and I had the news mike at the country’s #1 R&B station.

After that week, I was happy to go back to working weekends on WLAC-FM.

The next station up the AM dial from WLAC back then was WWGM. It was a daytime-only station, one of only two daytimers in Nashville. It had been severely mismanaged, and the owners had gone bankrupt. The station was being run by the Receiver-in-Bankruptcy who was trying to find a buyer who would pay enough to satisfy the creditors. When some paychecks bounced, most of the staff quit. Another Vanderbilt student who had been working as a part-timer at the station was asked to recruit students from the campus radio station to work at WWGM and keep it on the air. I got hired as Chief Engineer because I had a First Class RadioTelephone Operator License. I also wound up with a 6-hour shift as a DJ on the weekends.

When the spring semester was over, I went full-time. Since I was also taking some morning summer classes at school, I wound up with the afternoon drive time shift, 3 pm to sign off. Something interesting happened to WWGM for the next couple of months. A group of college students had their hands on a real commercial radio station, and Ken Bramming, the Program Director, let us run it our way. We didn’t change the Adult Easy Listening format much, but we began being less stuffy and having fun on the radio. The station smiled at the listeners. We played a lot more jazz.

Unfortunately, no buyer was found for the station. At the end of July, it went dark, and I went back to WLAC-FM. Imagine my surprise when the next ratings book came out and WWGM had pulled a #2 in the afternoons. It may have been a fluke, but it was the best set of numbers I ever had. Back then, an FM station or daytime AM station was doing well to even show in the ratings. I was used to 5th or 6th place in a 14-station market (but #1 on FM).

I learned a great deal that summer. One of the things I learned was that I had been amazingly lucky. In April, I’d been at the wrong place at the wrong time but made it through without screwing up too badly. In June and July, I got to be a part of something special.

Being in the radio business was fun, but I wasn’t sure that it was the career for me. I was studying electrical engineering, and the job prospects looked more profitable in other fields. Also, I was an ROTC cadet with a 2-year active duty obligation looming. So when I graduated, I hung up my headphones and went off the Fort Gordon and Viet Nam.

Afterword—WWGM eventually got back on the air as a gospel station. In the ’90s, it was relicensed to Gallatin, Tennessee. It’s present call sign is WMRO. The WWGM call sign is now used by an FM station in the Nashville area.

So here I am, 45 years later, after a career mostly disconnected from the radio business. I’m getting offers for voice-over work. Who knows …

UPDATE—To save my many fans much Google searching, the list of stations that I worked for (talent and/or technical; full-time, part-time, or contractor) includes WLAC, WLAC-FM, WMAK, WNAH, WPLN, WRVU-FM, WSM, and WWGM. And, yes, I got my start at a carrier-current student station, WRVU. I also did some behind the camera work and announce booth work at WZTV. Maybe one of these days, I’ll write about being snowed/iced in at the WMAK transmitter for a week.

Shameless Commerce

Posted on by
Reply

Tip_JarYesterday was sorta/kinda my last day of full-time employment. I’m still on the payroll burning unused vacation time, but I’ve decided that at age 65-1/2 I’m ready to throttle back to part-time engineering work. Of course, that reduces my cash flow, so I’m now ready to take the plunge and attempt to make a few bucks off of my blogging.

The sharp-eyed observer reading this on the Home page will note a tip jar widget like the one on the left in the sidebar. Feel free to hit it.

Memorial Day

Posted on by
1

There’s a parade down Main Street in our small town today and sales over at the mall. There’ll be cookouts and picnics around our neighborhood.

A group of boy scouts will go over to the City Cemetery and place flags on the graves of veterans of wars going back to the War of 1812.

I’ll sit quietly and remember friends who didn’t come back home with me.

Old Soldiers Never …

Posted on by
1

VN Souvenirs… stop telling old war stories.

I was on the phone this afternoon with a friend whose son is in Army Airborne School. The conversation got me to thinking about my time in the service and how long ago it was. A few years ago, I was at a reception, and I meet an admiral. Looking over his decorations, I realized that he was too young to have any of the combat decorations I had received.

I am getting old.

