EP 13 Western Union Clock on my studio bunker wall.

Larry's Sorta Fun Stories

Western Union Clock

“Well, the massive Western Union Clock on the bunker wall says that time’s up for this week but remember you can check me out at Jay Lawrence Radio Host on Facebook, drop me a line or make a request.

So, join us again next time. I’ll still be here in the bunker getting some more shows together FROM STATESIDE here on the UK 1940s Radio Station. Until Next Time, I’m Jay Lawrence … thanks for listening.”

I had just completed the 241st episode of FROM STATESIDE. On each program I refer to the Western Union Clock on the bunker wall of my Underground Broadcast Studio Bunker and it finally came to me that I need to clarify the reason I used that reference.

It all started when I was given a tour of the WMBD radio studios in Peoria, Illinois when I was incredibly young. In each studio there was a Western Union Clock on the wall.

Listening to the radio had always been a staple in my home growing up. There was the afternoon children’s programs like The Green Hornet and Spiderman to listen to when I got home from school, but the serious listening started at the supper table on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This was the time for the LONE RANGER. It was a half hour program that came on right at supper time and my sister and I would argue over who would sit closest to the radio to hear all the action.

There were other programs listened to during the week in what we call prime time hours now, but the most important and most listened to program happened on Sunday evening. It was the Jack Benny Program. Jack Benny always had a cast of characters like Mel Banc (famous for Bugs Bunny voice), vocalist Dennis Day, Bandleader Phil Harris the announcer was Don Wilson but one of the funniest characters was Eddie ROCHESTER Anderson. Jack Benny allowed his cast to have some of the funniest lines and biggest laughs. And it seemed like they were always going to practice the radio show for the next program … it was great theater of the mind.

And several times you would hear Jack Benny say, “The clock on the wall says we’re a little late so goon night.” The show was running long. They were doing the broadcast live. And the clock on the wall was a Western Union Clock.

So, it was only right for me to think about being on the radio. I wanted to be in one of those studios. I wanted to be on the air. But an amazing thing is that you must be able to read. And I find it hard to read sometimes and I even have a habit of putting words into scripts that aren’t even there.

Consequently, I found a way to get into the broadcast business by understudying a TV Director at the radio and TV station that I had toured twelve years earlier. When I say I understudied, I skipped my English102 Class at Bradley University and studied and absorbed all I could in television production at the TV Station.

I studied and I learned, and I was promoted to a TV Director directing live news casts. My eye was always on the Western Union Clock on the wall as we had to join CBS for THE EVENING NEWS with Walter Cronkite on time.

Jump ahead to 2013, I am semi-retired and wanting to do more production. The internet was giving us a great outlet for creativity, and I heard this station from England called the UK 1940s radio station and I wanted to do a program for that station. I threw together a fifteen-minute pilot demo and shipped it off. They liked it and here I have just completed 241 hours of programming. As I complete each program, I have my eye on the massive Western Union Clock on the bunker wall to be sure I am on time.

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