On Tuesday, I'll be signing papers to purchase a radio station and will begin broadcasting programming that a broad demographic spectrum of the area population wants to hear.

It will be a radio station that you and your friends can personally identify with and feel as though you "own." The announcers, newspersons and disc jockeys will be intelligent, happy, friendly and informed.

April Fool! None of that is true.

MICROPHONE GIANTS

Having spent time in various radio stations from the early 1950s, I'm still a fan. If you think for a moment that I could walk away from radio in April 1997 and never look back, you are mistaken.

Over the past 11 years, I have averaged five dreams a week about those years in the business. It saddens me to realize that a large number of the North Country radio pioneers are now deceased. They can never be replaced.

Part of my radio memories involves not only April Fool pranks, but almost daily behind-the-scenes high jinks that still make me chuckle.

Ten years ago, Calvin Castine held the TV camera as I sat down with Chester O. Bosworth, Bird Berdan and Art Pierce, and we reminisced about our radio days.

What fun. Those giants of the microphone are all gone now, but the memories linger on. A couple of weeks ago, that program was repeated on the regional cable systems. Kaye and I watched and found ourselves laughing and crying to hear the classic radio tales over again.

Those days cannot and will not ever be replicated. Those kinds of lovable and respectable personalities have become almost extinct.

During the program, we slapped our thighs, recalling the practical jokes that we perpetrated.

It was not uncommon for us to use our cigarette lighters to set announcers' copy on fire while they were reading news and commercials live on the air. Doing anything we could to make a person "break up" on the air became a regular game.

Some of the stunts we pulled were so hilarious as to have become the stuff of legends.

CAST-IRON BRASSIERE

I'll protect the innocent victims by not revealing their names. An announcer who is long gone fancied himself having the most mellifluous golden "pipes" in the business.