How to Contact Me

Posted on by
Reply

There a bloggers who have very good reasons to try to keep the off-line portions of their lives as private as possible. I became something of a public person while working as a broadcaster in the ’60s and ’70s and have remained one to a limited extent ever since. While there are parts of my life that are private, other than writing a few humor articles under a nom de plume or playing a role as an actor, I’ve conducted most of my affairs under my own name for all the world to see.

If anyone would like to get in touch with me, my contact information is on the Hogewash! DMCA Contact page. Click on the link above.

Note that AT&T keeps a log of all calls coming to that phone number and that emails are logged on a server at my ISP and a local server in my office. Social media trolls are generally ignored. Junk snail mail goes in the shredder and is recycled. Suspected crimes and threats are reported to law enforcement. Oh, and you may want to read The Fine Print (click on the link above) before submitting a comment to this blog.

Please don’t call phone numbers not listed on this website. For example, my old fax line has been reassigned to someone else.

This Afternoon’s Adventure

Posted on by
9

This is what the front door to my house looked like as I returned home from work this afternoon.DoorA

DoorBThe door handle was properly attached and not the least bit loose when I left for work. It appears that while my wife and I were gone today, someone pulled so hard on the handle that the screw at the bottom was striped out of the door. Note the broken material around the screw hole.

Not knowing whether this was vandalism or an attempted break in, I called the Sheriff’s Office and then walked around the house to see if any of the other doors or windows had been disturbed. Nothing else was wrong, and the dead bolt on the front door was still locked. When  a deputy arrived, we went in, cleared the house, and found nothing wrong. Some fingerprints were lifted and paperwork filled out, and the adventure, such as it was, came to an end.

Hmmmm.

One Delight of Spring

Posted on by
2

Crocus.

It’s a favorite flower of mine. I enjoy seeing them popping out of the ground in the late winter and early spring.

Mrs. Hoge has planted them along the walkway from the house to the street and around the cherry tree near where I usually park my car. The white and yellow and purple brightens my morning.

Thank you, Connie.

Back to CPAC

Posted on by
Reply

After driving home from Blog Bash, I didn’t get to bed until almost 3 this morning. We (a member of the Vast Hogewash Research Organization and I) will be back on the road head back to CPAC.

Rather than attempt to provide play-by-play coverage, Hogewash! will be gathering background information that will inform future blogging.

In case you missed the massive coverage elsewhere, Texans Rick Perry and Ted Cruz were a hit with their audiences at CPAC yesterday as were Marco Rubio and Rand Paul.

More later. Stay Tuned.

UPDATE—Oh, one more thing … Stacy McCain won an award at Blog Bash (voted on by his fellow bloggers) for his coverage of the Brett Kimberlin story.

Schedule Changes Because of Snow

Posted on by
Reply

I am telecommuting today because Goddard Space Flight Center is closed to everyone except emergency personnel.

The Congressional hearing on global warming has been canceled. The House Science, Space and Technology Committee has postponed the hearing on “Policy Relevant Climate Issues in Context.”

Say, is Al Gore in town?

A Day at the Range

Posted on by
6

It’s been a busy week, so it was great to go do something relaxing today. Our family took the Walkers, who have been our house guests for the past few days, shooting at a favorite indoor range.

Aaron has been a long time defender of the Second Amendment but has only recently become an ardent practitioner. Mrs. Walker has taken up shooting even more recently. I spent the afternoon coaching her. Most of her practice was done at fairly close range with a .380 ACP pistol similar to one she has. However, after her confidence improved, she tried my .45, and she did quite well for a beginner. The target on the left was shot at 25 yards.Day_at_the_Range20130302.001

Cabin Boy #BillSchmalfeldt’s Fevered Imagination

Posted on by
13

Based on a tweet that Cabin Boy Bill Schmalfeldt sent me today (after I had asked him not to communicate directly with me), he seems to think that he is being victimized by a “right wing mafia cabal.”

Humph! What nonsense.

Mafia? Sicilians? No way. I’m of Scottish heritage. My ancestor William Hoge immigrated from Musselburgh in 1680. If I remember correctly, Aaron Walker’s family roots are in Scotland as well. Stacy McCain’s name definitely sounds Scottish.

