More Fist Fights

It was time for the WQUA Christmas party. As I walked in, I had memories of WIRL’s "fowl" get together where they gave you the bird for a bonus. That Peoria station had proved to be tighter than a bull's ass in fly time (as my dad would say. He had an agrarian sense of the absurd – Alexa spelled that for me.) Burl Small was at the party. His brother Len wasn't there because he was at a party for one of the newspapers that they also owned. They called the radio group Mid-America Broadcasting. I don’t remember what they called the newspaper group; it might have been Fred.

I'm sorry about being away for so long but I fell on my writing hand and broke it (OW!) While most of you have been twiddling your digits waiting for me to come back, I took the time to read, "Blubber and Blow Holes, Life in the Arctic Circle," by a rapper named 30 Below. That'll be the last time I believe a book review in the Shopping News!

Where was I? Oh yeah - at the Christmas party, Burl Small was being nice and Flambo was spending a lot on a swell event at the Plantation Restaurant. He sure knew how to throw a nifty (as the old song goes.)

Meanwhile WQUA's programming was all over like a two dollar blanket. Guy Harris got the ax, as did his plans for the Adam Jones Radio Network (2 stations.) Then along came 1966 and more changes. In February Ken Buel came in one evening an introduced me to a pink-cheeked young man named Bob Allen. Well, I said, glad to meet another radio guy with two first names. It turned out that his real name was Gordon Van Waes. A few years earlier he had worked across the river (to the north, in Davenport) at KSTT, as Gordon Van the Music Man. He said he was trying to live that down, so he took the names of Ken's kids. It's a good thing that he didn't get his names from Mr. Flambo's old man or nine years later when Bob and I teamed up people would be listening to Adam and Gus, or even worse, Adam and LaVern. As I remember it, though not too clearly, a collection of announcers came and went that year. I recall one tall skinny guy with a big voice and wrists all the way up to his armpits. He had a Swedish name I can't remember but I do remember he drove a 1952 Henry J. It was a rusty brown with three hubcaps and a windshield wiper that didn't work (on the passenger side.) He had trouble keeping it running. One night he said he was going to Mattoon, IL, as penance. I asked if he thought his car would make it. He said he had put three gallons of starting fluid in his gas tank (I wonder whatever happened to him - don't try that at home, or anywhere!)

Things bopped along okay till spring, then came a big change. I don't remember who the general manager was, but instead of sitting in his office admitting his psychosis and trying to get better, he decided to make me mad and lose 95% of the listeners at the same time. How did he do that, you ask? Okay, you didn't ask but I'll tell you anyway: He put on the White Sox. Nobody in the Quad-Cities followed them. If you lived around there you were either a Cubs fan or you rooted for the Cardinals. (Heck, that was over 55 years ago and even now no one listens to them; they just set an MLB record for losses in one season.) I still did my show from about 10:30 until 1:00, but spending the early part of the evening pushing buttons on smelly Sox got me down in a hurry. I had to put crowd noises on a cart to play in the background. They didn't have enough of their own - that's true! After a week or so of that I went to see Mr. Flambo and asked if I could go back on all night. It was okay with him, so Scotty Bray went back to Ottumwa and nocturnal pugilism was once again heard from 12:00 to 5:30 AM.

-Adam Jones
10-19-24