What YOU Look Like

We found that out last night at Severance Hall, as many of you stopped by the WCLV table in the Smith Lobby downstairs prior to the concert. Lots of you entered our drawing for lunch and a tour of our new Idea Center studios. Many of you picked up your Cleveland Orchestra CDs of Mahler 1. Even if you hadn't signed up to receive the CD, we gave away hundreds of WCLV pen lights, which fit on a key chain quite nicely. I use mine it to peer into the abyss of my purse, but only when I have the stomach for it.

Onstage before the concert, WCLV's President, Robert Conrad, the Cleveland Orchestra's broadcast commentator for nearly 40 years, received the Musical Arts Association's Distinguished Service Award, while the orchestra's executive director, Gary Hanson, opened the live broadcast from the booth. Bob said a few words in gratitude, then he returned to the broadcast booth before the orchestra tuned up. We presume Gary gave up the microphone willingly.

The award is a beautiful glass bowl, which Bob held aloft so the audience could see. If he brings it to work, I'll post a photo here. Any chance he'll put candy or fruit in it? Stay tuned.

Lessons Learned on my Last Trip to the Garden

Last summer, anticipating our departure from Radio Ranch, from my garden there I dug up a small clump of chives, which is now growing on my kitchen windowsill. The photo is last summer's crop in its original habitat.

Last Friday, I took my last trip to WCLV's former office to walk through the empty studios and say farewell. With temperatures in the 50s, the melted snow made the ground squishy, just like it is in Ohio every spring. At great risk to my shoes, I squished out to the garden and pulled out the remaining zinnia and sunflower stems, while remembering last summer's glorious blooms, many photos of which I posted here.

Thoughts of spring-like weather brought to mind my frustration last fall in trying to dig up spring bulbs I had planted there over the years. I couldn't find the grape hyacinth, snowdrop and squill bulbs, which are tiny. And let's look at this from the bulb's point of view: If you were underground for a few years, you wouldn't be all that distinguishable from dirt, either.

But miraculously on Friday, the warmth brought up all the green shoots, which peeked through the sodden soil. I dug all of them up and took them home, where they'll join the windowsill chives to remind me of my beloved garden.

I guess some plants won't reveal themselves until you're ready for them.

Wonderful Snow

I realize I'm in the minority here, but when the big flakes fall, I love to watch out the window, this one in WCLV's Music Library.

Settling In

After three weeks in WCLV's new office in the Idea Center at Playhouse Square, fewer boxes dot the workplace landscape. The three production studios are in near-constant use. From the hallway, you can see into all the studios, which have much more glass than those at Radio Ranch, which is why I call Master Control the "Radioquarium."

The CD library is neat and beautifully organized. All the music reference books are unpacked but in need of arranging. Pictures won't go up on the wall for a while. Restoring WCLV's audio stream has proved to be frustrating, but we are optimistic that it will be available again soon.

Hosting morning drive requires a certain avoidance of nightlife. As a result, your announcer attends only one party per year. It's tonight. Ooh-la-la: lock up your menfolk.

Chocolate Easter Weirdos

I'll never forget a joke Johnny Carson told on "The Tonight Show" about about a shipment of chocolate Easter bunnies that melted when it was stored too close to a furnace. The result, he said, was "chocolate Easter weirdos."

This morning at Cleveland's Edgewater Park, these translucent ice monsters brought that joke to mind. The frozen Lake Erie spray on vegetation, piers, and wrought iron balustrades has created a photographer magnet.

Bob Feller, 1918 - 2010

Cleveland remembers Bob Feller today. He was an Iowa whiz kid who joined the Cleveland Indians in 1936 to become such a strikeout king in his rookie year that by the start of the 1937 season, his picture was on the cover of Time magazine. Mr. Feller died yesterday at the age of 92.

The Bob Feller statue at Progressive Field stands along 9th Street between Carnegie and Prospect. Today a steady progression of TV crews have filed live reports at the statue, recalling Mr. Feller's spectacular career. A bereft Indians fan hung a yellow ribbon on the baseball in Rapid Robert's storied right hand.

The New York Times obituary notes that as a young man, Mr. Feller listened to Cubs games on WHO in Des Moines. The play-by-play announcer was Ronald Reagan, who later found a larger audience.

The "Radioquarium"

The workers are still working on wiring, but we're back in the saddle again at WCLV, broadcasting from the Idea Center at Playhouse Square. The changeover had its starts and stops, but we never looked back after the switch at 10:25 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 8.

Packing finished up on Thursday, Dec. 9, and the movers arrived at 14th and Euclid Friday, Dec. 10.

Those of you in broadacasting know I'd be lying if I told you that everything went absolutely smoothly in the control room. A temporary CD player that had a carousel was chucked out as too slow and not-intuitive-to-operate. May it languish on the bottom of Lake Erie.

The other CD player was much better, but rickety. At one point in last Friday's show, neither CD player would play, so until I could change that result, I augmented the spoken word with my duck call and a whistle in the shape of a satyr. Who knew that one day I would channel Steve Allen?

Our full computer array is not up yet, but we're working with a notebook computer the size of a very large makeup compact on which I switch among tabs for news, weather, traffic, and show prep.

There is much more glass in Master Control here than at Radio Ranch. Thus, the "Radioquarium."

More details at facebook.com/WCLV's Queen of the Morn, and on twitter.com/queenofthemorn.