It was in the era before disco dance floors, digital dials, dial up ISP's, dot coms and CD’s. FM was 7 or so years away. Personal computers were the size of houses and not everyone owned a color TV. Television had three or four channels. 5 if you could pick up PBS.

We came from little towns like Evansville, Tyler, Cheyenne and Natchez -- and bigger towns like Albuquerque, Salt Lake, Philadelphia and LA.

We were armed with our cockiness, courage and, what we swore was, charisma. Our Third Class Radiotelephone Operator’s permits were our battle shields and our microphones were our battle sabers. We thought we could take on the world – and in our own ways, we did.

We patented the word and practiced being cool two decades before it was cool to say cool and be cool again. We wore long hair and beads, bellbottoms and bandanas, leather armbands and beards while pondering the nutritional value of whole grain natural foods. We marched on Washington to protest a war, blew our minds in San Francisco and went to hootenannies in Greenwich Village.

We surfed and danced to the Beach Boys and Beatles, Stones, Turtles, Jefferson Airplane, Vanilla Fudge and Cream. We wore Hai Karate after-shave and Heaven Sent perfume and we were "suddenly everything we wanted to be." We went by radio names like James Bond and Beethoven, Shotgun and Superjock.

We were the Beatles Generation Jocks Art Roberts was one of our heroes.

Art passed away on March 6 at 10:30 PM.  35 years ago, at about that time of the night, he would have been halfway through his nine till midnight radio show on WLS. It seems somehow proper and poetic that he left us at that time of the evening. For, if you were a Beatles Generation Jock, you always thought of and listened to Art Roberts at that time of the night.

Tonight, I took a walk around my neighborhood. I looked up at the sky and watched the clouds chasing each other underneath the black blanket of stars.

It took me back to a time when I was in my teens. At night, I’d lay on my back  in the wide-open field beside my Texas home in Irving looking up at the stars. I’d clutch my transistor radio, point its antenna to true north and try to capture the magic radio waves in mid air -- the faint, scratchy radio signal that began on the shores of Lake Michigan, 960 miles away. It was the sound of Chicago’s Big 89 – WLS and Art Roberts.

I loved Art Roberts. His was the voice that I imitated. His was the style that I adopted as my own. He told stories, he didn’t just introduce records. He was entertaining and creative without being crude. He was positive. He had great respect for those who listened to him. His listeners were not the butt of his jokes. He was, as my friend Ken Dowe says, "accountable."

With Art as my long distance radio teacher, I learned the names of the Chicago suburbs and knew them better than the Dallas-Fort Worth cities and towns that I grew up around. I could pronounce Kankakee long before I could correctly say Waxahachie. I knew all of the names of the Chicagoland expressways and freeways by heart. I wanted to walk on Wabash Avenue. I longed to stroll down Michigan Avenue. I yearned to stand on State Street in this city of big shoulders where Art Roberts was king.  I wanted to be just like Art Roberts.

Art brought the bustle of the big world of Chicago to the small towns of America. In the 60’s, in states all across the country, nighttime belonged to Ron Riley in the early evening and to Art Roberts from 9 till midnight. Over the years, I’ve talked with radio people of all ages who listened to Art. They said that he was an inspiration to them, just like he was an inspiration to me.

Art left WLS in 1970. I didn’t hear him or of him for nearly 30 years. Then, one evening, in 1997 in the early days of the Internet, I discovered his e-mail address in Ricky Irwin’s ReelRadio.com.

I sent an e-mail to Art. I told him that I’d listened to him all those many years ago and about how he’d been such an inspiration to many others and me. I thanked him for all that he’d done to help me during the early days of my radio career.

Art replied and told me that he was living in Tyler, Texas. That e-mail began a friendship that had been 32 years in the making.

We exchanged e-mails a few times and promised that we’d get together some day and have a steak dinner – my treat. I had just published my guidebook, Making the Transition, and sent him a copy.

The next time I heard from Art, he and Bobbi were living in a suburb of Reno, Nevada. He told me that he’d enjoyed my guidebook and had thought about writing a book of his own.

I urged him to do so. I encouraged him to write a book about his radio career and offered to help in what ways he thought I could. Shortly thereafter he began writing what became his wonderful autobiography, "Thinkin’ Out Loud."

While he was writing it, Art would e-mail the drafts of chapters and ask for my comments. He was an excellent writer. His words came alive on the pages. His book reads like Art talked on the radio. I suggested that he should record an audio version of the book in addition to the published hard copy.

It was during that time that we talked about the importance of the Internet. Art was a great believer in all of the communications possibilities that the Internet promised.

He registered the domain name, ArtRoberts.com. I became his Webmaster and Web page designer.

Art was the Michaelangelo of his Internet Web site. I just provided the canvas and helped him put the colors in all the right places.

Art's Web site  became Art’s radio station of the 1990’s and 2000’s. When you visit it, you’ll see that he’s given his loyal Web page visitors just about everything that a radio show could provide. There’s the WLS Silver Dollar Survey and Hit Parade. R&I (Rumors and I-Nnuendoes) is his weekly column. You’ll see the feedback from fans in Art’s e-mailbag. Art’s Links will take you to all of the corners of the radio world.

Art was a master of many things. One of his loves and specialties was sales. He introduced a series of sales tools that he wrote in his Web site feature, Strategic Sales Counseling. We even discussed the possibility of his writing a book on sales and motivation as soon as he finished writing his autobiography.

