Saturday, August 8, 2015

The Radio Hour

 My best friend, as I left for college, was Sonny.  He was in the KPBC's youth group.  He and I had a lot in common with music and girls.  When I went off to college, I wanted to write to him, as he was back home and two years younger than me, but I decided to do something different.  So, The Walter Durst Radio Hour was born.  It consisted of a cassette tape.  He and I sent tapes back and forth to each other.  The tapes had music and other things on them, and we shared a lot of our feelings on them, because we knew that no one else would listen to them. 
 My "radio station" was WOW, which stood for Walter Oh Walter.  His was SOS, which stood for Sonny Oh Sonny.  I did intros and it was just like a radio program.  At times, the tapes would be 90 minutes, and sometimes 30 minutes (for financial reasons).  There would be commercials that I would write, and a lot of music.  When my grades weren't doing too good, my parents would take my stereo away, so the shows would have a lot of stuff taped off of the radio.  I have one tape today that I kept from Sonny, because it had a lot of Bread music on it.  Years later, Sonny gave me some tapes that he had kept of me.  Most of the time though, we would tape over the tape that we sent to each other.  There are probably a lot of gems that were lost.
 After about a year, I expanded the shows to go to other people.  They were produced exclusively for them.  Such as Ellen and Karen, BJ, James, Jimmy, and a few others, but the bulk of them were between Sonny and me.  Even when I went to seminary in 1976, they continued.  Here is one intro from then, as I remember it:
 And now, from studio room 235 of Ft. Worth Hall at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth Texas, it's the Walter Durst Radio Hour.  Idea by Walter Durst; Written by Walter Durst; Directed by Walter Durst; Produced by Walter Durst; and Jived by Walter Durst.  The Walter Durst Radio Hour is broadcast on WOW, which stands for Walter Oh Walter and sent to station SOS, which stands for Sonny Oh Sonny.  The Walter Durst Radio Hour is brought to you by the wonderful folks at Irby's Pies with one flavor--Peach, and by the Postal Service.  The Walter Durst Radio Hour is also heard in Poland, Zambia, Albania, Lesotho, Tibet, Madagascar, and it is the official radio station of Outer Mongolia.  And now, here's Walter Durst.
 It went something like that with some variations, depending on the location.  I would do scripts at first, but then I just winged it.  It was creativity run amok.   I miss those days.

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