Interview with Terry Meiners, December 30, 2014

JF: All right. It is almost the end of 2013, it is December 30th, 2013. And we're sitting on a cold gray day outside but ready for some good stuff inside. I'm talking with Louisville radio legend. I can say that, Terry Meiners. Hey Terry, how are you doing man?

TM: Jack, it is a pleasure to sit down with you to talk about our favorite subject, broadcasting. But one of many, we have families we love but we love broadcasting.

JF: We do golf ball together, [inaudible] we go to golf ball and-

TM: Once or twice.

JF: ... the same woods for them at some time, brother. Hey, Terry, let's talk about you for just a minute. You come from an interesting family. The Meiner's family is known throughout Louisville for years now. Let's talk about where you came from and neighborhoods and dad and mom and all that stuff and brothers, how many were you in your family.

TM: I am one of 14, I am number five of seven boys and seven girls born to Mel 1:00and Norma Meiners, and they're both from Germantown growing up. And we lived there until I was seven and then we moved about a mile and a half away over by Audubon Park. And I thought it was a completely different world.

JF: Really.

TM: But being at number five in the midst of all those people, you learn to do things to stand out.

JF: Okay, yeah.

TM: And one of the things that I did when I was a kid was impersonate people like Bill Bailey, who was the morning legend on WHAS radio. My dad would get a kick out that.

JF: WAKY.

TM: Yeah, exactly. WAKY radio. And my dad would just get a big kick out and I'd say, "Good morning, I'm Reed Yadon here with the news." I'd do all that and my dad just thought that was so great.

JF: And that's where I always started really? Did you do other people? Like family members?

TM: But I liked doing Bill Bailey's voice because he was so prominent there on WAKY radio. He was also on WKLO at one point, I can't remember if he was on prior to WAKY but he was a Louisville legend. And I was a little kid. And I know 2:00my dad enjoyed listening to him. So I guess it was a means of getting my dad's attention in the midst of all those siblings, was to say, "Oh, my dad likes that guy on the radio, I get more of my dad's FaceTime if I impersonate him."

JF: Now this was when? How-

TM: The 1970s. I was born in 1957. So I remember like to the late 60s, I think Bill Bailey was on the radio now. That must have been when that started.

JF: I think I heard you say some time ago that you developed your humor also, because with this many people around the dinner table, you only had 30 seconds to make your mark or something. So it had to be quick and funny and-

TM: Correct. What we did is my mom is really a funny person. She encouraged all of us to try to tell a joke before dessert.

JF: Oh, really?

TM: If you heard something funny that day, some levity that was in your life to share that with everybody on the table before we had dessert. And so a lot of people just turned that into a joke. "Knock, knock Who's there?" Whatever. They just wanted to get the piece of pie. So there were a lot of extroverts in our 3:00family in that sense that they felt at least compelled to be a little bit showbiz and just to get a treat.

JF: Anybody else in entertainment or showbiz?

TM: Zero. Most of my brothers and sisters own their own companies. I'm the only idiot with a job. It is the way I always put. The only person answering to some boss somewhere. But I have a lot of strong independent brothers and sisters. But none of them shy away from telling a joke. I think that's where that comes from.

JF: Your dad was kind of an outgoing guy. Mel Meiners was all known throughout. He did a-

TM: He was a milkman.

JF: ... he was a wrestler.

TM: He was a milkman, he was a wrestler before he got married, my mother made him quit right after I think a year or so. He got called back in when my oldest brother was two or something. He was asked to be in some sort of exhibition in Cleveland. And my mother loves telling the story of my oldest brother. He's a 4:00little kid, he's sitting there. And my mom said we didn't have any money. But my brother said he was sworn to secrecy that he was not allowed to tell my dad's identity, because my dad had to wear a mask when he was in this wrestling thing in Cleveland. And my brother asked my mom, "Can we get some popcorn and soda pop?" My mom said, "Oh, we don't have any money." Or whatever. "I'd rather not do that."

TM: And my brother looked at my mom, a little kid looked up and he said, "If you don't give me that popcorn, I'll tell everybody who he is. I'll tell dad's identity." What however he said. He was a wheeler-dealer from the beginning. My dad was kind of like Norman Cheers. When we walked into the grocery store or in church, people would call out, "Hey Mel, hey Mel." He was like the Norm guy. He 5:00has a great big guys, 6'4 probably 300 pounds at one time.

TM: And just well known and gregarious and liked to hug people, put his arms around people and talk to them. And it didn't really dawn on me until later, probably in my... I don't know, 10, 11, 12-year-old stage. That occasion I may go to a store with some other kid and his dad and people didn't holler out for his dad. It was the first time I thought wow, my dad's different.

JF: Yeah.

TM: It was just interesting. And I've noticed too over the years that many of my siblings are the same way. They're touchers, they hug people, big boisterous laughs and I guess we got that from our dad. I know I'm certainly that way.

JF: How about that. Are you--kind of rare to hear that you are a prominent Louisville, but your whole life's been spent here. You went away to college for a short while in UK, where did you go to grade school? High school and all that?

TM: St. Stephen Martyrs where we moved, I told you we moved out of Germantown. I was at St. Elizabeth for one year and then St. Stephen Martyr then really seven, 6:00eight blocks away at St. X High School. So I was able to run to high school every day.

JF: In the same neighborhood.

TM: Yeah, and then went to the University of Kentucky. And wait a minute. It was interesting too. Going to college was the first time I was not in a Catholic school and there was no structure. And I remember like the first or second day of college, it's August so it's hot. And I remember walking to class and a guy came in and sat down in a classroom next to me and he wasn't wearing a shirt. And I could think was, my lord if a nun saw a guy like this, he's just sitting there. And he's slouched down in his chair. Wow, this guy's got to get caught in a minute. Of course that never happened. It was college.

JF: Now that's where your radio career began. Wasn't it? In college.

TM: Yes.

JF: Was it in your mind before? From the Bill Bailey thing, did you want to be 7:00in radio?

TM: I did. I would impersonate Bill Bailey in our bedroom. My brothers would laugh at me. I'd play my little 45's on a record player and then the record would fade out and I'd say, "Good morning. I'm Bill Bailey." And do all that stuff. My brothers thought that was hilarious. While I was still at St. X, I got a chance to go down to WAKY radio and hang around a little bit because of Coyote Calhoun. I met him at St Acts. He came and spoke there once and I said I like broadcasting. And also at St x I ran their little TV stations.

JF: Okay.

TM: So I put shows on. I had my hands on already in high school a little bit. But you're right when I went away to college, Kentucky, I took classes oriented that way but I had just gotten a job at a local radio station in Lexington, just hanging tapes on automated station. So I knew a little bit about-

JF: You flipped the door.

TM: Yes. My technical knowledge was there. A guy who used to work at KLO was at WKQQ as a program director and he let me work on the weekend and overnights. But 8:00I would go to class during the day and hear the professor up there talking about radio and I thought, you haven't been on this room in 20 years.

