On The Air with Mr. Huntington
A handful of years after I left High School I returned to my old stomping grounds to say hi to a few teachers with the mission of specifically finding Mr. Huntington and catch up with him. This must have been about 10 years ago now. So, I went to the school, caught up with a bunch of teachers, but didn’t find Mr. Huntington anywhere. I asked if he was still with the school and everyone assured me that he was, but he just wasn’t in that day. So I left, somewhat disappointed, but I figured I could come back another day.
As I was walking to my car I heard someone yell out across the quad. “Weiland!” I turned and sure enough, as you might expect, there was Mr. Huntington. Suddenly in my head I had one of those movie moments where we ran across the quad towards each other and embraced with great vigor. In fact, we simply walked towards each other with a hefty smile, shook hands and then gave each other a man hug with copious amounts of pats on the backs to make it as manly as possible.
We got to catching up. I told him how shit college was, he told me how shit all the school teams had gotten. It was good times. I asked how he and his wife, Lacy, were doing and he said good. We got to talking about my struggles with trying to get a full time radio gig and he then told me another one of his priceless stories. It seems his brother, Roland Huntington, had himself become something of a success in radio, anchoring the afternoon drive position at some Smooth Jazz/Easy Listening station up in Portland, OR.
Apparently about two months prior to my visit Mr. Huntington’s Mother, Flossie Huntington, had expressed some interest in going up to Portland to visit her son Roland. Now, I met Flossie once, or as we all called her the Great Mrs. H, and she was a truly amazing woman. Very southern and very outspoken. Mr. Huntingon had a way with words and it was clear where he got that talent from. Mrs. H was a true raconteur in the old style, with abilities well beyond those of the common folk.
But Mrs. H was an elderly woman and while she could get on quite well taking care of herself, traveling was a whole different beast. So, Mr. Huntingon decided to take Mrs. H up north to visit her son. Mr. Huntington taught me years ago that you should always do at least one good thing a week for your mother, whether that’s a simple phone call or lunch or whatever, if for no other reason that it’s just a smart idea. So this trip was going to keep him safe from any doghouse potential for a long time.
They arrived in Portland, set-up shop in their hotel and called Roland to see when would be a good time to stop by. He suggested that evening, so Mr. Huntington rented a car and they made their way over to the studios. It was a really joyous reunion; the three of them hadn’t seen each other in two years, but naturally Mrs. H had many a comment about Roland’s style of dress, weight, his thinning hair and pretty much anything else that was in eyesight of Mrs. H. The first stop set came up and Roland told everyone to put on some headphones so they could listen to him on the radio and instructed his mother to be quiet. “You don’t get to tell me when I’m quiet, Rolly,” Mrs. H responded in the indignant way she always did.
“Mama, just be good. I gotta be on the air and it’s got to be quiet,” said Roland.
“Oh you just shush up. I know how to be quiet. You do your job and I’ll do mine,” Mrs. H responded.
So they put on their headphones, Roland turned on his mic, which quieted the studio speakers. As he took to the air, the following happened.
Roland: “Ahhhh yes, the sounds of Kenny G on Smooth Jazz 107.5 The Storm. We’ve got another 20 minutes of smooth jazz coming your…”
And in the background, clearly heard over the air, Mrs. H just let out with, “Smooth jazz? Smooth jazz? Sounds more like smooth crap to me.”
Roland went absolutely quiet.
Mr. Huntington shouted, “Mama!”
Mrs. H: “Stop that nonsense, boy. Roland’s on the air! He’s got to play his bullshit jazz for the people and there you go shouting out my name.”
Roland quickly wrapped up his stop set, went in to the commercial break, took off his headphones and just stared at his mother. He had no idea what to say because he knew yelling at her would only cause more problems.
Mrs. H said to Roland, “Why you got that face? You look like you gots your grundle all up in a bunch!”
Roland just sat there, dumbfounded. Mr. Huntington got up, told his Mrs. H they should adjourn to the listening room next door to give Roland some space to do his job. No complaints ever came in to the station, despite the fact this was clearly heard over the air. As far as we know, to this day, Roland’s program director has no clue this happened.
Great Story. Almost completely bullshit, but a great story.