Art prepared his Web site content like he prepared for his radio show. He was the consummate professional.

Art would e-mail me each week’s updates for his Web site on Friday evening. Sometimes he’d telephone to make sure I’d received the updates and we’d visit for an hour or so. We’d talk about radio, the new satellite radio, news about radio people, politics, and his and Bobbi’s frisky, barking "children," the three Shelties. He loved his home near Reno -- and he loved Bobbi, his kids, grandkids and great grandkid. He’d look out the window and describe to me the snowcapped mountains or tell me about his and Bobbi's short trips away from their home in that Nevada valley.

Sometimes I’d catch myself thinking, "I can’t believe I’m talking with Art Roberts." Art was and will forever be a hero. I always felt like a nervous kid on the request line when I spoke with him.

In 1999, I got an e-mail from one of his children, Dahleen. She told me that Art had suffered a stroke and was in the hospital.

We said our prayers and put the word out to the world on his Web site. Hundreds and hundreds of well wishers sent e-mails to Art. Along with Bobbi’s and his family’s loving care, I believe those e-mails gave him the strength to eventually leave the hospital and return home.

Art didn’t miss a beat. He continued to work on his book. Even though our plans to produce an audio version of his book, "Thinkin’ Out Loud," were put on hold while he regained his health and took speech therapy, he finally finished the book and published it. It is still on sale. There, you’ll read the comments of many of the radio giants who read and loved it as much as the many others and I who bought it.

One day, Art called me, all excited, to let me know that he was going to be a guest on Jay Marvin’s WLS 6 – 9 PM show to talk about the book. For those of you who may have heard that show, you know that it was as if Art had never left Chicago.

The WLS interview was like a city wide homecoming for Art. Jay Marvin is as big a fan of Art’s as I. Art did additional interviews on WLS and WGN with Bob Sirott, and Steve and Johnnie.

The last R&I column that Art wrote is the one that is posted on his Web site now. It is dated February 17. That’s the weekend when Art suffered the fatal stroke. But, he worked up until the last minute, putting out a quality product for his Web site visitors to enjoy.

A portion of his last R&I column headlines, "We’ve Lost Some Friends" and details the deaths of singer Waylon Jennings and radio people Bob Wooler and Evelyn Scott. But, the lead story is about the Blood, Sweat and Tears concert that he and Bobbi enjoyed at the Reno Hilton Theatre the week before his stroke.

Art talked about the BS & T encore and about what a great band they were to hear in person. Their encore song was "You’ve Made Me So Very Happy."

They did make Art happy -- and Art, you did more than your share of that too. You made a lot of people very, very happy.

Art, if you're listening, my friend, I thank you for your generosity, kindness and for all that you did for me, and for all that you did to help and inspire so many thousands of others. I was happy to be your Internet guide and friend along the way these last few years. I hope that what little I did for you during those years is a partial payback for all the things that you taught me beginning some 36 years ago.

Maybe I’m naïve in thinking that there has never been a radio personality who was so widely loved and respected by both radio people and radio listeners alike. But, one would have to look long and hard to find a person to equal Art.

Perhaps one day, there’ll be a room or studio at WLS named the Art Roberts Studio or you’ll be honored in some other way. Maybe there’s a special place in a hallway where they will hang your photograph and feature a little history about those WLS days when Art Roberts ruled the radio airwaves from the Windy City. 

Last night, Jay Marvin’s 6 – 9 PM WLS talk show boomed and echoed across America from the shores of Lake Michigan. Fans of Art Roberts called in and paid tributes to him.

Jay spoke with Jimmy Rabbitt who, like thousands of us, listened to him in a little town in Texas. Art taught Jimmy how to play music and what music to play. What was the secret? "Oh, just play a little bit of everything," Art would say. Art and Jimmy worked together for a brief time in the late 90’s.

At the end of February, we lost a good radio family friend, Bill Hix, of Fort Worth. Jay Mack, who worked in Denver, left us recently as well.

Today, I attended a celebration of life for another radio friend, John LaBella, who died suddenly in a tragic accident on Monday in Dallas. Danny Owen and Gary Reynolds described John as a gentle man. He was a Connecticut Yankee who came to the radio court in Texas.  A man who had two lives -- One on the radio and the other with his wife, Beth, and daughter, Elise. Amid the Psalms and sermons, there was more than enough laughter that dried the tears in that beautiful Methodist sanctuary today. That’s what John would have wanted, I'll bet.

After the service, Bud Buschardt, Steve Eberhart, John McCoy, Charley and Janel Jones, Danny Owen, Mike Shannon, Eddie Hubbard and a few other radio people talked about those Beatles Generation Jocks days, about what radio has become, about John and Art, and the influence that our radio family of friends who’ve recently left us had on their own radio careers.

It made me think -- and believe -- that Art will always be with us -- Not only in the recordings of his radio shows that you’ll listen to on ReelRadio.com, but in our hearts and consciences as well.

And so, I’ve made a promise to myself that whenever I meet a young person who is trying to find a mentor or a hero, I’ll take the time to tell them about Art and what an influence he had on my life. I hope that they, too, will find someone special to take them by the hand and give them some advice about how to grow along the highways that their chosen paths will take them.

Art never quit giving of himself to others. We Beatles Generation Jocks certainly learned from the best.

My heart is empty from the loss of Art and those others who've left us.  But, I am grateful that I knew him and them, and for the legacy they leave.

We were so young then. Now, we’re older and wiser -- and we're still got a few corners left to turn ...