Talk to Me~

Dick & I just returned from seeing Don Cheadle's new movie, Talk to Me. When I read the review in this morning's Roanoke Times, I said we HAD to go see this movie, not only because I'd heard it was very good, and a true story, but because it was about a black DJ at radio station WOL in Washington, DC...and I used to hang around that station when I was a teen, working the switchboard, picking records from the huge record room, watching the engineer work the "pots" (short for potentiometers), running errands for Ed Walker (my nextdoor neighbor, who was blind from birth but tried to do everything without any help, including riding the buses and streetcars all over DC by himself as he went to and from American University) and Willard Scott, also attending AU (before he got famous).

Now, I don't recall any black DJs at that time, but that was the early 50's. I do remember that Ed and Willard were so kind to this gawky teen, letting me hang around the nighttime show and then go out with them for a soda for me, and many cups of coffee for them, with other DJs and the crew. They'd all sit and tell jokes one after another, being very careful not to use any bad language in front of me. They also protected me from any of the guys who might get funny ideas.

Since I was riding there and back on Saturday nights with Eddie's college buddy, my folks didn't object until some busy body told my Mom that she couldn't be certain I was safe, and that she should stop me from going. Mind you, this was 1952 or so, and these were very decent young men. Well, I confess: I crawled out the basement window and waited on Eddie's porch for his ride to get there. Thinking about it now, I can't believe my younger sister, with whom I shared a bedroom, didn't rat on me! But she never did, and eventually my Mom simply forgot about her dictum, and I was able to continue on to WOL.

One summer after I turned 16, WOL needed a switchboard operator for two weeks that their regular daytime operator was going on vacation. They actually hired me! (I remember cutting people off and screwing up the switchboard totally.) But I also remember a wonderful Pearl Bailey who was married to a drummer named Louie Bellson. I had come in from lunch and heard her voice on the air, and asked a fellow sitting in the waiting room, reading his newspaper, if he minded if I turned the volume up so I could hear her interview...he smiled & said go ahead. Then when she came out, hair in rollers (radio, remember?) she said to him: OK Louie, let's go Babe. My mouth just dropped open. Pearl Bailey! Duke Ellington called Louie Bellson 'the world's greatest drummer.'

I recall Nat King Cole coming by, too, and he was very short with freckled light skin, to my amazement. He had a huge smile that lit up a room.
Also Eddie Fisher, in an Army uniform. He thought he was God's Gift.

I DO recommend the movie, Talk to Me, but be warned that the language is pretty graphic.