Marlow's Musings 10/13/24
Insights, adventures and fun stuff from this week.
Audio narration by David Marlow
At thirty-four minutes fifty-five seconds past midnight on October 13th it happened. The night had started with spooky music and themes of Halloween and bad luck because this October 13th landed on a Friday. A Friday the 13th near Halloween was even spookier than most.
Or at least that was the theme the disc jockey decided on for the show. I was doing the overnight news at the time doing the newscasts on the AM radio station and covering the newsroom for TV if anything big happened.
It was 1978 and I was still in high school, yet working full-time at the station. I’d come into the studio a little before midnight, write, and then read the news at 12:30 am. Then again on the half hours until the morning crew took over when I’d head home, grab a shower, and drive to school.
I remember the exact moment it happened because I was wrapping up the newscast and doing my ‘outro’ which started in the final 15 seconds. I was ready to do my sign-off…I’m David Marlow, WTHI News when—
BOOM!
Everything went silent and dark.
Ray,1 the overnight deejay was studying broadcasting at Indiana State and working overnight. He loved spooky themes so he had planned this show for weeks. What he didn’t plan on was a freak thunderstorm rolling through unexpectedly shortly after midnight.
The boom and flash were simultaneous which of course meant it had hit our building. The transmitter tower to be exact. Multiple lightning strikes had occurred and knocked out the power as well all over town.
It took about two hours for the power to come back on and much longer for the transmitters. The station had only recently installed one of the first ‘color’ radar systems. That was fried along with the TV transmitter.
The engineers, a crusty group of older men, all WW II veterans got the AM station up first at around 4 am.
That’s when it got interesting.
I read the news at 4:30 and Ray signaled for me to come into the control room. “Here’s the mic switch, these control the turn tables,” he said pointing back and forth. “I’ve laid out an hour’s worth of songs so you should be fine for an hour or so.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Doug is supposed to be in at 4 and he’s not here. I have to leave because I have an early class. You’re going to have to take over until Bobby comes in.”
I had been on the air for over a year so that wasn’t an issue. But it had been reading the news or weather and making commercials.
Running a full radio show required not only announcing, it involved selecting the music, recording the network programming feeds, monitoring and adjusting the transmitter, and a whole host of non-glamorous stuff that I had never done before.
Bobby, the morning deejay and our boss, didn’t come in until 7 am. This meant I would be doing all of this during the most listened-to time of the day, morning drive.
Ray didn’t wait around for me to decide if I was okay with this. He started a record, got up from the chair and said, “Good luck,” as he ran out the door.
It turned out that Doug’s alarm didn’t go off because he had lost power along with most of the city. That was why he hadn’t come in.
In what I would later realize was one of my gifts, I was able to seamlessly step into that role, sounding at ease and presenting a successful show with no prep, as if I had been doing it for years.
I know this because of the feedback Bobby gave me when he arrived. He had been listening on his way into the station. Bobby was so impressed that when the evening show slot opened up a few weeks later, he offered it to me.
This launched my broadcasting career, giving me experiences and skills that continue to serve me today.
When people talk about how unlucky Friday the 13th can be, my mind immediately goes to those events of forty-six years ago and how my life and luck changed for the better.
Of course, a few years later Bobby fired me. Unexpectedly, this too became a lucky break. That's a story for another day.
Word of the Week
Luck (n.)
/lək/
Success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions.
Chance, considered as a force that causes good or bad things to happen.
I don’t believe in luck in the sense of that second definition. Random events happen in life. An ancient definition expressed luck as the quality of tending to receive desired or beneficial outcomes.
If you count only on luck for your success or discount luck, as in random events, you are going to miss out.
Timing or changes out of our control that help or hurt we sometimes call luck.
If you discount the possibility or don't factor that into your evaluation, you run the risk of missing opportunities and lessons.
Being open to possibilities and grabbing unexpected opportunities like my radio example increases the likelihood of having good ‘luck’ in our lives.
In case you missed it…
This week, there were again two Ikigai Thoughts for Today…
The first…Good Things Come
A lesson in the value of patience from a 5-year-old boy.
The second…Four Great Things
Four great things to fall in love with as we start the fall season.
Ikiquest+
This week’s Coffee Contemplation: Dangerous and Noble Things
One of the more fun contemplations I’ve had as this one came together from three separate insights gleaned during the week. Then they combined for an entirely new insight.
Ikiquest+ subscribers can listen to it in audio narration or read the transcription.
If you aren’t yet an Ikiquest+ Subscriber, give it a try for free by clicking the box here.
Interesting Thing
I came to live in Wisconsin over thirty years ago. Shortly after arriving late one night in the dead of winter, I witnessed the Northern Lights for the first time. Standing out in the cold I recall thinking what a marvelous place I had come to live. How exciting that I would get to see such wonders all the time.
I would not see them again for nearly three decades.
In recent years there have been several instances and this week the best and brightest yet.
I took these pictures this week with an iPhone from my yard. Though these aren’t nearly as spectacular as some, they serve as a reminder to me of what I witnessed and how (to follow our theme) lucky I was to witness such an event.
Comment of the Week:
There were so many wonderful comments this week. I encourage you to read Thea’s and Teyani’s on the Good Things Come post as they led me to ponder a deeper meaning. I share more about the deeper reflection they prompted in the Coffe Contemplation.
The comment I want to share here is from Enrico about the Mary Oliver poem…
I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome, beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings.
Here is his thought…
“Frolicsome is a difficult word now I will need a way to use it and if it does not work I will still be better for having tried it.”
Enrico struggled with the word but was willing to explore its meaning and possible application in his life, recognizing he would be better for the effort even if he was unable to do so.
My guess is that he is going to get lucky and experience something wonderful as a result.
Quote I’m Pondering
This thought is from Franz Kafka. I seem to be pondering Kafka a lot lately for whatever reason.
We were expelled from Paradise, but Paradise was not destroyed. In a sense our expulsion from Paradise was a stroke of luck, for had we not been expelled, Paradise would have had to be destroyed.
Final Thoughts
I have had incredibly good fortune in my life like the radio example. You may recall I even met my wife because of a series of lucky events in my radio career. One might describe some of these events as miraculous.
I've also survived a plane crash. I witnessed a friend's murder while narrowly escaping being murdered myself. I've experienced the struggle of disabling diseases affecting those closest to me.
Was I lucky or unlucky?
I prefer another word…bluck. The “b” representing blessed.
Quest Well.
Ray is not his real name because even though we worked together for years, for the life of me I can’t recall his name.
Sometimes getting thrown in at the deep end is a gift. No time to consider whether you are ready or not! I'll bet your colleagues were not surprised how well you did though. Keeping your antennae up for opportunities and doing everything you can to develop puts you in the best position to take advantage of your bluck.
My entire reading this morning (from Paris, btw) is synchronized on choosing states of higher vibrational frequencies! Thank you for this and for the opportunity of learning even more about how interesting your life experiences have interwoven to this point!