Wha daur meddle wi me?

UPDATE—From the posse that seems to be forming in the Comments, CBBS had better make sure that he doesn’t see Birnan Woods coming to Elkridge.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum?

Posted on by
3

I read Breitbart Unmasked so that you don’t have to. That site has put up a post by its publisher, The Watchful Avenger, citing my larger than average collection of firearms as evidence that I’m preparing for a coming civil war.

Sigh.

I had had enough of war over 40 years ago. In January, 1972, I was in Viet Nam serving with the Army’s 12th Combat Aviation Group.

While I believe that the Second Amendment was adopted to insure that citizens would be able to resist the government if it were to become tyrannical, I don’t expect that to happen again in foreseeable future. (Happen again? Yes, we’ve had justified citizen rebellions against oppression, the Battle of Athens, for example.)

Would I participate in such an uprising? I don’t know. Several factors would weigh against that. First, most of my firearms are more suited to target shooting and hunting than 21st century military service. I suppose my scoped .270 would make a good sniper rifle, but ammunition supply could quickly become dicey in a real combat zone. Yes, I do have an AR-15, but it isn’t chambered for the commonly used 5.56 mm NATO/.223 Remington round. Yes, I have some older military rifles as collector items, but, once again, ammunition supply in combat would be iffy.

If I’m supposed to be stocking up for a fight, I’ve got the wrong stuff.

Second, my age. I’m 65. I’m too old for the Unorganized Militia under Title 10 of the U. S. Code (17 to 44, inclusive). I’m even too old to be recalled if I had been a Regular Army officer instead of a Reservist (up to 64).

ASIDE—My draft status (I still have my draft card) is 5A—veteran with completed obligation—and that’s fine by me. I note that the draft status of everyone whose name has been associated with Breitbart Unmasked, if they were of draftable age, would be 4F—physically (Cabin Boy Bill Schmalfeldt and First Mate Neal Rauhauser), mentally, or morally (Dread Pirate Kimberlin) unfit for service.

Would I take sides in a civil war? Probably. But supporting one side or the other would not require a geezer like me to go to the front.

Still, I doubt that a civil war is likely in my lifetime. My reasons for believing that are complex, and may be the subject of another post. Someday.

Another Year Older (and Deeper in Debt)

Posted on by
Reply

So I survived my 65th birthday yesterday, and the country is over the fiscal cliff. Oh well, Mrs. Hoge threw a nice party for me, our traditional New Year’s Eve open house.

There were guests from many slices of our lives such as friends from church, Mrs. Hoge’s gardening and beekeeping, and my amateur radio and blogging. The food was great, and the mix of company made for an interesting evening.

Happy New Year, everyone!

On Surviving a Gunfight

Posted on by
4

Even among my father’s generation, the generation that fought the Second World War, most men never saw combat. Of those who saw combat, even fewer got into what I call a gunfight. By that I mean a deadly encounter on a one-on-one or a-few-on-a-few basis where you meet the person trying to kill you and where you understand that particular person is going to die if you are going to survive. That’s a very different experience from being in large group of men exchanging fire with another large group of men at a distance—what I would call a firefight rather than a gunfight. Neither is a pleasant experience. I know. I’ve done both.

I write from that perspective, a perspective that fewer and fewer Americans share—especially those among our political elites.

I wish that those who have not had the experience of surviving a gunfight would kindly shut up and refrain from telling me what I legitimately need to defend myself. In two of the three gunfights I have survived, the first round that I fired took out the other guy. In the other I was not so lucky. Although I scored hits with all 14 rounds I fired (13 in the magazine plus one in the chamber to start) from the handgun I was carrying, the other guy didn’t go down. (@#*%ing full metal jacket ammo!) Fortunately for me, a buddy with a rifle shot my opponent while I was reloading.

<rant>Don’t tell me that I need fewer rounds in my weapon. Don’t tell me that I need to use less effective ammunition. Don’t tell me that I should wait for minutes when seconds count. And don’t tell me that I can’t be as well armed as your bodyguards.</rant>