|
|
|
(home)
(e-mail your viewpoint)
(Tributes
and testaments to Paxton ... Click here to go read and add to them)
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paxton Mills
was one of us ...
by Larry Shannon
We are the Beatles generation jocks. We breathed in the inspiration and came of age the night the Beatles played on the Ed Sullivan show. 1964-1968 were the high school graduation years that we shared. Paxton Mills was one of us. Long before Denver was the Big D in Paxton Mills' life, there was the Big D that was Dallas.
Paxton played Beatles generation songs on Gordon McLendon's KLIF in the late 60's and early 70's. I worked the all night shift at KVIL-FM in 1968 while he worked as my competition on the all night show at KLIF 1190. I only met Paxton Mills two or three times. But, we respected each other. He knew that I listened to him and he let me know that he listened to me.
Our generation, each one of us, could walk and talk our way across the black tracks of 45 rpm records and never step on the vocals. 7 and 10 second wonders, we surely were. Digital clocks were for amateurs and sissies, if you were a Beatles generation jock.
In the long gone, golden era of the Beatles generation jocks, we kept the time and counted our heartbeats in rhythm with yellow-faced Western Union clocks. They clicked away our 3 hour shifts in a singular cadence -- one second hand movement at a time. This current generation of jocks doesn't understand our Beatles generation jocks just as we couldn't quite figure out the Elvis generation jocks who came before us.
We were rebels with many causes. We woke up every morning to the gunfire and headlines of Vietnam, unfulfilled promises to give peace a chance and to the Star Spangled Banner stereo of Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock. We marched in the city streets for civil rights and gifted this generation with the right to vote at 18 years of age.
We dressed in Army green fatigues and wore silk-screened, bold slogans on our T-Shirts. We put flowers in our hair and dreamed of going to San Francisco. Some went by the highway -- others traveled to far away places only in their minds on smoky daytrips.
During the Beatles generation days, if we accidentally blurted out "Hell" or "damn" on the air, we faced the consequences, unarmed, without non-compete clauses or fancy contracts. Though we were long-haired and hippie warriors, we at least were responsible for our actions.
Our limousines were Volkswagen beetles and buses. Before the Internet and Ricky's Reel Radio, the gold currency of our radio realm was 7 1/2 ips airchecks mailed carefully from city to city. We fired and hired each other at a half dozen different radio stations -- one day we were enemies, the next day, best friends and boss jocks.
One of our fellow Beatles generation jocks, Paxton Mills, died Monday -- all alone. I'm swallowing now to lose the lump in my throat as I write these words. Somehow it doesn't seem right to read those three words, "Paxton Mills died."
The ranks of our Beatles generation jocks are slowly thinning -- one by one. For him to have left this world alone, without one of us there to say the last goodbye, is sad. How do we say goodbye to someone we wish we'd have known better? We can't. It is too late to say goodbye to Paxton Mills. But not to the rest of the Beatles generation jocks, one at a time, when those times come.
I never worked with Paxton Mills. I spoke with him maybe three or four times during our Beatles generation days. Many of my radio friends shared the same microphone with Paxton, though. As evidence of our generation's collective conscience and comradery, all day today, there've been many silent tributes and testaments to our fallen friend. The Radio Daily News e-mailbox has filled up with somber, sentimental notes from those who knew Paxton Mills better than I or who wished that they'd have taken the time to get to know him better -- and kept in touch.
I've learned from Paxton's leaving us, a lesson. From now on, I'll try not to put off a day, again, the opportunity to write a note, send an e-mail or make a phone call to a friend in radio - especially ones I haven't seen or talked to in some time.
Looking back, I've come to think that our Beatles generation may have been the greatest generation that radio ever produced. We've yet to find our own Tom Brokaw who will tell the battle stories of when we stormed the beaches, one record and rating period at a time, and waded ashore on the banks of the Missouri River onto the battlefields at Omaha or when we bravely climbed the cliffs and mountains of Utah where only eagles dared broadcast.
Just like the older soldiers of the other greatest generation who come together to say goodbye to their uniformed comrades, we don't really need words. We share the many great memories and battle badges, and the honor of having been a member of the battalions who were the Beatles generation jocks. Our best days and nights are not behind us. As we march together in silent steps toward the final days, our drum beat cadence is that of the Beatles generation. It is the metronome beat heard coming from the weathered, yellowed Western Union clock that'll once again take us to the top of the hour - and beyond - one small click at a time ...