TM: Because what he was talking about was so far away from where we were. He was taught a certain way and then it was all changing because there was automated radio, which means they just ran songs and I had to change the reels on them and then ultimately, that station went live and I got a chance to get on.

JF: You remember that? You remember your first job here?

TM: Oh, yeah.

JF: What were you? Were you are a disc jockey. Were you doing the funny stuff then? Or just doing-

TM: No. What they let me do, it was album oriented rock and it was a cool station. And they were transitioning it to a live station. And they let me come on one time in the middle of the night to announce the time change. And it sounded something like this. "It's two o'clock. But now it's one o'clock. But 9:00really, it's two o'clock. Here's Led Zeppelin." And then, I just wanted to turn on the microphone and say something. And it was so exciting to get to do that because the program director gave me permission to do that. And so occasionally he would let me just try things on the overnight show. Just to practice talking into the mic because, you know who's out?

JF: Right. And it's all different when you actually turn that mic on, it's different.

TM: Exactly right.

JF: Than doing it in your bedroom and impersonating Billy Bailey.

TM: Right. And the real job though was to make sure that those tapes stayed up on those machines because when they ran out, you ran out of music and the tape was automated. So the five different tape decks would pop on at different times and play songs in a row. And then you had to have some guy there, me the college boy of a minimum wage to change the tapes.

JF: That is as an addition because they were all in computer already, you all are ready to do that. But you, that was cutting edge.

TM: It was in the '70s, right. And then they went live and they got rid of the automation, they put real DJs on and one of them didn't work out and so I was still on the weekends to do some sort of technical stuff. And then they gave me a shot. And when I got on, I started the usual basic announcing just as short as I could. And then I started using sound effects. I was always fascinated by 10:00that. And so I would say pretend like, "All right, I'm going to play Leonard Skinner, but this boss is on my back about cutting the grass around the tower. Again, it's my week to do that."

TM: And then you'd hear a lawn mower, and then it would start up and I'd say, "I'll be back." And then I would fade that sound effect out, the music would come up. And then as the song faded down, six minutes later, you'd hear the lawn mower. And then I act like I was out of breath. "Somebody threw a pile of garbage in the backyard, and I shot out and a bunch of beer cans hit me in the head." Or whatever.

JF: Yeah.

TM: And then I just started playing around.

JF: You did the reaction to that. That was different.

TM: Mostly from my boss who said, "Stop doing that." But I just wanted to experiment and see what that felt like. I'd take a sound effect of a guy chopping wood and say, "It was a cold day and the fire's about to die, chop, chop." And I'd do that and then-

JF: That's very creative.

TM: But I just was using that theater of the mind that I'd probably seen in movies and wanted to try that a little bit.

JF: Anybody else on the station doing that?

TM: No, it's set me apart from them. I just thought I was a little weird. But otherwise, you played three songs in a row without talking and so it was one of those album rock stations where they just wanted minimal input from the human.

JF: Yeah. And you were adding to that a little bit. How long were you there?

TM: Four years. And this is-

JF: All the time during college?

TM: Yes. And Jack let me tell you, this is the funny part. I just got tired of it. I thought I was stuck in the mud and whatever I was making was never going to change. And my brother owned a convenience store in Indianapolis. And he said, "Why don't you try, come up here with me and just try running this for a 12:00while." I said, "Great, I need a break from this. I just don't like it anymore." So I was up there about three months and man, people were stealing from us and somebody stole a case of cigarettes.

TM: Not a carton, a case of cigarettes. So I don't know what that was worth? Hundreds of dollars, whatever it was, it was the same amount as what a car cost at that time. And I was just sick because I couldn't manage all this people. They were just pulling all kinds of tricks on me. And so I started calling around to Louisville radio station to get back in radio.

JF: You found out convenience shop wasn't your bag?

TM: Correct, I was not good at this.

JF: So you just called stations?

TM: I called some of the people because I had some connections from Lexington days. So Mrs. Henson, Louisa Henson at WLRS hired me. And I said, the only stipulation is I don't want to be on the air anymore. I've done that enough.

JF: Really.

TM: So I was hired to be their promotions director. And I loved it. And then LRS is very cool station. And it's 1980 at this time.

JF: Since we're pioneers doing Louisville broadcast.

TM: Great people, just wonderful to me, and they sort of rescued me from my 13:00convenience store, purgatory. That was a good lesson learnt. And then eventually, the evening girl would be sick or the afternoon guy was not there and they'd say, "Terry, get in there, we need to do the afternoon show or do the evenings." And I'd go in and fill in for someone.

JF: And that's how it started.

TM: And then the morning guy, Dan Burgess, left to go to HAS, he was partnered with Ron Clay. And they thought, why don't we try you in there with Ron. He needs a partner in there.

JF: That's how that began.

TM: That's how it all started.

JF: Wow. That's a legend, at Louisville radio and already, at certain age especially you mentioned Terry Meiners, I bring up Ron Clay.

TM: Ron Clay.

JF: What was Ron Clay like? He was an interesting guy.

TM: He was the sweetest person and he was seven years older than I and we really came from different walks of life. He had already been in the military, and he was like the hippie who was soured on life. He had just had another-

JF: Lieutenant Dan.

TM: Exactly. He was just the kindest person, but he just was mellow. And he wanted to be left alone by society. And he loved talking on the radio, and he was funny. In this really dry way, he was hilarious. And then I was the preppy boy wearing the ties in the Catholic school background. And so the two of us put together, made for a real nice oil and water mix, they didn't fully mix, but we were great at finishing each other's sentences.

JF: How long did it take that chemistry? Was that immediately?

TM: Almost immediate. And that's the thing is, you never know how a team can work out. But when personalities are built a certain way, I guess just like trying to find a piece to go on an engine. It's not the original piece, but it's still cracks down on there. And that worked. And so we were able to sort of finish each other's sentences. And then when something would get to be a little edgy in his realm, he would do that and I would pretend to be flustered by it. And that sort of worked. It was all show business nonsense. Of course, we were 15:00both smart enough to know what was going on there.

TM: But Ron was really savvy about creativity on the air. And he taught me a lot of things about challenging authority, which is something that was-

JF: You would never do.

TM: ... certainly not acceptable in my life, no. For instance, we'd call the White House. Call the White House, can you imagine that today? Today, they'd send in a drone and blast you. But Ron would pick up the phone and call the White House in DC and say, "Let me speak to President Reagan. Just tell him it's the show with no name guys. Tell him it's morning sickness team." And the lady would say, "What?" He said, "He knows us, he knows it's Ron and Terry." It just created pandemonium.

JF: You had lot of memorable bits over there. It's great.

TM: Yes. But we were great complements to each other in that, we could fill different realms of comedy and do sounds and do silly voices. And then we just made up things. A lot of it on the fly. And Ron was just very, very creative. And it was a fun thing to do. So we were there for a couple of years, on WLRS and nationally, you know what happens. The competition gets tired of hearing about us.

JF: Yeah.

TM: They call me. Ron was not a business guy. He loved the on air and the creativity, but when the show was over-

JF: It didn't matter.

