A Face for Radio(Emerald Gowers) This is a work of truth interlaced with bits of fiction... or it might be the other way around.



"You're listening to WLPW 1590 AM, shunshine... Shunshine? I think I messed up on that one. Can I try again?"

"Hold on." He fiddled with the home tape deck, rewound, fast forwarded, and queued the cheap Magnavox tape to the right spot. "Ok Emmy," He said before pressing record again, "This time remember that the name of the station is WPLW, SUNshine 16, and give a giggle at the end.

It was 1989. I was eight (and a half) years old recording a few radio spots for a very low powered AM station in Mars (yes, there is a Mars, PA) that my mother's husband Sam had been doing night gigs at. We had been at it for over an hour, with two spots recorded, trying to get the last one right without me laughing, mispronouncing, whining, burping, or doing anything that a normal eight year old would do within a sixty second time frame. I kept going at it again and again, my enthusiasm waning with every take. My patience and interest was paper-thin.
I took a deep breath and exhaled. “Okay, I’m ready.”

He hit the record button.

“You’re listening to WPLW 1590 AM, Sunshine 16! Good mooooooorning Pittsburgh!” I giggled as instructed.
He pressed stop. “That’s the one! We’re done here. Now you can tell everyone at school that you’re a radio star.”

A radio star.

The thought whirled and hummed through my eight year old mind. A star. I would need to tell the girls at school. In my still forming brain, everyone in the tri-state area were avid listeners of this obscure station, and all I had to do was step outside my door and I would be hounded for autographs. I could see it now, there was already a crowd waiting outside, star-struck, offering me roses and the proverbial key to the city. Among my throng of fans would be my crush Nick Hale, who would stop ignoring the fact that I existed, and immediately want to go steady.

“Is it going to be on now?” I looked out the window for my fans and was met by the sight of an empty yard, except for our 40-foot radio antenna. In my mind it was already transmitting my voice to far-flung corners of the globe. “I have to tell everyone to listen right now.”

He played back what I had recorded. “These things take time. I need to re-edit the vocals, add music, and get it to the station before it can get on air. Why don’t you go play with the babies for a while and I’ll let you know when I’m done.”

“What about the antenna?”

“That only picks up stations from far away. We’d need a special license to transmit on air.”

I rolled my eyes at his ineptness. The thought of playing with my 4-year-old sister and 2-year-old brother after having a glimpse of fame and glory were enough to make me vomit into my sky-blue L.A. Gear sneakers. “I don’t have time! It should be on right now.”

“Emmy…” The tone in his voice was enough for me to know that his mood could flip with the flick of a switch.

I rolled my eyes again, “Fine,” I stomped out of the room and halfway down the hall. “The road to stardom is paved with glass!” I yelled at the half-open door before making a hasty exit to the babies and their drool filled toys.

____________

The next day at recess, I bragged to everyone on the playground to anyone who would give me the time of day. “I’m going to be on the radio.” I was in the lower pecking order of second grade society. I was hoping that this would be my breakthrough to loftier ranks.

Angie shot me a deadpan glance. “Did you win a contest on B-94?” B-94 was a powerful FM station that played the topmost of the popmost. Every second-grader listened to hear the latest New Kids on the Block or Paula Abdul, and listen to Banana Joe on the bus to school in the morning.

“Even better,” I tried to lure them in. “I did some radio commercials on Sunshine 16.”

Angie shot me a quizzical glance. “What’s Sunshine 16? I always listen to Banana Joe.”

I was coming a bit unfluffed. Banana Joe was not the center of the broadcasting universe. “It’s a station in Mars….”

“Mars!” Tahnee screamed. “You do radio broadcasts on Mars now? Emmy you’re so weird!” She laughed, “Yeah I do TV commercials on Pluto but you don’t hear me talking about it.”

“What about me?” Bobbie Jo piped up, “I talk to the invisible cats on Venus! They want to hear the New Kids!”

“No!” I yelled loudly enough for neighboring playground groups to turn their heads. “Mars, PA! It’s north of here. It’s a real town!”

