It all started with Clark Kent.Mom gave me my first comic book, an issue of Superman, when I was six and home sick. Little did anyone realize the affect it would have on my life. By first grade, I needed glasses and picked a pair that most closely resembled the ones worn by George Reeves on the old Adventures of Superman show, then in reruns on New York
Wow. I’d love to say more, like about how I too made sure my first glasses looked like Clark Kent’s, or how my Dad was involved in journalism all his life, and so a lot of what you said resonated with me deeply. But I’ll just say again: Wow.
Actually it was funny that you mentioned WPIX. Despite the fact that I grew in PA all of the cable stations we had carried the FOX station from New York, WPIX and Channel 9, which I think was WOR or something like that.Channel 9 was really cool. For years they would run an Adventures of Superman marathon on Thanksgiving Day hosted by Jack Larson. It still seems really strange to not watch Superman on Thanksgiving because of that.
A few years ago the University of Maryland radio station (WMUC) held a reunion and a bunch of us did airshifts. I’d always been a newsman, so I took the 15 minute evening news shift, falling into old habits in the old newsroom just like I hadn’t left. As I was sitting on the floor with all the stories around me, working on making everything fit time and flow, one of my old compatriots walked by, did a doubletake and said “didn’t we leave you there ten years ago?”You really do fall back into old habits and relationships in situations like that.And, by the way, I hit the top of the hour on the nose.