I JUST ENJOYED THE MUSIC
Our children come from two families of radio listeners. It all became clear after reading about the end of the run for WCBS-AM this past summer.
“NEW YORK -- WCBS Newsradio 880 is signing off for good, ending almost 60 years of broadcasting news in New York City.
“The all-news format and WCBS call letters will be retired when 880 AM shifts to sports radio and relaunches as ESPN New York and WHSQ-AM effective Aug. 26, the radio station's owner Audacy announced.
“Audacy also owns 1010 WINS@92.3 FM, which will maintain its all-news format.
“New York Mets games will continue to air on 880 AM and stream on the Audacy app, the company said.”
“WCBS 880's run ends after nearly 60 years
“WCBS 880's news team narrated history and chronicled change in the city over the course of more than 50 years. It first went on air as an all-news station in August 1967 -- way before the era of getting headlines on a smartphone.
"I think the legacy of WCBS will be nearly six decades of just trying to tell stories that people need to hear," said veteran WCBS 880 anchor Steve Scott. "There's gonna be a hole in the landscape. We really appreciate the people that used this for the last 57 years.
“WCBS 880 was the radio home of journalists Charles Osgood, Ed Bradley, Charles Kuralt, Rich Lamb, Wayne Cabot and Deborah Rodriguez.
"It's a mainstay"
“New York State Sen. James Skoufis said 880 AM was often on the dial at home when he was growing up in Queens.
"It's a mainstay for a lot of my constituents and certainly millions of people in the New York City area. It's quite frankly shocking, the news that they're closing up shop," said Skoufis.
“Audacy said the decision to end the station's news programming was painful.”
"New York has always been proudly unique in supporting two all-news radio brands, but the news business has gone through significant changes," said Chris Oliviero, New York market president with Audacy. "The headwinds facing local journalism nationwide made it essential to strategically reimagine how we deliver the news for the most impact. WCBS 880 has been one of the most respected radio stations in history, with a legacy cemented by the hundreds of world-class journalists, on and off the air, who willed it into existence over the decades. If it happened in New York or the world, you heard about it on WCBS 880. Today, 1010 WINS@92.3FM, equally iconic, moves forward as New York's only 24/7 all-news station with the best distribution platform, the largest audience and the most recognized brand in the industry.
“WCBS 880 will have a look back at the station's storied history on Aug. 22, from 10 a.m.-1 p.m., in a special called "WCBS 880 News: The people, the moments, and the events that shaped our lives."
I never realized that my parents were such news junkies. I think I’ve missed a lot.
When “Goodnight Chet, Goodnight David, and Goodnight from…news…” rings in my head, I turn to my husband, Arnee, a radio buff, talk show host for 27 years, and fill-in DJ on WDVR-FM, to ask what the call letters were for that nightly news show of my youth.
What’s wrong with me? It was NBC, of course. My radio and television buff husband added that except for special times such as election night, one anchor was broadcasting from New York and the other from D.C. Granted, he’s two years my senior, but I had no recollection of that fact either.
The youngest of my three older brothers is the most like our mother, keeping me abreast of the news daily. He’s a true news connoisseur.
Out of high school, our eldest brother worked in the printing room at the Home News in North Brunswick, New Jersey, where he accidentally severed the tip of his middle finger on a printing press when I was in grammar school. Horror of horrors.
Something almost equally as painful was the micro metal photoengraver plate he brought home. That was used for printing the cover page on the day JFK was assassinated. He explained, “I worked for the Home News in North Brunswick and was home sick that day. In those days newspapers were printed on large rotary presses with two half round lead plates, attached to a round drum. The Linotype operator set the type and the makeup printers set the type and advertising plates, into a steel frame that held each page together. As best that can remember each frame was held on a dolly which was moved into the next department, which I think was called the Stereotype room. It was then moved onto a press with a special moist cardboard sheet. The impressed cardboard was then moved into a special machine that held the sheet in a mold that then filled it with lead. After a cooling off period the molded lead was then moved into the press room and was fitted onto the press into proper order for printing.”
I remember seeing that rubbery-looking plate lying around in the attic of our childhood home when I passed it on my way to the room my husband and I fashioned up for me to study in my college years.
My brother Al, the middle son and stereotypical middle child, ten years my senior, turned me on to Barry Gray and Barry Farber, both of whom, I listened to while lying in bed and trying to fall asleep during my dating years with my husband, starting when I was 16.
During those carefree summer days of my youth, I strolled around with a transistor radio, also introduced to me by my brother Al, who says he didn’t buy it for me. Maybe my father made that purchase, influenced by Al.
My father was also into listening to music and the news. He even wrote some songs.
