No way in hell am I spending the night here...

Manchester Ky turned out to be a tough place to live. Nice people for the most part, but very isolated and backwards in many ways. I hired quite a few "outsiders" to work at the radio station and we all had a tough time getting used to the way things were. A very poor place, with not much middle class. Lots of poor people and plenty of quite well off folks who had made money in coal or oil. Manchester was the only
real population center for Clay county so everyone in the county came to town to shop and take care of all their business. I guess when you live in an isolated place you come to accept some things that others mind find hard. There was lots of open corruption in the local government, sheriff's department, school system and elections.

Vicky had also told me about a get together she had with some women she met through one of our neighbors. At some point all these ladies began comparing their handguns they had in their purses. They kept asking Vicky, what kind of gun she had. Of course Vicky had no gun to show these ladies and they were quite upset and surprised. They advised her that in Kentucky, a woman needed a gun, cause if you caught your man cheating, you could kill him and it was legal!!

 Uh, Vicky is still un-armed. As far as I know.

Election night 1980. We were all excited because we had prepared what we thought was going to be an outstanding night of coverage. All hands on deck. Sales folks, office workers, everybody was working
either in the station answering phones or stationed at a local precinct ready to call in reports.

I have always loved putting together election coverage on the radio, but it's a wonder based on how things went in 1980 in Manchester.

We began the evening, covering all the local races with reports from the field. Very detailed reports that included vote counts from each precinct for all the local races. As the night wore on I asked one
of my guys about something I had seen on the way into the station that evening. I told him that I saw
an RV camper parked near the high school and their was a long line of coal miners standing in line by the front door of the camper. At the rear door a steady stream of miners coming out. What was up with that?'
He smiled and said, look, the high school is a polling place and that's just Jimmy (remember Jimmy) paying for votes. I said what! Yeah, he went on, the go in the front door, get a twenty and he tells them who to vote for and they come out the back. Then they go in and vote. That's just the way it works 'round here.

I was floored. Meantime things were heating up with our coverage. More reports coming in, plus national action on the presidential race. So we made the decision to cut back a little on the vote totals from each precinct to allow more time for other matters. This went on for about an hour when one of
our phone folks found me and said, Uh, Jimmy is on the phone for you. Of course I said, you mean that Jimmy? yup.

I went into my office and picked up the phone and said Hello. Jimmy said, you the manager up there? I said yes sir I am, what can I do for you? I'll tell you what you can do, you can put those precinct totals back
on the G.D. radio!! I paid good money for those votes and I want to hear the totals in every single precinct or I'm gonna be paying your and your family a visit.

After all these years when I think about this, sometimes I wish I had told him to go F*** himself. But I didn't. We put the reports back on the air, but it was very discouraging for my staff for sure.

In addition to these scrapes with the local gun toting crooks, I had other negative experiences in Manchester, due mostly to my in-experience. I was determine to make both radio stations sound great and do good work in the community and I had the full backing of the two Williams.

But a lot of the changes we made upset some people. Like changing the times we aired the obituaries. Seems ironic I know. They went crazy about that.

Then I had to have a meeting with a local baptist minister to try and get him to tone down his remarks during his sermon, that we carried live each Sunday morning. He was always attacking the Catholics during his sermon and the local Priest got pretty upset. So I met with the good Reverend. He did not take kindly to
my suggestions that maybe he could ease up on the brothers and sisters down the road.

Once news of my visit with the man of the cloth got out we encountered an advertiser boycott, organized by you know who of course. Plus I was starting to get personal threats, both on the phone and mail.

Then one morning a found a note on my car as I got ready to leave for work. The note said :

gee wouldn't it be too bad if something happened to that new baby of yours

Erin was just a few months old at that point and of course this infuriated me and scared the heck out of Vicky. I went to the owners with this and their solution was to rush through a conceal/carry permit and give me a .32 revolver with a really nice holster that I wore in the small of my back.

I'm very passionate about what I do, but I am not a crusader. It was clear that Manchester was not a fit for me or my family. Most of the folks I had hired from the outside to come and work had already left because they couldn't deal with the culture shock of Manchester.

I talked to my folks back in Rushford and I remember my dad saying : you need to get the hell out of there.
He said, move back home, don't worry that you don't have a job, we'll figure something out.

I began updating my resume, making tapes and sending them out furiously before I resigned, hoping that
this wasn't going to be the end of my radio career.

Meanwhile my dad, my brother Denny and his wife Pam were on their way to Manchester with a pickup truck and U haul trailer so we could get the hell out of dodge.

We had manged to last just a year and although it was not a great personal experience, professionally it was. I made a lot mistakes, learned from them and got to do a lot of things as a General manger that would
give me excellent perspective in years to come.

On the day of our departure it was hot and our second floor apartment presented a challenge with the furniture and all our stuff. By early evening we were loaded up and ready to go and resting in the apartment, drinking water.

I looked around and said, well guys, we're all really tired do you want to get the air mattress out and spend the night and get a fresh start in the morning?

My brother who had been quiet the whole time looked me square in the eye and said, no way in hell am I spending the night here! I've had the creeps ever since we rolled into town.

We got into our vehicles and headed for home.

Next time: You guys were actually living on Potato and green bean soup?