TM: Yeah, when show was over, he'd go out the door. He was interested in doing any production for the next day or that wasn't his thing. He was just a hang loose guy. And so WQMF is another rock station in town. They've been on a couple of years, and they're marginally successful. But they can't get around this morning team on WLRS, Morning Sickness is the name. And Ron and I are very successful. So they call me and I think we were making $25,000 a year. I'd been 17:00kicked up to $25,000 from 18, which was a significant change clearly, not too long before because they thought this show's getting more valuable. I had no idea what Ron was making. Anyway, QMF calls, and the guy says-

JF: What year was this?

TM: The end of 1982.

JF: Okay.

TM: It goes on for a week or so. 10 days of talking. He said, "How about $32,000 each?" I was like, "Well, I was making 18 a couple of weeks ago and now I'm making 25. And now I'm about ready to double my money. How fast can I get there?" I mean, that's the way that...

JF: Sure, yeah. You are a young guy.

TM: Yeah, I'm 28 at the time, so he's 35. And I called Ron he goes, "Whatever you think is right." I mean, he just-

JF: Is that right?

TM: We love the Hensons they were great to us. But he had three kids.

JF: Was he a Louisville guy?

TM: No, he was from Binghamton, New York. And I wasn't married, Ron had a family to take care of. And I mean, that was I guess a significant raise for him because I know my pay had gone up significantly. Anyway, we meet at the Bristol Bar and Grill right around this time of year, right at the end of 1982. Last week of the year. And we're sitting there having dinner in the front window at the Bristol on Bardstown Road, with John Otting, who owns QMF. And then in walks one of the owners of WLRS.

JF: Oh, my goodness.

TM: Who's Lee Masters, who's a great guy, but he's a partner with the Hensons. He looks over, he sees his morning team sitting with the competition ownership. Yes, right away. And John Otting stands up and he says, "Hello, Lee. I think you know, Ron and Terry." That's what he said. And we just sat there with, "Hey." It was weird. And they already had contracts drawn up and that I had already had approved from a lawyer.

TM: So we had already moved that far along, and the papers are out. And that's all he said. And then Lee Masters went on to the another part of the restaurant. But we knew, then we finished our dinner, and John Otting said, "If I were you, I'd go get your stuff out of the station. And you start tomorrow morning on QMF."

JF: Wow.

TM: So we go down to the station, Lee Masters has called his partners, and Louisa Henson is waiting there at the station. And we walk in or I walk in, Ron hadn't come yet. I went there straight from the dinner. And she's standing in a doorway with her arms up high, touching outside the door and her legs down touching the corners of the doorway, and she said, "Don't go past me." And I said, "All I want to do is get my stuff." And she just said, "If you touch me, you're not allowed to touch me."

JF: Wow.

TM: She was very serious about it. She just said, "We're going to work this out, don't." I said, "But I just want to get my personal effects." And she said, "No, 20:00we're going to go to court and work this out." And ultimately Lee Master showed up and he said, "Let him have their stuff." So I let him have stuff. So I went in and got my things. I don't know how Ron cleared his out later. But I took all my things out of my little area that I had there and walked out. And that was the end.

JF: That was it, wow.

TM: I went home, and it's, let's say nine o'clock at night, a man pulls up in front of my house. I'm living in a duplex. And he's sitting up there, and this is the early days of what we called car phones. Car phones. Ring, ring. My girlfriend was there with me. "Is Terry there?" She said, "No, he's not." He called 10 minutes later, "Is Terry there?" "No, he's not." He's waiting to serve a subpoena. They got a judge to sign a cease and desist or something. I knew it.

JF: So you couldn't go on the air.

TM: Correct. They got the game in motion right away. Ron lived in Indiana, so he wasn't subject to the same situation. And they didn't know where to find him. So this guy just stay parked in front of this house. And he would call every so often. And then we quit answering the phone, but we're in a duplex. So I call 21:00the girl who lives downstairs, "Can I use your car?" And yeah, she loved being a part of it. So I went down the back steps, at four in the morning or whatever. And she gave me her keys. And I went out, took her car out of the back and drove over to QMF, over in Southern Indiana and got on air. Ron was already there.

JF: That's how it started, wow.

TM: So we got on the air and we pretended this whole war format takeover, we kicked in the door and through the regular QMF morning man off the air, and said, "That's a takeover. It's a coup."

JF: When did that occur to you, all the way in that morning or something?

TM: We talked about it really at that dinner. So we did it the next morning and it was a takeover. And I mean, of course all the TV stations show up and in the newspapers there.

JF: More publicity.

TM: Yeah, it was complete insanity that morning. And then after a couple of 22:00hours, they taped a cease and desist order from the court onto the glass, which technically really didn't matter because we were in Indiana and that was a Jefferson County, Kentucky District, circuit judge who signed it. It was irrelevant over there. But they finally, the QMF people came in and said, "We think we've milked this cow long enough now, you guys come on in off the air." And then we had to go to court that day.

JF: Oh, my God.

TM: So yeah, they had hired Wyatt Tarrant and Combs to defend us that day, and they went to court. And the judge went through everything and WLRS made their case and said, "We have a verbal agreement." And we said, "No, you don't, we don't have any verbal agreement. And we've signed this agreement with QMF." So the judge took an hour or two and he came back and he said, "I'm going to let you boys switch stations, but you cannot use the names of the sketches or the name of the show. Those remain the intellectual property of WLRS."

TM: So Morning Sickness, we had to give up and the names of any of the sketches. So that's why we call our new show, The Show With No Name. It was taken away by law. And we started, we did that whole media war thing and it was hilarious and got us a great springboard and we never looked back.

JF: That's a significant part of the Louisville radio lore.

TM: Yeah.

JF: That's amazing.

TM: Yeah, it was fun.

JF: What about your sketches? Did you create new sketches or give them new names?

TM: No, we gave them new names. Celebrity Deathwatch became Celebrity Deathrace or something like that, they were just alterations on things that were already there.

JF: Did you have people at LRS who were part of your sketched voices for you or anything? Did they come over? Or did you have great new things? Or they were all just you and Ron?

TM: They were mostly us. We had a few people over there. And of course, we didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings at WLRS. We loved our co-workers, but it was just a matter of like I told you almost doubling my pay in a matter of a 24:00month. Who wouldn't do that? I mean, it's the thing you love. And of course, you and I both know from being in this business, publicity is good. And that gave us an enormous amount of publicity because then all the TV stations were yapping about us for several days and following us to see what happened.

JF: You made a lot of progress in a radio career in a very short amount of time, from starting from a guy who's switching tapes to this kind of publicity. That's amazing. What-

TM: And getting robbed in a convenience store.

JF: When I hear you were at QMF and you're having good success, this was 1982 or?

TM: Right at the beginning of '83.

JF: '83. While in 1985, you came to WHAS.

TM: I did.

JF: But that had to start in 1984 sometime, how did that all come about? What was going on there?

