Legendary General Managers

[Linc Reed-Nickerson]

In the northeast we had some legendary general managers.... I guess that's
both good and bad.

Three that come to mind are: J. Thomas (Joe) Mathers of WNBP, Newburyport,
Ed Cetlin of WHAV in Haverhill, and James F. O'Grady of WALL in Middletown,
NY.  There were others I'm sure... These guys were "characters, to say the
least.

On the other hand there were some really good managers like Irv Kaizer, who
replaced Mathers at WNBP, I knew him there and at WEMJ.  Ralph Gottlieb at
WKBR, willing to help those who wanted to get into the business... and so
on.

I'm sure we all have tales, both good and bad that might be fun to share....

Best Joe Mathers story.  I got a call one day about going to the transmitter
and getting the cows out of the field... what cows.  I call Gene Gerry who
was the announcer at the time.  He says, yes, listen... he had one of those
devices that when you tipped over it would moo.  When Mathers had called to
ask why he was hearing cows, Gene told him he had driven by the transmitter
and seen cows in the field.  To the best of my knowledge there were never
any cows grazed there... ever.  But I took the call, went to the
transmitter, and got paid for the "emergency call' for disbursing the
imaginary cows.  I think it was $20 I was paid for a call in. This happened
several times in the summer of 1964... damn was that really 50 years ago!   

There have got to be some other great stories out there, and some, I'm sure,
have Tom Shovan somehow involved.  Then there was the prank we pulled on
WLNH...

Linc