The Last
Friday in September
Written October 5, 2023
On March 3, 2023, the newspaper at my alma mater, Oberlin College, profiled my old college radio station.
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“One show featured on WOBC is Georgian Sensibility,” wrote Tate van der Poel. “Two opposites — a 6'4" football player from the state of Georgia and a 5'1" history major from the Republic of Georgia — come together over a shared love of hip hop.” Their identities? “College second-years Evan Smith-Rooks (also known as DJ Bo Bo Skizzy) and Taso Mullen.” |
Taso searched Google for WOBC, as one does, and discovered the very website that you're reading now, including my article explaining how the remodeling of the student union building has forced the radio station to relocate to smaller quarters.
On September 14 she emailed me. “I am a junior at Oberlin and the current new operations manager for WOBC. While poking around for random WOBC-related stuff, I found your website. First of all, it's amazing, and I'm so glad for all the memories and information you have shared with the world. Also glad to see that you're all up to date on what we are doing! Our next broadcasting season starts on September 25th, and we are aiming for pre-Covid numbers and 24-hour broadcasting. Anyways, I just wanted to write to you about how much I enjoyed your site!”
I replied, “I've been think
ing a lot about Oberlin lately because alumni from my class of 1969 and others are preparing for the Cluster Reunions during Homecoming Weekend, September 29 through October 1. Many of us are WOBC alumni, in particular Ted Gest '68. He and I each served as Station Director, which is what we called the position back then. I realize that WOBC's new home doesn't have a lot of space for visitors, but will we be able to stop by in a couple of weeks and take a peek?”
Taso answered, “We would love to just chat with you guys while you're in town. I know the rest of the board and some staff members would be super interested in hearing about your guyses time at WOBC.”
In the meantime, I searched Google for Taso, as one does. I discovered a YouTube post. Ten years earlier in Tbilisi, using the Georgian language, the future history major had recorded an interview with her mother's mother.
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Click here, and while the clip plays, click CC to read the translation. Nunu Nishnianidze had been a teenager when Georgia native Joseph Stalin died in 1953. She recalled the local grief, as well as the local outrage three years later when Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin's cult of personality. |
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I arranged to meet the WOBC operations manager at 4:00 on Friday afternoon, September 29.
Earlier that day at lunch, I sat with Lee Drickamer, president of the Class of 1967, and his classmate Tom Gregory, a former math major.
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Tom and his wife Deirdre mentioned that they now live in Mansfield, Ohio. I mentioned that I grew up 60 miles away in Richwood, and I know somebody in Mansfield: the president of my high school class, Ed Olson. Tom and Deirdre know Ed very well! He was a Richland County Commissioner from 1985 until his retirement in 2014. They took a picture of me and sent it to him. |
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Lee
Drickamer |
Tom
Gregory |
Ed
Olson |
That afternoon, I strolled over to Wilder Hall. Outside, I rested on a bench next to Rich Zitrin '68, who was preparing to lead a Cluster discussion on activism (then, now and in the future). I attended that session, then headed up to the fourth floor to see the new home of the radio station.
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I found a rather narrow room with a DJ behind a mic at the far end. The rest of the space, shown below, featured the typical WOBC clutter. |
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There to greet me was music director Imogen Pranger. We were soon joined by Taso and by station manager Jackson Bartlett (right). We had a great conversation, and we were able to do so without bothering the DJ at the far end of the room. Taso even turned down a monitor speaker so we could converse more easily. |
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My hosts gave me a Homecoming Weekend souvenir: a pocket-sized WOBC Ourzine, which includes historical excerpts and images from my own website. I also received a lovely promotional shirt, which unfortunately is not exactly my style. In turn, I showed them two 55-year-old artifacts and gave them two vintage editions of the Program Guide. We compared the programming over the years. Back in 1969, we tried to be a “real” radio station that for some reason alternated between classical and Hot-100 popular music during different dayparts. We had a teletype for actual newscasts, and we broadcast away football and basketball games live. I told stories about an early attempt to stay on the air 24 hours a day. |
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The current schedule is in fact 24 hours, seven days a week, divided into one-hour blocks. In most cases, each block has a different host with a different specialty. The various colors denote the various genres. Click the image for a closer look.
Nowadays, Imogen commented, little of WOBC's music arrives as promotional recordings from the studios. Much of it is submitted by listeners, often as recordings of their own performances. She showed me a barrel of submissions that her staff still had to evaluate. |
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I learned that this new fourth-floor studio was only temporary. The renovation of Wilder Hall continues, and the station hopes to be relocated again to a larger location, perhaps on the third floor, perhaps as soon as 2025. None of my hosts expect to be around to see it. And, in contrast to my day, few of the current staffers are technically oriented. Hooking up the equipment in the next place will be a challenge.
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UPDATE Scott Medwid posted in 2024: “New offices have been created but we have yet to wire up the new studios and get into the new space. Maybe sometime this fall. 2025 will be the 75th year that the station will be broadcasting.” |
It was time for Jackson's one-hour shift behind the mic, and it was time for me to leave. (Ted Gest managed to visit Taso briefly at WOBC the following afternoon. “As you know,” he wrote me, “there is not much to see. Hope they get it all straightened out, but I gather it may take two years.”)
Back when I was a student, I had no trouble striding about the rather compact campus or walking to a professor's home a mile or more from my dorm. However, over the decades my legs have gradually weakened. I don't normally use a cane, but I decided it would be a good idea to bring one along for the reunion. During the day on Friday I had begun to tire and occasionally stopped at a bench.
I decided to skip the evening's planned activities. Walking away from WOBC, I made a couple of U-turns at first. My car was parked nearly half a mile from Wilder Hall, and there were no benches along the way. I had already walked about a mile and a half that day, and each step became more and more difficult.
As I struggled to reach my car, a helpful man named Nick, driving past on his way home after bat-proofing an attic for Wildlife Remedies, noticed my distress and came over to help me navigate the final few feet. Oberlin folks are friendly. Thanks, Nick!
Now safely seated in my car, I could drive anywhere, but I knew I'd have a hard time walking between the various buildings for the Saturday and Sunday events. I had attended nine previous reunions and commencements, so I decided I could allow myself to cut this particular visit short.
The next morning I called Lee. He too had been moving slowly when we left lunch on Friday; we remarked that when we were younger we used to look at the scenery, but now we had to keep our eyes on the pavement. I had been scheduled to read a few of the names for a Sunday-morning memorial gathering that Lee had organized, and with apologies I told him he'd need to replace me.
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One event I missed was the traditional homecoming football game. Oberlin's defense allowed six 2nd-quarter touchdowns on the way to a thrilling 66-7 loss to DePauw before 1,289 fans, none of them shown here. |
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I
drove back to Pennsylvania the next day. If there's a 60-year
reunion, WOBC will be in its fifth location since 1950, I'll be an
octogenarian, and I'll probably rely on the Internet to “attend.”
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