TM: It was actually in 1985 in the winter of 85, a salesperson from HAS called me and said, "The afternoon shows going to come open on HAS, if I were you, I would apply." I'm like, "That's an interesting note." So I thought I'm 28 years old, I'd like doing this team thing but I want to go to a grown up station. I would much prefer to be on a grown up station. Bill Cody was apparently leaving 25:00HAS radio to go to Nashville maybe, I think that's where he was going.

JF: Actually was going WKLO, I think he was going... I may be wrong about that.

TM: Or CII.

JF: Yeah, CII. He went over to the country station.

TM: He was leaving. Okay, before he went to Nashville. And then you came in and started doing afternoons until they were going to fill that.

JF: I started in January of '85. Because you had a contract obligation, and you couldn't come on the air.

TM: I was contractually bound to QMF on a three year deal but-

JF: But that's right, because Bill left and I started in January, then you started talking to me till the spring of '85.

TM: Correct.

JF: And you couldn't come on the air till like December.

TM: Correct. Exactly right. So maybe, let's say, April, first heard out of 26:00somebody at HAS.

JF: Were you surprised of that?

TM: Yes, very much so. But the person I knew who was in sales at HAS was a friend of mine. And when he said, that's the way he said it, "If I were you, I would apply." That's Cody. And what it turned out to be, is HAS didn't want to infringe on my contract, so they just had somebody float a trial balloon, kind of saying, "Would you be interested?" So I immediately went and wrote a letter, 84 reasons why you should hire Terry Meiners. And then I just thought of 84 different things. And I sent them over to Denny Nugent, who was a program director. And he later told me, he said, "As soon as I open and read." He said, "I knew I was going to hire you."

JF: Then he was a sharp guy, really and a good programmer.

TM: And he talked to me a lot about listening to us on QMF and listening to what we did and our contributions and he thought, I can tell that that guy would be great for us.

JF: That'd be a good transition for you.

TM: Yes. And it worked out nicely. It was sad, the departing of QMF. I didn't want to do it, because it felt weird, but I knew it was the best thing for my career. And I head up to the same lawyer who wrote the initial thing to go to 27:00QMF, write a letter of departure. And he wrote essentially, this, "According to the terms of the contract, Terry Meiners wants to leave starting immediately, he will stay here another six months to help you transition in a new partner for the morning show that he is leaving. But his non-compete starts ticking immediately." So I had that all written up, and I got off work on that Friday and Ron was off that week. So I was by myself.

TM: The show was over, I walk into John Otting, the general manager, station manager and owner of QMF. And he always treated me very well. And I said, "Can I see you for a minute?" And he said, "Yes." And I handed him the letter. And he read it. He's sitting in his desk and he read it. And then he looked up at me standing there in front of him and he look back down and he read it again, and then without saying anything else, he just looked at me and he said, "I think you better leave."

TM: He had kind of an explosive personality and could really scream and holler and get wild with people but he never treated me that way, the whole time I was there from '83 to here it is middle of '85. And he did not blow a gasket like I thought he would, but they told me later he was pretty upset with me.

JF: Sure.

TM: But by the time I got my stuff... I was allowed to get my stuff.

JF: He didn't stand at the door, right?

TM: And then I left and drove home and when I got home my phone was ringing. It was Bo Wood in Cincinnati and he owned WEBN and part of QMF. He was partners with John Harding and QMF. And the phone's ringing and I picked it up and he said, "Come on." He said, "What are you doing?" He said, "HAS is trying to do is hurt us. We've got momentum in this market, we're doing very well and they're just trying to break it up." And he said, "All they're going to do is sign you to a deal and then fire you in two months just to break up with what they've got going."

JF: For one thing, that's a big departure for WHAS.

TM: Right. That's what he said. He said, "They don't want you on their station, you don't belong on there, you belong on a rock station where you are." And he said, "I tell you what, over the six month non-compete, why don't you come up here to Cincinnati, co-host the morning show with my sister." She does the mornings on WEBN, Robin Wood is her name. She used to do in back then. And he said, "You can just co-host with her and we'll talk this thing through." And I thought about it a while, wow I love EBN, I'd love that chance but no thanks. I told them no.

JF: Wow.

TM: And so this is the end of May, it's right around Memorial Day weekend. I think it was the Friday going into Memorial Day weekend. And HAS had pretty much told me quietly through some surrogate, just lie low for a month, just don't do anything for a month. That weekend's also the weekend where the Sunday Magazine came out and Ron Clay and I were on the cover. And they had already written that 30:00story. It was already in the bank, and I knew it was coming out but I had to wait until that.

TM: So that was another big boost for our career and then later they had announced I was gone. But what HAS did that was smart is they had me come in on 1st of July of '85, fill out all my paperwork. And they thought, "You can't be on the air until December 1st, since you quit at the end of May, 1st of June. You can't be on until December one. So why don't we have the other guys on the station talk about you and then once a week, you go out and work some listeners job and give them the day off with pay."

TM: So I would go out and say, "Work at a bakery." Or, "Work at a loading dock." Or, "Work at a department store." And whoever is placed, I was taken to the person who sent in a card or whatever and said, "I want Terry to work for me." They got their day off work, but still got paid. And I went in, and then all the guys on HAS could talk about, "Here's what Terry's doing today." Do you remember that?

JF: I do. I remember very well. Yeah.

TM: And that's how-

JF: They had to be an interesting time for you, though, to go from most creative juices, for six months, what did you do?

TM: It was unsettling because I was afraid I would lose my mojo.

JF: And you were not with Ron anymore.

TM: Correct. I was on my own and then I was afraid I was going to lose that creativity that we'd had churning every day. And it was a little unnerving.

JF: I can't remember, did you go into the studio and produce beats? Or anything-

TM: Yes

JF: I thought you had it. I thought-

TM: I spent time writing intros and then I worked with a guy named Randy Davidson, who's a brilliant impressionist, and he was already working there at HAS and AMC. He and I invented together a character named Buzz Baxter, who was a fake announcer but it was based on like Don Pardo from, "Saturday Night Live," that kind of, "Delivery".

JF: Yeah.

TM: But we made him a big mama's boy, he lived with his mother. His mother would take the daily newspaper and clip out the story she didn't want him to know. And he would always say, "I have to run that by mother." And one of the things he 32:00would say on one of our intros was, "This show my mother is hatin'. She says Terry Meiners is Satan." It was fun writing that kind of stuff and it helped me stay creative through those months. So I wrote a lot of intros for pieces.

JF: Had to create new characters.

TM: And Buzz Baxter was brand new. And there were several new characters that were able to-

JF: I remember Paco Bell.

TM: Paco Bell wasn't just made up. That was just a made up thing I could use because I didn't have a partner anymore. I needed someone to bounce things off of just for the nature of what I was used to do.

JF: But Paco couldn't talk to you.

TM: Paco couldn't talk.

JF: Why?

TM: He was an illegal immigrant. He had come over the fence near El Paso, Texas and got his tongue caught on the barbed wire. He couldn't talk. So he only spoke to me via chalkboard.

JF: It was scratchy.

TM: Yeah, you would hear the chalkboards. And I'd say, "What are we going to do next? Play that Sinatra parody." Or whatever. "Oh, yeah." While the scratching 33:00sound was on the air, it gave me a chance to collect the thought. And so that was a good little-

JF: Interesting.