Tahnee pointed her finger in my chest, “I’ve lived here all my life and I’m nine, a whole lot older than you, and I’ve never heard of any town called Mars. Only the planet where you obviously belong.” She turned to Bobbie Jo. “Let’s leave her to her Mars radio station and sing your Venus cats a song.” They linked arms and skipped off. “Oh oh oh oh oh oh, the right stuff!”

“I’m not lying,” I pleaded to Angie with tears in my eyes.

“Just like the time when you told the art teacher that the dog ate your embroidery hoop?”

“He did.” I re-experienced the horror of having to present the splinters of my work in art class.

“And the time when your brother ripped up your homework?”

“He’s only two. He didn’t know what it was.”

"Or the time you were kidnapped by pirates on the Gateway Clipper?"

Whoops. "Well..."

Angie came towards me with an empathetic look in her eyes. “Okay, you said that you were going to be on the radio. The only way to show us is to have us listen to your commercial in class. Nobody will believe you if you don’t.”

“Do you believe me?” My lip quivered.

A pregnant pause grew fatter with every awkward second.

“You tell weird stories all the time." Angie said quickly. "I’m going to find Tahnee and Bobbie Jo on the playground.” She sprinted away.

My fantasies started to crumble.

A week passed with no word. The taunting became unbearable. Kids I didn't even know were starting to call me Ailen. “When is it going to be on? People are teasing me because I told them I did commercials for the station in Mars.”

“You did tell them that Mars is s city?” My mother asked, smoking the ever-present Virginia Slim Light. “I don't know when it's going to be on, I stay at home with the monsters all day. You need to ask Sam about that when he gets home.”

"Where's Samantha?" Usually she would bombard me at the door as soon as I got home.

"In your room playing." Smoke came out of her nostrils. "She's been quiet today."

"Oh." I chewed on the idea. “What’s for dinner?” There was a pot simmering on the stove.

“Spaghetti.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Again? We eat spa-gaggy almost every day.”

“I can’t help it. It’s cheap.”

I was a bit peeved. I hated spaghetti, and it was becoming a daily staple at our house. “Well why do you have to be so cheap?”

My mom stifled a laugh. “Jesus, Em. Where’d you pick that one up?”

“First school, and now spaghetti!” I protested crankily, “When is it ever going to end?!”

Nick toddled into the room and headed towards me holding up a stuffed bear. “Ummy gives bear a kiss.”
“Not now!” I stomped out of the room, bumping Nick and knocking him on his diapered butt.

He started to howl.

“Damn it Em!” My mom snubbed out her smoke.

I ran into my shared bedroom and threw myself on the bed in a fit of anger. “It’s not fair!”

Samantha was on her side of the room, putting dirty socks on her hands and making them talk. She bounded over to me, thrust one of them in my face and spoke in a screechy voice. “Do you want to have some ice cream pizza with us? I'm the new King of Sockland. I'm going to rule the world one day!”

My blood started to boil. I snatched the foul smelling sock off her hand and threw it across the room. “Get out of here!” I screamed.

She started to cry, running out of the room.

A few moments later, an angry mom came into the room with two sniffling babies in tow. “I don’t know what your problem is today missy,” She hissed. “But you’d better check your attitude before Sam gets home or you’re going to get it.”

“But…”

“But nothing. They were playing quietly until you came home! I don’t want to hear another word from you; stay in your room until dinnertime.”

“Can I get Mister Socky?” Samantha sniffed. “He wants to rule the world.”

My mom sighed. “Go ahead.”

She skitted across the floor and retrieved the sock. “It’s okay Mister Socky, Emmy’s just being really mean.” Her voice jumped up three octaves as she put the sweaty sock back on her hand.

“It’s okay,” The sock ‘spoke’ back. “We'll just make her work for us forever when we own this place.”

“Ummy mean.” Nick squashed his chubby tearstained face into a disapproving toddler scowl. “Mean.”

I buried my face in the pillow and wailed.

“C’mon guys,” My mom hoisted Nick up into her arms. “Let’s go in the living room and I’ll turn on Alf.” They left the room leaving me to marinate in my own misery.

_________________


Later that night at the dinner table, Sam brought up the commercial. It was the last thing that I wanted to hear about. My throngs of adoring fans with autograph books had already turned into an angry mob wielding pitchforks and hurling rocks. “Your commercial is going to be on tomorrow morning right before the news.”

