My WCLV 50th Anniversary Radio Diary

As WCLV and its listeners remember 50 years of broadcasting in Cleveland, culminating in our official November 1st anniversary, here's a memory from my Radio Diary. Morning drive announcers live life 4 hours earlier than the audience does. For example, if most people get up at 6:30, the morning announcer gets up 4 hours earlier. This differential also means that you hit the sack 4 hours earlier than your audience does. For anyone who works other than the day shift, you know how disorienting it can be. The rest of the world is 9-to-5, and when Clevelanders are getting ready to go out to dinner and take in a show at Playhouse Square, morning announcers have just arrived in the boudoir for a cheap date with the Sandman. It takes two years to get used to this schedule. Until then, you live in a state of jet lag every day of the week. A few months after I started as WCLV's morning drive announcer, profound fatigue caught up with me one afternoon at home when I'd fallen into a deep sleep. I woke suddenly, and after a few fog-filled seconds, I realized I was talking to a woman on my bedside phone. I had no idea why. I didn't recognize her voice. I was too embarrassed to ask the woman why we were talking. She seemed rather amused. Hastily, I said, "Well, I'd better get going," and rang off. This had to have been an incoming call. I vaguely remembered hearing the phone ring and answering it. I doubt I would have called someone in my sleep. "Sleep-dialing?" Moi? Although I was certain the caller was a telemarketer, nothing ever was charged to a credit card, and nothing was shipped to me, so I think I got off rather lucky.