TM: Comedic tool that I'm sure people have used a zillion times in some capacity, but it gives you a pause, so that you can collect the thought and then the listener waits to hear what the guy's writing on the board. It was pretty smart. Turned out in retrospect.

JF: By the way, did you study comedy or anything? Was there anybody that inspired you or anything?

TM: No, but I loved watching guys on TV with my dad again. The Roast, The Dean Martin Roast or shows like Carol Burnett, Jackie Gleason, anywhere where someone would do stand up or sketch comedy, I thought was phenomenal.

JF: Now, I'm trying to think of some of the other characters, of course you had the Bizzman.

TM: The Bizzman has always been on.

JF: Joe B. Hall.

TM: You have to because there's such a passion for basketball in the 34:00Commonwealth Kentucky. You have to have a Bizzman character in.

JF: Danny Crum?

TM: Yeah, Danny Crum. Randy did that voice, "Hello, folks. I'm Danny Crum calling you on my complimentary cell phone from inside my complimentary Cadillac where I'm wearing complimentary clothes from JoS. A. Bank." Whatever it was. And Howard Schnellenberger, I just spoke with him a couple of days ago. He's doing great. But-

JF: A lot of publicity.

TM: He did. Exactly right. I would run my voice through a harmonizer, "Gift jockey, you know good poor excuse for a man." But I would always pretend like he was driving his big Cadillac up to the windows, but he didn't know how to drive very well. So I'd say, "No, don't." And you'd hear the car crash through the glass. And then he got out and he'd, "Bald head over here you sissy." And you'd hear a match striking sound and finally the match would light and he'd light his pipe. And then he picked me up by the ankles and dumped my head in the toilet and tell me to do five push ups and what a poor excuse from man I am and all that.

JF: That was great. Other can do Trubba Man.

TM: The Trubba Man. The Trubba Man is a character from National Lampoon. They had a radio hour and they had the Trubba Man. And that was like an Ann Landers sort of thing, "There's a big tough guy."

JF: His voice again run through-

TM: Yeah.

JF: You do mostly voice-

TM: I do a lot of them. I don't do many anymore because my vocal cords are shot.

JF: All those years of doing those things, huh?

TM: That's exactly right. I used to do Joe Dean's voice and Dick Vitale. And they all require a lot of [inaudible].

JF: Yeah.

TM: But so much pumping it and now I can't do them anymore.

JF: That's interesting. You're also very good at including people you worked with, Milton Metz, fans, people like that Wayne Perky. You did a lot of things with those kind, real characters.

TM: It was easy to do... I made our building 84 stories high and then ran an elevator sound effect. And then I would just say, "I'm going to go to the human resource's department." But it wasn't really about going to the human resource's 36:00department, it was to let people hear the different floor names. And I'd just say, "Oh, man, I'm so tired. I stayed up and watch that Philadelphia Eagles game last night, ding! 44th floor, Wildcat museum." And then you'd hear people arguing, "UK and UofL Peace Therapy Center." Or whatever. And then the door would close and then I'd start talking about something else again. But it's really just to see use different floors.

JF: Those ideas just come to you to in the middle of the night?

TM: Yes. I used to write them down. And I milked the elevator cow a lot. I liked it because it's fun, because what I did is, I took about five different cartridges that we use different ways to deliver sound now, but we had eight different machines in there and five of them would be different floors. So that way, I never knew what floor was coming up next.

JF: So you had to make it up.

TM: It'd be the 44th floor then the 13th floor then the 66th floor and then the ninth floor and never made any sense. But that was the beauty of it.

JF: Making a difference is right?

TM: Yeah.

JF: Now you just mentioned something about the changes. At that time you were in the building on Chestnut Street, 520 West Chestnut, you were there for several years. Physically, was that a challenge for you? You run your own board and everything then, didn't you?

TM: I did, yeah.

JF: You have a lot of bits to do with cartridges then before computers and everything.

TM: But I liked managing my own sound. I still do to a great extent manage my own bits and music. And now I have a producer who runs the commercials. I used to run those too, who runs the commercials and the various promos and things. I don't pull that anymore. But the downtown building was phenomenal. It was-

JF: WHAS, original song. That was nice because you could use the television people too.

TM: Right. And yeah, we impersonated and loved the TV people. I just had a nice 38:00conversation on TV a few days ago with Frank Hudson, who used to be a news anchor there. And Randy would lampoon him, "I'm Frank Hudson." It's a lot like Ron Burgundy. "I'm Frank Hudson news stud a real live anchorman." And then I had two women who worked in the office. Called themselves the News Lissas because we had two news casters named Melissa.

JF: Oh, yeah. Melissa Forsythe.

TM: Forsythe and Swan.

JF: Melissa Swan, yeah.

TM: So they would say, "We're the News Lissas." But they would speak in unison but they would crack on each other because they were jealous of each other. "We're the News Lissas. If this topics about football talk to her. She knows all about pigskin." Something like that.

JF: That was great, good stuff.

TM: And Frank Hudson, his name just came up again because of this Anchorman Two movie that came out. And he now works in Pennsylvania. He's out of broadcasting. 39:00But he was not happy when we'd have Randy say things like, "Hello, ladies. I'll be hosting the news tonight, bare chested in front of a fireplace stretched out on a bear skin rug. There'll be two champagne glasses. One for me and one for you to imagine belongs to you."

JF: That sounds like Patrick, who's your other character you used?

TM: Patrick Corneille.

JF: Patrick Corneille...

TM: Now, he's still on. We have another voice guy who does that?

JF: Yeah, I hear him now.

TM: He's on today's matter of fact. I wrote a sketch for him today and the Bizzman today.

JF: "Don't you know who I am?"

TM: "Don't you know who I am. He's a faded Hollywood star and he's looking for liquor for New Year's Eve. And he also because UPS had trouble delivering packages here over Christmas. He's still looking, he ordered a box of prostitutes from Nevada, and he doesn't know where they are. They're in a refrigerator box. And Patrick's Waiting for them."

JF: Is this still fun for you to do?

TM: I love it every day.

JF: Yeah.

TM: I wake up every day and laugh about life. I mean to me it is an attitudinal 40:00thing. Rick Pitino taught me a lesson several years ago.

JF: You could come very close with him over the years.

TM: Yeah, he's been great. Pitino and I in '90... I'm going to say he came in '89 so like '91 he had his assistant sports information director call me because he'd heard about the parodies we do and then we would do, "I'm Oscar Combs.", "And I'm Dave Baker." On the UK cat calls Colin Show. "Hey, I'm Oscar Combs and we're going to tell Wildcat basketball."

TM: And then Dave Baker always sycophantic kind of guy. "I love the cats, the cats are great, the cats are going to do this and the cats are perfect." So I bounced both of those voices back and forth. And then they would take calls from listeners who were Wildcat plan. "Hi, this is Eric White from Pikeville what 41:00time is the game--is Richie Farmer going to play and I hang up and listen to your answer." They always say I'll hang up and listen to your answer.

