One Saturday morning last month I tuned into the Premiere rebroadcast of the 10/13/84 AT40. One of the show's Long Distance Dedications popped up about midway through Hour 2, from a listener in New Jersey with an unusual request: she wanted to dedicate the Atlanta Rhythm Section's "Do It or Die" to a woman who had almost four years earlier requested the same song. Back in November 1980, the NJ woman had been in her car on a multi-hour drive, listening to Casey (as one should). The original request for "Do It or Die" came from an early-career journalism major to "the foolish dreamers of the world;" she made major changes in her life after hearing "DIoD" on her car radio, quitting what she considered a dead-end, small-town job to pursue--and obtain--a much more lively and fulfilling career. This had in turn led the Garden State listener to look inward and seize the day herself, and she was wanting to express gratitude to the first woman.
I chuckled a bit as I listened, as I had also first heard the 1980 dedication while driving, though not when originally broadcast. (The charts I kept growing up noted Long Distance Dedications if I heard them, and "Do It or Die" is not listed on my 11/22/80 chart.)
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It's the Saturday before Thanksgiving 2016, a cold and grey day, and the high school sophomore riding with me is well used to hearing Casey's voice on the weekends. We're on our way to a robotics competition a couple of hours to the south. I'm four-plus years into the reboot of my AT40 habit and am savvy enough by this point to find a station to stream on my phone whenever I need, so we hear the opening 90 or so minutes of the 11/22/80 show on the way down and much of the rest of it on the return home (as I recall, results at the competition were middling). Certain things about the show will stick with me: a question about the remake king of the charts (Donny Osmond), learning a little about the woman who appeared on the cover of Breakfast in America, the three #1 Songs of the 60s that are spun ("Telstar," "Go Away Little Girl," and "Walk Right In," all big hits at roughly the midpoint between my parents' wedding day and the moment they learned they would become three). But it's that LDD from Kim in Minnesota that makes the greatest impression that day, coming in the middle of Hour #4, read just as we're reaching the outskirts of Georgetown.
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I was 52 in 2016, closing in on a quarter-century at my first--and to this day, only--real job. Unlike at least two other people decades earlier, I did not use hearing ARS's words of wisdom that early evening eight years ago as a springboard into something new and completely different. However, as 11/22/80 played once again this past weekend and I got to listen to that inspirational moment for Sunny in Jersey one more time, I can report that some changes are indeed a-comin' for yours truly. In August I told my Provost that this is going to be my last year as a full-time faculty member--I'll be moving to half-time after graduation services are held in May. I have agreed to stay on as department chair for a couple more years, but I'm looking forward to having time to do more of...something. It might be dipping my toes back into some research, it might be increased volunteer work in the community, it might a little of a few things; we'll see. Part of the rationale for making this move now is in fact to try to capitalize as best I can on my remaining years. Maybe it is a roll of the dice, but I'm positive the moment to do it is right.
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