Saturday Night Love Letters…

Memories Are Made Of This…

There are many fond- and not so fond memories I feel compelled to jot down for the book… One that stands out was about a show I cooked up for Nitetime Radio with L.D. Reynolds. Which aired from 1967 to around 1975 on KMVI. It was four hours on a Saturday night where I would read a dedication then follow it with the song requested in the letter. In fact, it was called “Saturday Night Love Letters”. I would come in early for my shift to sort through the mail and make individual piles of letters that were for the same song. I had to do this because there was always more than one dedication with a particular song requested. I would read the letters on the air, then play the song. Well, the program got so popular that the incoming mail resembled an alpine avalanche. Big cardboard boxes full all for the upcoming Saturday evening show. Well, it got so popular I eventually had to cancel the program because there was no way I could get hundreds of dedications all within the allotted four hours. As I look back on this, I realize that I really didn’t think the idea for the show all the way through. Still, I think it would have been great if I could have had help with the show prep and then maybe at the end of the show say something in an apologetic tone like: “If you didn’t hear your dedication tonight, I’m sorry but we just ran out of time By all means please try again for next Saturday’s show!” Great. Another intense “What If” moment. I truly loved those kids. Today they’re probably all grown up adults, married with children or maybe even grandkids of their own Now, in my retirement I always get a kick out of those few precious moments when a person would recognize me on the street and come up to me and say what fun they had hearing their dedications live on the radio. Indeed once in awhile they would say they actually ended up marrying the person they dedicated those songs to. It warms the old ticker quite nicely.

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