By Staff
Where did those 65 years go, and where was I on Dec. 7, 1941?
I was only an 11-year-old kid and I remember it well.
Eugene Biek, my neighborhood growing-up friend for the first 12 years of my life and I were down in his basement playing ping-pong.
I know it was on a Sunday afternoon after dinner.
Gene's mother, Elizabeth, came down to the basement stairs door to tell us the Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor.
An an 11-year-old kid I knew it had to be bad, but I don't think I realized how bad it really was.
Another thing I can remember quite vividly was when Elias Peterson, my co-worker at our old state liquor store next to Flanders' Plumbing shop and I were sweeping down our warehouse floor when my wife, Peg, called to tell us that President Kennedy had just been shot.
This was also just after lunch, but on a Friday.
And I think it was on a Sunday while we were watching TV that we saw Lee Harvey Oswald being shot by Jack Rudy.
As I recall, my two boys and I were lying on the rug as we watched the first moon landing on TV. Was that not also on a Sunday?
My wife and I were watching the morning news and saw the disastrous blow-up of the Challenger that morning live on TV and saw those courageous astronauts killed.
And we were also watching the live news when 9/11 happened and we knew what terrorists could do to our great country.
Well, I see the Niles local radio station, WNIL AM, has now gone the way of Dowagiac's WDOW AM station, which I used to enjoy.
This was all caused by automation or, as they call it, progress.
Some of the people Cardinal Charlie remembers who were on the Dowagiac station were Dick Hedges, Frank Lagerborg, Tom Prather, Pat Smith, Dean Bussler, Craig Larzelere, John Cureton, Don Jobe, Jeff Ryder, Mike Huston, Bonnie Ackley, Jean Fitzgerald and Adele Straub.
Some of the programs I recall and liked were "Bargain Counter," "Dial Opinion" (my wife was a frequent caller) and then some kind of a mystery contest where the first caller to solve the mystery of the day got a voucher from Decatur Auction House (where High's Marine is now). They advertised on the radio station.
My very smart wife won three or more of these mystery contests until the manager at the time said please don't call in anymore or folks will think our contest is rigged.
We still have a solid oak coffee table in our living room we received from a voucher.
Another thing we got was a neat little green metal kids pedal tractor, which I wish we still had.
Should have kept the tractor and got rid of the coffee table, as they are both about 40 years old.
Of course, John Cureton and his daily news programs were always enlightening and his April Fool's jokes he came up with were always quite amusing. Bargain Counter was a nice service for the local people also.
I think Don Jobe, who lived out of town and was the disc jockey, spent the night at the station in one of the bad snowstorms.