This is one of those columns which reminds me of my early days as the news director and sometimes disc-jockey at WMOA radio in Marietta, Ohio.
There were times when I drew the Sunday morning shift. This was, as the kids say, "back in the day." I was young. I was single. I had hair. And I was quite the rascal in Marietta.
So, when I saw on the staffing chart on Thursday that our program director, Larry Steinel, had me signing on Sunday morning I would get - and stay - cranky from that moment until six forty-five Sunday morning when I would roll out of bed (literally. I had a waterbed and the only out of it was to set up a wave and roll out - body surfing, in effect, onto my bedroom floor), jump into my very, very cool Fiat sports car, drive through all of the stop signs and both of the stop lights, race up the hill on the West Side, fumble for the front door keys, dive into the transmitter room, throw approximately the correct switches, run back to the studio, fire up the control board, shove a cartridge into the cart machine, press the red button, starting The Star Spangled Banner - which runs about a minute-twenty - giving me just enough time to run to the bathroom, shake out 12 aspirins, race to the kitchen, start the coffee, fill a coffee cup with water from the water cooler, gulp down the aspirins, swap the coffee cup for the still-filling carafe (without spilling a single drop as was expected of a professional), shake in a quarter pound of plastic cream and the equivalent of 17 teaspoonfuls of sugar, run past the wire machine ripping off a full night's worth of news and weather, throw the door of the control room open and slide into my chair as the National Anthem was ending, to say, "Good morning. I'm Rich Galen, and this is WMOA AM and FM Marietta, Ohio. Now, let's listen to 27 straight minutes of Henry Mancini's Greatest Hits."
All that to say, those of us who took our turns on Sunday morning used to play the "is anyone out there listening" game. So it is with today's column. Other than health, safety, and entertainment types I can't imagine many people are working today.
Permit me quick look back at a year of Mullings.
- The e-mail list has grown to about 22,000 people and the web page gets about 70,000 visitors per month.
- I traveled more than 100,000 miles delivering 62 speeches, lectures, and seminars.
- I appeared on all of the major cable networks and did an uncounted number of radio interviews.
- I wrote 154 columns - almost every one of which had its own Secret Decoder Ring each of which has had, since September 11, a poster from either World War I or World War II.
- There were three long Travelogues - India, Atlanta, and Paris.
- There were two short Travelogues - Paying my car tax, and a trip to Wichita Falls, TX.
All of which adds up to a little over 127,500 words - the equivalent of a medium size novel, which is apt because I made up most of what I was writing about.
Of the 154 columns, I think my favorite for the year was the Memorial Day edition.
If you would like to read it, click here A Memorial Day.
People ask: "Rich. How DO you write these three days a week?" The answer is: It's nothing more than discussing my day with you, in writing.
We got through the Inaugural together, through the early days of the Bush Administration together, through the summer of Gary Condit together, and through the aftermath of September 11 together.
The series of columns following 9/11 are a perfect example. By telling you what was on my mind, you allowed me to shed a good deal of sadness from my heart. For two weeks, the columns ran without advertisements for which I thank the sponsors.
So on to 2002. Off to Pennsylvania next week, then Austin and Illinois. In February there will be a great trip which includes Helena, Montana; Fairbanks and Juneau, Alaska; and Tucson, Arizona. I believe I feel another Travelogue coming on.
Have a wonderful New Year and a great next year. And thank you for staying with me during 2001.
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