Cleaning Out Memory Lane

There’s a good chance you have heard that we’re doing a major renovation on the inside of our office building and broadcast center in Bayville. Yesterday I had to empty a closet I’ve been using to store “stuff” I’ve acquired over my near 31-year tenure here…I figured it would take a couple of hours…it ended up being an almost all-day job.

While I am not one of those “hoarders” you see on TV I have held on to a lot of personal effects and cleaning out the closet was like a stroll down memory lane. There were a lot of plaques and awards which never made it to the walls and many I had to toss because there was simply no place to keep them. But it was the pictures….hundreds of them which brought smiles, laughter and sadness and reminded me of days and people who are long gone.

Among my favorite pictures is a black and white with a then 18-year old Al Leiter. It was 1984 and he was selected as WOBM’s Athlete of the Year as a Central Regional High School senior. The picture shows me awarding Leiter a trophy outside our building…he of course was an All-State pitcher and also a pretty decent football player. Leiter would go on to have a long and distinguished major league baseball career. Another favorite also happens to be a black-and-white and it’s me with boxing great Sugar Ray Robinson. Believe it or not he was appearing at a supermarket in Toms River…it must have been around 1985 or so. Here’s a guy who many consider the greatest fighter of all time and hardly anyone showed up to see him or even knew who he was but I’ll always treasure that photo. There were plenty of others with pro athletes and other well-known people but the ones that made me smile the most were those with people I have worked with over the years. The other thing that strikes you is the change in clothing and appearance….I brought the pictures home yesterday and my 18-year old daughter could not believe some of the outfits and how I looked with a beard or mustache.

Well the closet is empty and I probably threw away half the “stuff” that I had in there. Now I have to find somewhere to put the other half.