TM: Anyway, Pitino had heard about these things. And he asked for a tape of them. And so I made a cassette tape recording and send it over to Lexington. And then-

JF: He's at UK?

TM: He's at UK. Yeah, he's UK. His coach been there a year and a half or so. The next day, after he receives them, I get a phone call and it's Rick Pitino. He goes, "Hey, why don't you go on a trip with us?" I said, "Great." He said, "We're going to Georgia tomorrow, come on over Lexington." And I said, "Okay." So I just told the boss, "I need tomorrow off." So I went over and got on the plane with the Wildcats and Pitino I just looked at each other and he knew that I was the odd man on and then we've been buddies ever since.

TM: Yeah, he didn't know me from Adam except for the radio parodies. And then when his first book came out or one of his books, Blue Color. It may have been his first book. My dad called me and he said, "You're in the book. You're in 42:00Rick Pitino's book."

JF: Oh, my God.

TM: Well, doesn't matter what else I've done in my life. I was in Rick Pitino's book. And he wrote something about how those tapes made his team laugh. He said, We were waiting on a tarmac for a plane, it was delayed by mechanical issues or whatever. He said we just pop in one of those tapes from this guy in Louisville. And he said it was this crack up our players because they were parroting our fans.

JF: How about that? Wow.

TM: It was great.

JF: And you've been buddies ever since.

TM: And Pitino taught me a lesson, a very strong lesson several years ago and he said, "You know what? Your 53 or whatever." He said, "Look at it realistically, you have 20 to 25 more years of being really physically able more than likely, you have that much time." And he said, "You have to look at that, as that passage is, this is a time to do your best work in life. Because you're smarter than you've ever been. You still have your physical capability of doing 43:00everything." This is kind of a message he gives everybody in our age bracket.

TM: And he's very good. Pitino has been so good to me about just being an encourager and also remembering to deliver that energetic punch that reminds you, don't let today which happens to be December 30th 2013. Don't let it just evaporate without you making your mark on it emotionally.

JF: Interesting.

TM: Love your family, tell them you love them. Work hard, do your exercise but work hard at something to achieve something. So at the end of the day, when you close your eyes, you still feel like, God gave you this day and that you use it out of respect to the Lord for granting you your life that you just didn't let it go away and just throw it away like a candy wrapper.

JF: Interesting.

TM: And so I think about that sometimes then I think you know what? I'm now 56 years old. And I think that's interesting. Clearly, I'm not going to live to be 44:00112 so I'm well past my halfway mark. And as that passage narrows, I do want to make sure that I just crank the engine as hard as I can. Because there will come a time when I'm unable to swing my arms and hit a golf ball or to host a radio show or to have the Cognizant awareness to be able to host a talk show for four hours, it's hard to do it.

JF: It is. People don't realize how much energy goes into something.

TM: Right.

JF: Yeah.

TM: But it was good at Pitino to do it. I mean, he's an interesting guy. He works harder than anybody I've ever known. He's just a fascinating character and has been a great asset in my life.

JF: It's a compliment to you too though, because a lot of people who would want that from Pitino but he knows where somebody is going to listen and pay attention.

TM: True.

JF: That's a compliment.

TM: And I've seen him go through a real tough time too. Because he messed up in his life, he had a very public affair situation that wound up in the news and humiliated him. And it really I think helped him grow a lot too. And he says it 45:00about himself. He wasn't humble enough, and he wasn't this and he hurt people so deeply. And I think, rewired him. And so all the other people that are connected to him and in some capacity, are moved to see the transition, and learn from it. And if you don't learn every day that you're on this earth, you're not paying attention. That's the way I feel-

JF: That was lesson to learn, one way or the other.

TM: Yeah. And my parents are gone now. And I just missed them. But I think about all the joy and the laughter and the inspiration they gave all of us. And so I think about it every day too, some day, I was telling my parents I know they'll be in heaven. In fact, my mom died in 2005. And it was just horrible for us. Just horrible. She had aneurysms in her head.

TM: They operated on her and she didn't live, she was in hospital for 11 weeks, my dad was crushed. And he'd cry. "I don't think I've been a good enough person. I don't think I'm going to go to heaven. I don't think I've been good enough. I wasn't good enough to your mom. I wasn't this, I wasn't that." I said, "Dad, I 46:00know you're going to be in heaven. I saw you there." I had a dream one night, it was astounding. I'm standing on a side of a road. And I've got this bag with all these papers on it. Like I've got a report for some sort of severe duty or meeting or something intense.

TM: And I'm really nervous about it. And I looked down the street. And it's a beautiful day. And there's my dad. And he looks like he did in his wedding picture. And he's sitting in a truck. My dad was a truck driver.

JF: Okay.

TM: In real life. And it's a white car carrier truck and there's no cars on it. And he makes a joke. I don't remember what it was about the truck not working right. And then I look over and there's my mom standing on the side road. And she looks like she did on her wedding day, from pictures. And she just looks at me and smiles and she gets in the truck. And slides over on the seat. My dad 47:00puts his arm around her and they both looked at me with this complete serenity.

JF: Wow.

TM: And then it was like, "Cross the street. You're okay." And so I crossed the street, now walked to this building where I had to go in for some sort of intense meeting. And there were no handles on the doors. And I thought how am I going to get in here. And all of a sudden the door flies open and out walks a young man past me and then the doors open. And I went in and then the dream ended.

TM: Well, I later realized that young man who came out was my nephew who died when he was 20 years old. And that my parents were together.

JF: Oh, my God.

TM: And I think I was given the vision. So I could relay it to my dad. And my dad was crying in this nursing home over here, right down the street at Nazareth home. And he said, "I'm not going to get into heaven." And I was able to hold my dad's hand and say, "Dad, I saw you there. I saw you there. You're going to be fun. You're going to be with mom. I saw you there."

JF: Wow.

TM: And it just gave me some peace. And I think helped my dad. I don't know how much of it he took in at that time. But for me, it was very comforting.

JF: You knew. Yeah.

TM: I mean, all I can tell you Jack, I woke up from this dream. And I felt like I'd been floating. It was unlike any other feeling I'd ever had before. It was something angelic about it. Something beyond the realm of the normal dreams that you have.

JF: Interesting, wow.

TM: Because my mother had been gone for a year.

JF: Wow.

TM: And my dad really struggled with it. It was horrible. But all that stuff taught me again, back to square one here. Get all you can out of your life. And I try to do that every day in my work and I try to be kind to people and remember that this is a quick ride here and you got to honor your maker for putting you here.

JF: You know something reminds me of your humor. You are humor and you can stick the BB in well, but you're kind with it. If that makes sense. You're not a bitter, angry person.

TM: No.

JF: It's funny.

TM: Yeah.

JF: And it stings when it needs to sting. But it's not lasting. And if they feel 49:00offended by it, they should.

TM: Yeah.

JF: That's the point.

TM: Well, I have done parodies of a lot of governors and senators and Congress people over the years and they're probably-

JF: Wallace Wilkinson, the governor at the time.

TM: Oh, did you see that for real?