“What? When?!” I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. At long last my radio spot would be on and everyone would stop their stupid jokes and realize that I wasn’t lying.

Sam chewed on a mouthful of awful spaghetti. “Eric’s going to play it right before nine.”

I was so thrilled that I had to suppress the urge to get up and start dancing on the table, kicking plates of the hated sauce and noodle goop to the floor. “This is great!” I jumped up out of my chair. “It’s the best news that I’ve ever heard in my whole entire life! I can play it in class and then people will stop calling me alien!”

“Just remember that it’s a very low powered station, they might not be able pick it up on the radio there.” Sam leaned forward in his seat. “The only reason WPLW comes in here at the house is because of the CB antenna in the backyard.”

The logic whistled over my head and out the open window. He may as well have been speaking Urudu. “They’ll be able to get it there, I know it! And when they do, I’ll be famous!” I started to do a little jig on the kitchen floor. “Famous! Fame, fame famous! Da da da, yeah!”

“Sit down and finish your dinner.” My mom commanded. She was trying to shovel some spaghetti unsuccessfully into Nick’s mouth, but he ended up wearing most of it.

“Ummy mean.” He pointed a chubby accusatory finger at me.

I sat down.

“Which brings me to another point,” Sam piled more spaghetti onto his plate. “What’s this I hear about you throwing socks around your room?”

Whoops.

_________________

The next day in class before the morning announcements had begun I had coerced my teacher into taking five minutes out of class to turn the radio on. My head was in the clouds again as I tapped the oh-so-gorgeous Nick Hale on the shoulder. “Hi Nick.”

He turned to me looking slightly annoyed. “Hello Alien. What do you want?”

“W-well,” I stammered. “You know the commercial I was talking about?”

“I heard that you had a radio station on Mars. Get to the point, Alien.”

“It’s going to be on today,” I looked around nervously; nobody was paying us any mind. “Miss Shatlock said that she’s going to turn it on today before nine.”

“Okay. So we get to hear you from Mars today.”

I was tired of dispelling the Mars/Alien myth. “Yes. The whole class will hear me from Mars.” I stuck my nose up in the air and took on a haughty tone. “I’ll be more famous than Banana Joe, or ALF from TV.” I turned the tables and looked him dead in the eye. “I will be the most loved alien in all of Pittsburgh today.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by the start of the morning announcements over the intercom. “Good morning again Paynter Panthers and happy Friday to all of you…” The loudspeaker droned on. Nick shook his head as we all took our seats, said the pledge and started the day.

________________

8:50- We were going over spelling lessons, but I couldn’t concentrate. The suspense was killing me. I glanced at the clock; the second hand was taking an eternity to make its round. I started fidgeting with an eraser.

8:53- The eraser was torn to shreds on my desk. I glanced around the room, observing everyone else, calm and controlled, absorbed in their spelling books. Time refused to march on, and decided to take a relaxing stroll around its circle, tick, stopping to smell the flowers, tick, chat with the neighbors, tick, and have a picnic by the lake. Click. It was now 8:54. Inwardly I was ready to go off like a time bomb. I pulled out another eraser.

8:56- I was sure that we’d miss it now. Miss Shatlock would keep prattling on about silent letters, the schwa sound, how sometimes “Y” could be a vowel, on and on and on, until I would be an old woman sitting at the same desk, encased in a mountain of shredded erasers and brewing in anxiety. I looked at the clock again. It seemed to be stuck in the same place, mocking me like everyone else had been the past few days. I was fed up. Tick. This was it, I had come this far, with friends and family on my back at every little turn; and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let a cheap plastic clock drive me to the asylum. Tick. I raised my hand.

The teacher took ages to notice me. “Emmy?” She straightened her glasses and looked at her watch. “It’s almost time, isn’t it?” She put her book down and addressed the room. “Class, put your books away, we have a special treat this morning.” Miss Shatlock went to her desk and pulled out an old radio. “Emmys going to make her radio debut today.”

“Good luck Alien.” A cat-call rang out from an unknown source. The class giggled.

