James Call

About

On a December day when the music died, I decided if I were a Penguin I could be a writer. I wandered the halls of Youngstown State University as WHHH's Jay Michaels, explicating the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen and explaining the symbolism in Donnie Iris' post-industrial remix of "The Rapper." Ten minutes from campus was WFMJ Radio and Television. The AM was caught in a time warp. It played all the hits of World War II. Dean Fred Owens suggested I change formats - quit the rock'n'roll station for a Big Band one. I could walk out of a class at 9:50, and be behind a microphone at 10:05 with a,"Good morning Youngstown, it's J. Michael Call with the Songs of Your Life" and double the money I made as Jay Michaels, a wise guy rocker. My Hamlet-like dilemma to play Sinatra or Lennon entertained Owens. The World War II veterans and their friends adopted my Saturday night show. It tied the AM rocker in the ratings - forced HOT Radio to move to FM and made Owens look like a wise mentor With a YSU degree in hand, I headed to Fort Myers and resurrected Jay Michaels as a FM radio news reporter. He served as a sidekick, the comic foil, for local legend The Wild Tony Sands. Writing and performing bits with a comic genuis is fun - especially given Tony's ability to lure listeners unwittingly into our sketches. Then something really funny happened to me. I'm in a four-seat plane when it looked like the pilot was making an emergency landing in the forest. It was Tallahassee. A place seemingly familiar but rather peculiar and enlightening in a light-hearted way - where you can overhear a discussion of Tocqueville's civil society in the grocer's frozen food section - honest! The public radio station offered me a reporting a job in a city where you encounter people from history books enjoying a blueberry muffin, small-town America as imagined by Thurber and Seuss. When the dogwoods and azaleas are in bloom the place looks like a Homes & Garden Day-Glo poster. Locals will tell you, "Spring comes to Tallahassee first and then we send it north." Traffic regularly backs up for a gaggle of geese to cross the street. A tunnel was built under Highway 27 so turtles could cross the road without being flattened. Some complained the project was a waste of money. But a group of middle-schoolers proposed it. The community built it, and the turtles love it. A turtel-tunnel campaign was a mix of whimsy and seriousness and so Tallahassee. Folks here will debate for hours a proposal they fully support. They love to talk. I listen and write. I’m the Tallahassee Observer.