Jeff Johns. Aimee Clemson. Chico Bormann.
The loss of three more local radio personalities in the face of on-going downsizing and automation in the Erie market is generating a lot of nostalgia among fans these days.
Blog sites are full of mentions of people like Frank Martin or Andy Pressman or a host of other folks who defined Erie radio over the last four decades.
Some have even started a list of old Erie call letters, a tribute to the rich history of the effort of people here to stay connected to each other and their town over the years.
That got me thinking back too, to a 10-year old kid living outside Pittsburgh who would wake up every morning and run downstairs with his kid sister to have breakfast before school.
It was the 1970’s; we didn’t have the Internet or a Playstation or even cable TV.
What we had was a man named Jack Bogut.
Jack was the morning host for KDKA-AM 1020, at the time the dominant call letters for Pittsburgh media.
It wasn’t a breakfast club or a morning zoo. There weren’t three or four people trying to out-punch line each other.
It was a combination of music and news and talk weaved in with stories of prairie life not often heard this side of Garrison Keillor.
Television stations have banks of computers these days to tell us the forecast, but if Jack said it was going to be a “three hound dog night,” you knew that if you needed that many animals in bed with you to stay warm that it was going to be cold outside.
Every Christmas season the station would broadcast for a week at a time in the display windows of the City’s three main department stores.
People would line up to say hello on the air; high school choirs would come by bus to sing carols and for a dollar donation (that raised thousands for Children’s Hospital) each visitor would receive a tart or cider made of the mythical Farkleberry.
What’s a Farkleberry? That’s my point. A Pittsburgher wouldn’t have to ask.
Computers do amazing things, and can program music and commercials more cheaply than a human being can.
But Jack Bogut is among those who know something a computer doesn’t.
He knows that the greatest theater in the world isn’t in Paris or Moscow or New York.
The greatest theater in the world is the space between the ears of a 10-year old child.
Jack’s work framed the Advent season for us. It helped make downtown Pittsburgh a magical place that drew people in for the season. It defined who we were by more than geographic boundary, a tie that bound us together as being from a specific place at a specific time.
We were united by a Steel Curtain defense. We all knew Roberto Clemente roamed right field. And we all knew what time of year it was when farkleberries came to life.
My children have access to more technology than I ever did; computers infuse their Ipod’s and MP3’s and DVD’s.
But they may never experience an art form that seems to be quickly disappearing from the dial in the rise of the machines.
In short, they won’t know Jack.
I’m not sure they’re getting the better end of the deal.
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