As his hearing loss increased, Arnee and I bought my father one of the first transistor radios equipped with earplugs. While it lulled him to sleep, it kept everybody else in the house awake because he kept the volume at max for him to be able to hear.
My father also used the newspapers to “follow the horses.” He relentlessly tried teaching everyone who would listen how the papers gave away the “codes” to the results of the races. Sadly, he never made that big haul he anticipated.
When Arnee’s friend Wayne traveled with his parents to California by car in the mid 1960s, he would listen to the radio and send three to four postcards when driving west to visit his brother. Those were the days when radio was local.
Arnee still has those cards showing the top hits in various cities. In repayment, we introduced Wayne to my cousin and they married the year after us.
My mother often spoke of the standup radio her family had when she was a child. She listened in her childhood home and continued until the popularity of morning shows on television.
I recall Arnee suggesting to my mother that she listen to News Radio 88-WCBS-AM. That’s the station that went out of business in August 2024. Instead, she continued to listen to her favorite, 1010 WINS NY.
While, at first she refused to change loyalty, later, she caved and changed the dial from 88 to 1010, until she stopped listening to the radio in the morning and turned to television talk shows such as Regis. Maybe she should have stuck with 1010.
My mother used to listen to the radio in the morning until her soaps came on. So about 7-10 A.M. each weekday morning she listened to the radio, while she stood around working in the kitchen, faithfully watching the news at night on television.
Her news marathon started with The News at 6:00 and 7:00 P.M. on CBS. My brother Stu told me that one was local news and the other national.
“Do you know where your children are?” was broadcast nightly at 10:00 P.M. on New York’s Channel 5 News. That was her go-to (thank you Arnee for reminding me of the station). Then it was Channel 2 local nightly news at 11:00 PM.
Faithfully, after hours of hearing depressing news she cackled at the Johnny Carson monologue at 11:30 P.M. She never varied.
While my mother admonished me for not watching the news, I insisted that it only made me cry. I can picture the eager reporters holding a mic to a devastated person’s face, having just lost their house and pets in a fire, and frantically asking them to “tell us how you feel?”
In his retirement years, Arnee’s father, Is (short for Isadore), listened to mainly Big Band music on the radio tuning the dial to WNEW-AM and watched CNN on television to hear repetitions of the news. Funny, his grandson later worked at the station for over seven years.
When speaking about his older brothers, Arnee recalled them listening to rock and roll stations, but not the news. He said that his interest in the news developed by listening to his transistor radio, which his mother bought for him. He termed the portable radio as his own private door to any radio station; he could carry it around and listen to music and news.
Claiming that his 6th grade teacher [Mrs.] Gaghen hated him, he laughed about the current events test she gave the class. He was the only student to score 100%, which forced her to give him an A.
The next marking period they had no test, and she gave him a B because she hated him. He was a troublemaker and used to talk all the time (not the Arnee I know). He said that she put his desk next to hers.
Arnee claims that there was only one radio in his childhood home, and it was always tuned to one station. He says that his mother, Hilda, never listened to the radio unless she was in the car with his father driving.
His mother was so excited when Arnee got The Urban Studies Fellowship to pay for law school, she wanted to celebrate by listening to music for the first time ever. He laughed, “She wanted to tune in to the radio, but she didn’t know which station to listen to.”
Maybe Hilda and I had the same interests. While neither of us had the knack for the radio, we both had a strong interest in the family. She wasn’t the only one who needed help with the radio dial, I always relied on Al or Arnee to tell me what station to listen to.
Arnee says pre-transistor radios his older brothers Jeffrey and Bryan always listened to music on the car radio. Whereas, with transistors, you could listen to what you wanted at any time. Arnee took that to heart and listened to his transistor in bed, placing it under the pillow so his mother wouldn’t see.
He would broadcast in his room, his own mishagas (craziness). Then, he would give surveys and make announcements, while making believe he was a DJ. Also, he would interview his brothers and parents.
At lunchtime, in the New Jersey Attorney General’s office, while working as a Deputy Attorney General after law school, he made believe he was a candidate for office. He would walk into various offices and shake hands.
In the Attorney General’s Office, Dan Swick, a colleague, and Arnee, used to interview each other. Arnee became the host there before becoming an actual radio host years later. At the time, he never could have imagined that he would someday take to the air as host of a weekly talk show and fill-in DJ on the weekends.
Jeffrey, a brilliant science and math student, had little interest in learning foreign languages. He got by high school French by bartering his ability to fix radios in exchange for a higher grade by fixing the tube radio of his French teacher, Mrs. Murphy.
I wanted to record this information, while I could, for posterity and for our children and grandchildren to garner a greater understanding of our family history and their place in the world. This blog post has been my way of recording an entire family history, which includes tales of friends and acquaintances and gives others food for thought.