“Be quiet now.” The teacher brought the radio to the front of the room and set it on a table. “How many of you have been on the radio?” She plugged it in. “Go ahead Emmy.”

__________________

8:59- I turned the dial to WPLW AM with stunning precision. The station came in, but it sounded like it was locked in a gruesome battle to the death with a Spanish talk-radio station and an ominous hiss. I could hear Eric, the morning DJ talking in the background, but it was interspersed with a woman speaking in a language that I didn’t understand. This never happened at home! I turned the dial a bit more to tune it in. The Spanish station came in as clear as day at three times the volume. "MURO DE BERLIN HA SIDO VIOLADO DESPUES DE CAS-" The class made an audible sign of discomfort. I slowly slid the dial back to where it had been, while adjusting the antenna.

“You…” my voice rang through the tinny speaker only to be obscured by static. Hisssss… ”...tening to...” hissss... The station faded away. It was on and we were missing it! Sam’s advice came crashing back to me all too late. We had the big antenna at home. The school was in a valley. Hissss… ”PLW…” My old foe logic was against me again.

“Is this what they listen to on Mars?” The class started to laugh openly. Time seemed to slow itself down for a second time, as I scanned the room watching the jeering faces. I saw Angie and Tahnee whispering to each other; Bobbie Jo was sticking her tongue out giving me the thumbs down sign; Nick Hale was laughing like he had just been told the funniest joke in the world; Even Miss Shatlock was frowning. My blood boiled and I saw red. I had waded through enough of their put-downs, whispered secrets, cat-calls, teasings, and torments through the past week. I exploded.

“No, damn it!” I slammed my clenched, red fist hard on the table.

The radio shook. “ooooooorning Pittsburgh!” My speaker filtered voice resounded through the now silent room.

Eric came on the air, “Thank you Emmy Gower for the wonderful introduction, and a big hello to all of you out there listening at Paynter School! And now the news… Great advances have been made today in the collapse of the Berlin Wall as-” I clicked off the radio.

“That was my commercial from Mars, well part of it anyway.” I took a bow. The class remained silent.

Miss Shatlock began clapping over-enthusiastically. “Let's give her a big hand!”

The class cheered. It wasn’t the throng of screaming fans that I had anticipated mobbing me with autograph books and roses, but at least my classmates knew I was telling the truth. It felt like a big weight had been lifted off of my shoulders and I could breathe just a little bit easier.

_____________

That afternoon on the playground Tahnee approached me with Angie and Bobbie Jo trailing behind. “Well, you were right. But you’re still an alien.”

“Yeah, we’re sorry that we didn’t believe you before.” Angie chimed in. “You just tell too many weird stories all the time, and we don’t know what’s true.”

A silence filled the air.

“So Bobbie Jo,” I ventured. “How are your invisible cats on Venus doing these days?”

__________________

Word about the commercial spread through the elementary school ranks like wildfire, and on the bus ride home I was assaulted with questions.

“How much did they pay you?”

“If I be your friend, can I be on the radio too?”

“Did you meet Banana Joe?”

The bus was nearing my house. I stood up on the seat addressing the fifty or so riders. “I’m almost home now, but if you want to ask me any more questions on the ride into school tomorrow, you’ll know where to find me.” The bus slowed to a stop. I hopped off of the seat and walked down the aisle. The driver turned on the blinking red lights. I turned back to the riders. “Be sure to bring your autograph books.”

I bounded down the three stairs, across the street and onto my porch, waving to the bus as it pulled away. My stomach was growling, all this fame had made me ravenous. “See you tomorrow!”

My mom opened the front door smiling. “Hey there! I guess it went okay then.”

Samantha was standing behind her with a sock on her hand. “Hi Em. Me and Mister Socky heard you on the Eric show today.” She changed her tone to the martian-like screech of her sock puppet. “We want to be on the radio too! If you teach us you can help rule the world!”

“Maybe one day I can show you the ropes.”
My stomach gurgled audibly. “Hey Mom what’s for dinner tonight?”

She puffed on her Virginia Slim. “Leftover spaghetti.”

“Not again!”

I was right; the road to stardom was paved with glass, but at least I had been more popular than Alf that day.

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