JF: Yeah.

TM: You know what? I was walking out of the back door and I would parody, I was the voice of Wallace Wilkinson and I really took that voice from Mr. Haney on Green Acres. "Hey, hey, Martha. Cook up some possum, Martha. We're going to sell everything we can here in the Commonwealth, Kentucky." Well, one time our ratings had slipped a little bit and DJ X beat me in the afternoons. And then the next rating book came out and I was back on top but Wallace Wilkinson was informed of that somewhere.

TM: So one night, I'm walking out of the HAS building and it's an electric door. And I turned sideways talking, "Hey, yeah, I'll see you tomorrow." Whatever and 50:00I walk out the door, bam, I walked right into the governor. And he looks up and he sees me because he's a foot shorter than I am. He looks up and he sees it's me. And he turns to the state trooper and said, "Arrest this man." And then he grabbed me by the arm. He said, "Did your ratings ever get any better?" He knew that he was waiting to throw that with me. And I was able to say, "Oh, I'm back in first place. Thanks for asking, Governor."

JF: That's wild. Well, you are also in a unique position. You are sort of a bridge between the Binghams and Clear Channel. Binghams still owned this place when you there, I believe.

TM: Yes.

JF: For that's the short while. Do you have any contact with him at all or?

TM: Yes, senior and junior. I didn't get to say much to Barry Bingham senior, but thank you. I mean, he was there. Bob Morris hired me. Danny Nugent was the program director as we noted, very creative guy.

JF: Who was the instigator of the phone call.

TM: I think Denny Nugent.

JF: He was a sharp programmer. He knew, yeah. But anyway, back to the Binghams you-

TM: Mr. Bingham, I just remember thanking him for letting me be a part of this. And then Barry Jr. I called a couple of times, I think he went on the air with me at least once about some nonsense but I like doing that in the early days, you'd call the power centers, the authorities and put them on the air because it humanized them, first off.

JF: Yep.

TM: But of course, I wasn't going to go out there and torque Mr. Bingham, because that's the name that sign on my check. Now Bob Morris who ran the whole WHAS, Inc, TV and radio and AMZ. I would impose.

JF: It was more than game.

TM: Yeah. He came in and recorded because he did TV editorials but then he always ended with, "I'm Bob Morris." So I got him to say that for me, and then I use that all the time. And he would come at, "I'm Bob Morris." And sometimes I would have him just come-

JF: You used that a lot.

TM: Yes. But he was cool with me parodying him. And Ben Burke was a news director, who we call the Big Tuna. And he was okay with parodying I think, he 52:00never said anything about it. But as far as governors and congressmen, I mean, Wallace Wilkinson was clearly irked by it, but what are you going to do? And then it turned out when he died, he had a Ponzi schemed $460 million out of people. So it's like, whatever. Okay, I don't feel bad about it.

JF: Now, let's talk about from the Bingham's to Clear Channel because most all of your career in HAS now has been under the Clear Channel.

TM: Right.

JF: And you've seen some changes in that over the years too, because when they first came in there, Clear Channel was kind of a hands off.

TM: Right.

JF: They grew and they changed. Can you talk about that?

TM: Clear Channel only owned San Antonio, their home market and Tulsa, Oklahoma when they bought a HAS and AMZ with the Bingham family breakup. So you're 53:00talking about two stations in San Antonio two in Tulsa and now stations five and six are WHS and WAMZ. So clearly the people who own the company know my name they know, Wayne Perky. They know, Jack Fox. They know everybody who works here.

JF: Very successful stations which provide money for them and things like that.

TM: Exactly right. So they knew who we were. So, I would get a note from Lowery Mays or whatever. After radio. I mean, he's the chairman of the board. But then they started growing exponentially. And what happened is there was a Telecommunications Act in the mid '90s. And then we got into a real scuffle about the union in here, because we were owned as two stations. And then we bought six more and they came in and then all sudden after union I was a member. Said, "Well, the guys on the six new stations can't do commercials on the first two. And the announcers on those new six stations can't come and be announcers on these unless they get in the Union, they do this or that." Or whatever.

TM: And then we got into this horrible squabble about that. It really hurt my feelings a lot because I hated to see the acrimony in the building and that 54:00created some unrest and Randy got mad at me, Randy Davidson and he left. My voice guy.

JF: He was like the union steward, I believe was near something like that.

TM: He may have been at one time. I think John Polk was at that time. And those are all great guys. But we just had a different philosophy about it. I would argue with them. These guys, I'm just thinking of myself to like in Lexington when I had my chance to get on. Here's these guys, they got a chance to be on HAS and AMZ, they work for these other smaller stations, but there was a brick wall.

TM: They weren't allowed to go around. Or else this thing I found illogical as well. If I walk into a booth and I record a commercial, Acme furniture has a sale Saturday and be there at 9:00 to 5:00. They're selling couches for $50 at Acme furniture. That's the end of my job. Well, the big argument became, "Okay, Terry recorded that commercial, but he needs to be paid by these six other 55:00stations, even though we're going to use the same recording on his station. And on these six new stations, he needs to be paid for each one of those because they're not part of an agreement."

TM: And it was like, "Oh, no, really, we're going to do this." And I would argue with them, "I don't have to do any more work. I just recorded this." "But know the rules of the rules. And Terry, you're trying to step around the rules." And so we got into a horrible argument about all that business. And then ultimately, we had a vote and the new guys, because there were so many new guys who weren't in it, we had the numbers to drop it.

TM: And it created a dark mark, certainly on my heart, and it changed the dynamics of the building for a while. And then also, we had to move because we had two stations. And then when you add six more TV owned the building, because when the Bingham sold, they had to determine who owns the building, who owns the call letters, who owns all the materials, the intellectual property, all that business, they had to divide all that.

TM: Then we brought in the six news stations, and then they said, "You can refurbish the downstairs, the basement." That it's going to cost about $1.6 56:00million to do that to refurbish somebody else's building, we're not going to do that. And that's when they went shopping. And Mayor Abramson had a perfect place for us on Main Streets. But our management opted against it. Mayor Abramson was really hurt by that too, because he said, he figured out a way to get us parking behind the building.

TM: I can't remember exactly, somewhere down not far from the baseball bat factory that he said, had the abundant square footage and parking. And then I think it cost more than the place that we wound up buying not far from here over at Newbury road in the Watterson. And that was an old Taylor drugstores headquarters and with free parking and free, whatever. And it was cheaper.

JF: Yeah.

TM: So Clear Channel bought that instead of staying downtown, which I thought was more important to be in a part of the business of downtown Louisville. But I 57:00don't have say in that.

JF: That was... what year was that?

TM: '99.

JF: '99. Okay, been out there ever since?

TM: Right.

JF: I guess it's worked out all right. But there's been certainly been a change in the atmosphere and the style of radio, even in those years.

TM: Indeed. Because Clear Channel, we had the six new stations come in and really didn't have room for them. So they sort of just rigged up these weird little... oh, I'm sorry, they kept the other locations, wherever they were, whoever the previous owners had them. And they were paying rents, because we couldn't rig up enough little on studios in the HAS TV buildings. Ultimately, they had to put us all under the same roof. And I was fighting hard to keep a studio lit in the TV building and just stay there.

