The Day My Home Burned
This one’s a bit of a downer – but like an after-school special, there’s a moral at the end, something to be learned from the experience. And it helped shape me into the broadcaster, and the person, I am today.
I was part-way through a Sunday afternoon shift at CKSL when I got a call on the hotline from my neighbour, friend and musician Rob telling me there were firetrucks in front of my townhouse, and it was on fire. You can’t imagine the shock. You think you can, but unless you’ve experienced it, you really can’t. Rob told me there was lots of smoke and that I’d better get home.
How do I leave an airshift mid-stream when there’s no one around to take over? Answer: I don’t. Instead, I make a frantic call to the swing guy who agrees to come right in and I continue with the show as if nothing has happened, do my breaks as usual, and cry my eyes out in fear during commercial breaks.
It was ugly. My (first) husband arrived back home in time for our sweet dog Misty to stumble out, coughing, and die in his arms. We lost everything except a few items from the basement and our two crappy cars. And we were too strapped for cash to have purchased home insurance. We were screwed.
Meantime, back at the radio station, I learned a lesson in professionalism. You never haul your junk on to the air – unless that’s what your show is about. This show was about light fun CHR, pop music, and not at all personality driven unless that personality revealed itself in 10 seconds or less. It was, on with the show, no matter what. So I stayed and did my gig until the swing guy arrived. My husband wouldn’t let me see the place until the next day when our friends showed up to help us clean out the filthy remains of our home. A bastard of a fire marshall inspected it and an arrogant complex owner (now a politician) laughed in our presence at the destruction and called the remnants of our possessions “a hell of a mess, eh?!!”
Our GM, normally a rather gruff and arrogant rich dude, opened his chequebook to us and gave us the terms for repayment: whenever you can. We were overwhelmed and borrowed the bare minimum – just enough to get us into an apartment where we could move in our few smoky things. Soon after, we split up. The fire made the material possession component of that chore easier. It’s tough to fight over…nothing.
The lessons I learned from that day: I could handle anything. Professionals don’t mess up their work because they’re having a bad day. Fire sucks.
I’m horrified when I hear announcers bringing to the air sly little inside jabs to coworkers. Or those who walk out when things aren’t going their way. In my world, you don’t say shit if you have a mouth full of it. If your producer is lazy, your writer gives you bad grammar or you’re fighting the PD – the listener DOES NOT CARE. Howard Stern gets away with it. You and I are not Howard Stern. My philosophy is to do the job, be authentic but always keep in mind who you’re doing it for. Not your buddies, not your PD, not the person who’s made it clear they want your job – it’s for the person who’s chosen to invite you into their living room, kitchen, or along for their drive.
