A guy walked up to me Friday afternoon and told me he spent 3 years in the Air Force stationed at Griffiss Air Base n the 1960s.  I looked at him and told him I was there the day the last B-52s left and ended the mission 30 years after his hitch ended.  Then he explained he worked for many years at WTOP in Washington and told me I was as good as or maybe better than anyone on-air in Washington.  This took place at a pig roast on Maryland’s Lower Shore, not far from Ocean City but in a rural culture far removed from the beach.  Once a month a local barbecue joint (a good one I might say) asks me to broadcast live from a pig roast.  People approach me at the Long Neck Diner and tell me at breakfast I’m the voice-of-truth and I think about all the great radio personalities out of work or selling paint at Home Depot.  People stop me at the Millsboro Post Office and share good words and I remember my mom told me I was great the first night I ever worked in radio a quarter century ago.  Mom was and the neighbors are very nice and I wouldn’t expect much else from people I know, however.  A stranger at a pig roast who worked at one of the nation’s great radio stations…

Chris Plante was an award winning talk show host at WMAL in Washington and national broadcast royalty.  His dad is a long term White House correspondent for CBS-TV news.  Chris got pink slipped a few weeks ago at WMAL.  It’s cheaper to put a syndicated show on-air.  I’m working.  I didn’t work for a long time a few years ago and I’m not Chris Plante.  It keeps my ego in check. 

While I don’t think Chris will starve and believe he’ll land quickly on his feet I would recommend he take some time and enjoy his surroundings.  It’s a bit more than two hours for me to drive there but I can’t get enough of the monument with the man setting in the stately chair, his great words on view for all visitors. 

I don’t believe he expected to be carved in stone.  He was a small town guy.  He would’ve appreciated modern small town life.  The pig roasts in Bishopville would’ve been very familiar.  Wednesday I went to the bank in downtown Millsboro and when I came out the door I surveyed a cloudless sky.  A chicken truck drove by.  Across the street at The Country Kitchen the lunch crowd was just rolling in.  If not for work I would’ve grabbed a seat on a bench for an hour to watch it all roll past. 

It’s the illusion.  Life still looks Rockwellian in much of America but I’m very worried.  A homebuilder told me Thursday about the dozens of builders going under.  One fellow had been selling homes between 300 hundred thousand and four hundred thousand dollars.  He sold the homes in his last development for 90 thousand dollars and then declared insolvency.  We’ve not only allowed the Chinese to eat our lunch but asked them to stay for dinner and dessert.  Now we’ll likely farm out homebuilding to Asians.  We can huddle in the shipping containers when those are emptied.

While at the pig roast I saw an old acquaintance.  He cleaned up on Wall Street and retired at 48, living in a lovely beach house in Ocean City.  He’s now selling his house.  He won’t buy another for at least 5 years.  He tells me a voracious government is coming for not only your income but all your worldly goods.  Sovereignty of individual states will be traded for federal bail-outs.  State and local governments will vampirize homeowners with confiscatory property taxes.  Cap and trade will quadruple your utility bills by summer 2011. 

I suspect there is a version of Mayberry in Argentina.  It’s where Andy and Barney haul away the opposition.  They’re now coming for us.  The media is being gutted and voices in opposition will be silenced.  Heck, all voices will be silenced.  The folks on the left demand a Fairness Doctrine as if there are just 2 distinct opinions.  There are dozens.  They can best be represented by an increase in non-syndicated programming. 

I guess we can say the clichéd frog is also finally boiled. 

Editor’s Note:  There is hope.  As of this posting, Blackhawks 3, Darth Vader 0.

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