...the fact that my chosen career field, radio and TV, was such an ego driven business...and insecure...that one would have to be completely "off your rocker" to choose that as your lifetime work.
Or....in my case....be about 8 years old when you made that decision.
Which was my case... No, ...make that 6 years old.
Thank you, Little Eddie Myers....you nincompoop!
Oh, well. Whatever is....is.
Or was.
Now, that would have been a good decision....for someone like Arthur Godfrey, or even Grady Cole.
But I was neither, I was just Ed Myers.
Nevertheless, I did pretty good....rising to a couple of "Big Time" radio and TV stations in the nation's capitol, Washington, DC. I even hosted a radio show heard all over the world for about 7 years...for the United States Air Force...called Serenade In Blue.......which was the theme song of the bandleader who founded the show.....Glenn Miller. I also hosted a morning TV show in Washington for a few years, which featured just about every celebrity you ever heard of.
But all that happened in about a 10 year period of time.
Then "poof".....it was over.
It wasn't like working at a bank for 40 years....and retiring with a gold watch.
Nope. I got paid pretty good ....and enjoyed a little bit of local fame....rode high for a few years...and ......then it was gone.
So, for the past almost 50 years I've just been.....the guy at the end of the cul de sac in Falls Church, VA. Which is fine with me. Frankly, I got tired of people saying...."Hey, aren't you the guy on TV?"
Many of my fellow broadcasters, mis-inturbreted that to mean ""I like watching you on TV."
No, it probably means simply...."I'm proud of myself because I recognized you from TV. But frankly, I can't stand watching your show."
Up until about 2 years ago, before I retired, I worked out of my home studio doing radio interviews for a major PR company in New York....doing interviews and getting sound bites from just about every top celebrity in the country. I became "phone buddies" with a number of them,,,,for example I read that one of them, Jeff Bezos (originally of Amazon) has become one of the richest men on earth.
He once told me, during the pre-interview banter....that, and I'm quoting now......."Lee, you have made me what I am today...." I interviewed him and wrote the story the day "Amazon" finally turned a profit....One Dollar! But I certainly had almost nohing to do with making him rich!
All this "excitement" is over now....Thanks to modern technology, I was able to work til I was almost 80 years old. the last 50 or so....from HOME!
If they develop a "time machine" before I shuffle off this mortal coil, I'm gong to go back and thank 8 year old little Eddie Myers....and let him know that he wasn't as dumb as he looked, because, all in all....things worked out pretty good!
-Ed