JF: Right. Yeah.

TM: Because I do like the interplay of all the TV people in the interviews they get and the interviews I get, and we trade them back and forth. But I was overruled.

JF: Has it influenced over the years. I mean, it has had a big in change in your style or anything or?

TM: Yeah, to a degree because you just don't have... I like being in the 58:00communication center. But really with eight stations instead of two, you are a bigger communication center. So there is more traffic, and I do see other people that are coming in to be on other shows.

JF: And do you parody, though?

TM: Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. I like the fact that there is some reemerging that the law is allowing some remarrying of media properties. For instance, Gannett just bought Belo. So now the Courier-Journal and WHAS TV are family again.

JF: Again, yeah.

TM: Which before was, that'll never happen.

JF: Yeah.

TM: Well, it will happen because you got to keep business alive.

JF: Yeah.

TM: I mean, what good would it do to let signals go dark? If there's a way to save them, then that's what you do.

JF: I don't want to keep it too long. But I want to ask you about just some physical things. You've seen a lot of changes in equipment on how your product is delivered. From when you were changing those tapes in Lexington, to what 59:00you're doing today with the computer, a producer and all that sort of thing.

TM: For many years, I held on to the older tapes. I just kept them in there because the computers freeze. And each time the computers would freeze and I go and get my old school tapes and pop them in there and put them on the air and do whatever I need to do and then say, "I told you so." But ultimately, again, I was overruled. They say you got to get those out of there.

JF: Inevitable, yeah.

TM: We don't like the look of them in your studio. So they had to go and that's a shame. And we still run into some computer problems although they're not as prevalent as before. What we are though, today is more beholden to computer servers. And so oftentimes stations flip off the air. Whereas before, as long as the electricity was on and you had a guy who was awake in coherence.

JF: Put them back on.

TM: Yeah.

JF: Yeah.

TM: There was something, you can stay on the air. And now, with those stations I'm talking about we add on six days as well. A lot of times, there's not a human being in any of those places. They're all pre packaged from somewhere else or can be a guy sitting in Tulsa who can do all the voice drops. "Hey, Louisville, you're going to have the big New Year's Eve thing at Fourth Street live. It starts at nine o'clock." And, "Hey, come down and see Mayor Fischer he is going to do this. They're handing out these banana splits and it's going to be a good time and join us that's brought to you by our station 989 radio now, who just said that a guy in Tulsa, Oklahoma."

JF: Even your traffic reports have gone from the helicopters, are they done somewhere else?

TM: Detroit, Michigan.

JF: Is that right?

TM: We're occasionally hear a guy say, "Now, over in Shivley. You're having a little problem."

JF: What you guys always talks about Poplar Lever road or something?

TM: Poplar Level road. And that happens.

JF: Yeah.

TM: And again, that is technology. And that's going on. It's not just Clear Channel. They're all doing the same thing all across America.

JF: Oh, yeah.

TM: You got kids in Detroit watching traffic monitors in 14 different cities and they just file reports and then they move on to the next one.

JF: Because you can.

TM: And now here's Memphis. Now here's Nashville. Now, here's Louisville. Now here's Cincinnati.

JF: Yeah. It's the way it is. The technology.

TM: Yeah. And it's always fun to say it was so great in whatever era, but you can't be that way.

JF: Well, there was an era before you, who was-

TM: Exactly right.

JF: Well, they're running this thing. And so yeah.

TM: Exactly. But we can do that back through time. Well, wasn't it better when we were all in horse and buggy. And then people got to know their neighbors a whole lot better. Yeah, I guess it was, but I can't help that, this is today. And I have to live in today with its circumstances. And to me, like we were talking about earlier, make the most of what's available to you. And avoid the attitude of, oh, it was so great back then or the way we did. Okay, but that's over. That's for storybook time, and reflection time but in terms of doing your best job in this moment, you have to be constant.

JF: Reinventing yourself.

TM: Yes.

JF: That's you have to do.

TM: And it's important, because I think all the victories in life, work through your attitude. And you take in everything you can in life through the right prism and show it positively and try to emote some positive energy back, I think it pays in spades.

JF: That's a good one.

TM: It comes back to you.

JF: That philosophy. Well, I think you may be in some elite company, you're probably the longest running aside from Milton Metz. Probably the longest running person who has had a continuous career on radio in rural Kentucky. Is that right?

TM: It is.

JF: You've been on the air in some fashion since what? 1980.

TM: 1980.

JF: 1960.

TM: So I'm-

JF: 30 years.

TM: Yeah, I came in the fall of 1980. And I was on in Lexington for four years prior to that.

JF: And there can't be too many people that are ahead of you in the building, even there at HAS.

TM: No, there are only two. Helen Huber and Paul Rogers.

JF: We've talked to both of those on this interview series.

TM: Oh, good.

JF: Yeah. Good.

TM: Good.

JF: Well, Terry, I know we can talk a lot more, we could spend all afternoon. I know, you've got to go get ready for a show somewhere.

TM: Yes, sir.

JF: It's been a pleasure that we didn't even talk about the Derby and Crusade and all your involvement there, you've had a lot of good times there.

TM: They're all fun. I love each part of the year, they each bring a sort of a different feel to them. But to me when I walk away from this whenever that is, I'm at 20 coming up on 29 years completed. I have already done 29 years. When I walk away from all this, the Crusade is the thing that matters.

JF: Yeah.

TM: The rest of it is all about sustenance and having fun, and it's like because our work as you know Jack, kind of just goes out into the air. Oh, well, I've been in airports around the world and heard your voice, so your tangible assets show up globally.

JF: I'm watching your behavior on that moving sidewalk. Careful, yeah.

TM: The Crusade to me is the treasure of this community because those parents 64:00come in every June and I see them and I hug them and I see the sweet children they have and their little angels I think were sent here to teach us a lesson. But we do all we can to raise money and advance the cause of those children through services and therapy. But I always think of those moms and dads who lead there. I see how much work they have to do just to get those kids to the Crusade. But then when that's over, I give them a hug and they leave. And that parents job is-

JF: Goes on.

TM: Every day.

JF: Yeah.

TM: Every day and I just admire them so much. I just think how strong you are and how loving these parents and these children are on the bond they have is so beautiful. But these moms and dads worry about what's going to happen when they're gone.

JF: Yeah.

TM: When they're on that sunny street that I saw my parents on, what happens to their children. And that's another reason why the Crusade's so great because we're there to sort of just be the backstop and make sure that they're taken care of once mom and dad pass on.

JF: Puts a lot of things-

TM: And to me that makes my career have value.

JF: That's one of the things you're most proud of, obviously.

TM: The thing I'm most proud of.

JF: That's great. Well, Terry, thanks for taking the time, this will be in the archives and people from years to come will get some insights here. Thank you very much for taking the time.

TM: Always a pleasure to spend time with you, Jack Fox.

JF: Thanks, bud. See you later.