Celebrating My 38th Anniversary with WOBM

Outside of those directly involved anniversaries often don’t mean much unless the number being celebrated is truly special.

A 10, 25 or 50-year anniversary stands out more than a 9, 24 or 49-year anniversary. For example next Tuesday is my 36^th wedding anniversary and we’re not really doing anything special although Jane will likely tell you we’ve never done anything that special to mark her personal D Day: July 25, 1981.

It’s clearly a day she’ll not forget. Big mistakes tend to be ones that say with you.

However the anniversary I want to make you aware of is actually this Sunday as it was July 23, 1979 when I walked into the offices of WOBM on Route 9 in Bayville to begin what I thought was a pit stop on the road to fame and fortune.

I had been to the radio station before for my formal interview which basically consisted of answering five local sports questions from then Sales Manager Bob Levy.  I answered all of them and was hired as the radio station’s first fulltime Sports Director at a salary of $175 a week with my main responsibility to do morning and afternoon drive sports reports.

I would arrive around 3 a.m.,  air several live reports in the morning and actually return in the afternoon to do a couple of more.

Like the relative who comes for a visit but never leaves I called Bayville home for more than 30 years and over that time did just about everything, nothing more enjoyable then working as the morning show co-host with longtime partner Steve Paul.

We left Bayville in the winter of 2013 and moved to what we call the Townsquare Tower in downtown Toms River and I still wear many hats with my main focus these days on the Shore Sports Network I head up.  I have worked for four different companies and under numerous managers and more importantly have worked with hundreds of people. Some were and are more than just co-workers, others were very forgettable.

I’ve gone from being the youngest person in the building to one of the oldest and managed to survive in an industry that is very different from when I started.

A Greek philosopher named Heraclitus many many many years ago insisted that change was the fundamental essence of the universe. He’s quoted as saying “no man ever steps into the same river twice.”

I do agree that the only constant is change but I’ve also stepped in the same river for 38 years.