While everyone was listening to news and music and I was listening along, I wasn’t taking notes and now I am going back and grasping at details to record all the things I missed before they’re lost.
I don’t know why I didn’t concentrate on who the artists were or the titles of the songs as Arnee and some of my friends did. I see it from “friends” on Facebook and it bothers me. But as my brother-in-law Bryan says when I complain that I can’t remember movies or books, I get the entertainment and don’t need to cloud my mind.
Maybe G-d had me save space in my memory for family tree information. Arnee claims that I just enjoyed the music. That I can say, I did, as I walked around with my transistor radio blaring the music to which I freely sang along. You can guess the song on top of my list in my young teenage years from the opening picture of this blog post…
“Lightning Strikes (Original Artist Re-recording)
Song by Lou Christie
Lyrics
Listen to me, baby, you gotta understand (ma-me-aah, ooh)
You're old enough to know the makings of a man (ma-me-aah, ooh)
Listen to me, baby, it's hard to settle down (ma-me-aah, ooh)
Am I asking too much for you to stick around (ma-me-aah, ooh)
Every boy wants a girl
He can trust to the very end
Baby, that's you
Won't you wait but 'til then?
When I see lips beggin' to be kissed (stop)
I can't stop (stop) I can't stop myself (stop, stop)
Lightning is striking again
Lightning is striking again
Nature's takin' over my one-track mind (ma-me-aah, ooh)
Believe it or not, you're in my heart all the time (ma-me-aah, ooh)
All the girls are sayin' that you'll end up a fool (ma-me-aah, ooh)
For the time being, baby, live by my rules (ma-me-aah, ooh)
When I settle down
I want one baby on my mind
Forgive and forget
And I'll make up for all lost time
If she's put together fine and she's readin' my mind (stop)
I can't stop (stop) I can't stop myself (stop, stop)
Lightning is striking again
Lightning is striking again and again and again and again
Lightning is striking again
Lightning is striking again
There's a chapel in the pines
Waiting for us around the bend
Picture in your mind
Love forever, but 'til then
If she gives me a sign that she wants to make time (stop)
I can't stop (stop) I can't stop myself (stop, stop)
Lightning is striking again
Lightning is striking again and again and again and again
Lightning is striking again and again and again and again”
Now I can add the chronology of music listening in the family to my journal of lifetime subjects too important not to record. Our children can get news and music details from their father, and family tree facts from me. We’ve got them covered.
Arnee enthusiastically listed the stations he tuned into throughout the years so that I could record them here. They included, but were not limited to:
WABC-AM
WMCA-AM
WINS music
WINS all news
WCBS-FM
WOR-AM
WBGO-FM
WNBC-AM
JM in the AM
WNYC-NPR
1250-AM
WOR-FM
And, he was a member of the Bob Harris Fan Club
WNEW-FM
WDVR-FM
Satellite radio 60s 50s - Beatles, Sinatra, and Motown
WOR-AM
WCBS-AM News Radio 88
WNEW-AM Giants Football
Seton Hall Station WFNU
Columbia University Station.
We lived in Philadelphia in the summer of 1975 and there, Arnee listened to the WCBS affiliate
Another news station in Phila he remembered the jingle
The Fan, which he enjoyed every morning while shaving and driving to work
Hard Rock Station on FM. Breakfast with the Beatles
Jonathan Schwartz WNYC and WNEW
WNEW AM and FM
Now, as host of the World of Work on WDVR-FM for nearly 28 years, you can say that Arnee (known on air as Shep Cohen) has come full circle. He no longer has to walk around faking an interview, instead, he does phenomenal interviewing every week.
Tune in on Tuesdays at 5:00 P.M. Eastern by logging on at www.wdvrfm.org. Visit the WDVRFM.ORG website to enjoy many archived shows listed at the World of Work.
You may even catch a special treat on weekends when Shep fills in spinning your favorite Motown and other tunes on WDVR-FM. Shep says, “See you on the radio!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Arnee Shep Cohen grew up in a two-family house co-owned by his parents and his aunt and uncle. Two sisters married two brothers, so his aunt who lived downstairs was his mother’s sister and his uncle was his father’s brother. Each couple had three sons.
Arnee spoke of the “downstairs Cohens”radio interests as well. His uncle listened to music on the radio. The elder cousin was another radio junkie. He used to listen to Jean Shepherd, WINS news and Barry Gray, known as “the father of talk radio,” on WMCA radio. The youngest cousin watched television but didn’t listen to the radio.
There you have it, a recap of entertainment at 346 Pennington Street in Elizabeth, New Jersey.