It Was Twenty Years Ago Today, Part XXII

I’d been at KSTP a little over two weeks. The job was settling into a bit of a routine. I got up at 8:30 or 9AM, got to work around 10:30, ran the board for two hours during the syndicated Owen Span show (a classic “Fairness Doctrine”-era talk show, simultaneously about everything and nothing, mushy-left but unwilling to say it), then into the “production meeting” with Don Vogel and Dave Elvin.

The meeting usually involved listening to Don bitch about his latest travails (the unreliability of his Metro Mobility driver was constant theme) and gush about his latest joys (food was a big, constant one) for about an hour, and then a frantic hour of getting stuff together for the show.

Thursday, January 3, 1985 was no exception.

“I got this tape in the mail”, said producer Dave Elvin. “It’s from a guy who claims Elvis is alive”.

The letter was from a “Colonel Bill Smith”, a Dallas man who claimed to have evidence that Elvis faked his death; the tape was from 1981, and purported to prove that Elvis was alive and well, and in hiding.

He popped the cassette into a player. There was some crowd noise, and then the sound of Elvis Presley over a strummed guitar:

I will spend my whole life through
loving you, loving you.
Winter, summer, spring-time, too,
loving you, loving you…

The guitar stopped. There were a few seconds of silence, broken only by a few mutterings from the crowd and what sounded like glasses tinkling.

Then, the voice of Elvis (?), speaking this time…:

I’m sorry… 

I…

Uh…

I can’t go on.

I just heard that President Reagan…

…has been SHOT…

The tape ended.

Don erupted in his deep-in-the-belly chuckle. “We gotta book this guy!”

“I’ll do it”, I said. It sounded interesting.

I walked out to my little desk – it was a little larger than a cutting board, its right wall was a rack of satellite demodulators, and I shared it with the morning show’s producer – and called the number on the “Colonel Bill Smith” letterhead.

Answering machine. I left a message.

The rest of the day? Do the show, get home around 7PM.

My biggest challenge, of course, was figuring out how to stretch my $3.35 an hour to cover my bills; $212.50 a month rent, probably $100 for gas (I put “move to Saint Paul”, a much shorter commute, high on my list of to-dos – once I could afford it), and that left about $100 of my $420 monthly take-home for food, clothing, and everything else.

I started scouting around for ways to supplement my income.