Reach for the moon
You’ll see that soon
You’ll be among the stars.
Hanging out with Venus and Mars.

When something becomes really important to me, somehow or another the answer to how to deal with it, falls right in my lap.  That may be why I think serendipity is the prettiest word I ever heard.

 Even though I was actually making a living in radio, that “You don’t have much of a voice” thing was bothering me more and more.  Serendipitously, I came across an interview with Richard Burton in which he described what to him was a beautiful voice. 

According to Richard The Great, what made a voice beautiful was simply a matter of  “closing all the consonants.”  Putting the Ts and Ps and Ks and Gs on the ends of words ... actually verbalizing the hard consonants instead of sluffing over them or not pronouncing them at all.  He said he used to stand on the rocks shouting over the roar of whatever ocean it was that washed up on the shores of Wales,  reciting “Hamlet’s advice to the players” paying particular attention to those Ts and Ps and Ks and Gs.  To make it even more difficult, he did it with marbles in his mouth.  He didn’t say how many marbles, but having tried it I can assure you it wasn’t much more than three.  Two, if he wanted to be understood at all.

For most of our time in Tucson, we lived in an all adobe house in the middle of about five acres of Mojave Desert and, inspired by Mr. Burton, every morning I  walked out into our desert of a backyard and for fifteen minutes, I would encourage a big fat old cactus to ... “Speak the speech ... trippingly on the tongue,” paying particular attention to those Ts and Ps and Ks and Gs.  Everyday, at least fifteen minutes of ‘practice with the cactus.’  I couldn’t get with the marbles.

I guess I really didn’t have much of a voice, but to make matters worse, with my tenth grade education, I didn’t have much of a vocabulary either. For a fella who wanted to talk on the radio, that could be a serious handicap.

INSERT: The lovely Lady Serendipity.  

I was standing in line at a market trying to decide whether or not I should blow a whole ten cents on a three pack of Juicy Fruit chewing gum when I noticed, next to the Juicy Fruit, a small display of books, one of which was entitled, “30 Days To A More Powerful Vocabulary.”  To hell with the Juicy Fruit!  For an additional fifteen cents, in 30 days,  I could throw around a lot of big words and people would think I’d gone to college.  Wow, what a deal.  So,  in even less than thirty days my ‘Practice with the cactus,’ became ‘Practi with the cacti.’ 

The book encouraged the reader to learn a new word every day; to not only know it’s meaning but to use it in conversation at least three times that day.  It was difficult and a little uncomfortable to shove these new words into conversations but I had an advantage.  I talked on the radio every day and it was easy to say things like, “People attending the gigantic sale were caught up in an imbroglio they weren’t expecting.”   I doubt that people are ever really expecting an imbroglio.  

Five years in Tucson learning the ins and outs of real radio.  First , Mr. Wallace decided I should be the morning man.  That lasted about six weeks and I was dyin’.  I don’t mean on-the-air, although I’m pretty sure I was dying there too, but physically, I just couldn’t do the early morning thing.  No way. I spent the whole night, every night, worrying about not waking up at 4:30.  So I was getting no sleep at all and that cost me about twenty five of my hundred and fifty or so pounds.  I think I lost most of it throwing up worrying about the rotten job I was doing on the radio. 

“Mr. Wallace, “ I said, “I can’t do the morning show.  I stink.” 

“You’re telling me!” Wallace replied, “You’re really dreadful.” 

I don’t know why he didn’t fire me.  Instead, I swapped shifts with his young son, Tom Jr., a very up kind of guy who loved doing the morning.  My shift was now ten to six.  Eight straight hours a day on the air. But, that was nothing to an experienced broadcaster like me.  I pulled out my bag of KGAN tricks and once again the airwaves were blessed with .... Mid-Day Melodies, ten to two.  Two to four, hiding behind that same dreadful accent which I had so carefully developed and nurtured in Kingman, I presented ... The Old Corral.  But now, thanks to Richard Burton, the hillbilly accent was enhanced by carefully pronouncing all the Ts and Ps and Ks and Gs on the ends of words.  I sounded like a combination of Laurence Olivier and Tex Ritter.  You may not remember both those names, but I’m sure you get the idea. 

“You sound ridiculous! Said Mr. Wallace, “What the hell are you trying to do? 

“Well, I’m on for so long, I was trying to break it up a little.”  Again, I don’t know why I wasn’t fired for really stinking up his radio station. 

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do.” said Mr. Wallace, “And I think it’s important that we try to keep from boring the audience but what you’re doing has got to be chasing them away.” 

“You think?” 

“What you have to keep in mind is that even though you are on the radio for eight hours the average listener is there for probably no more than an hour, maybe two at most.”  

We know today that time spent listening is no more than ninety minutes but way back then, Mr. Wallace was just guessing.  But as was almost always the case, his gut was right on.