The great shirt shuffle happened this week. The weather finally went down to freezing and it was time to put the golf shirts and t-shirts in the hard to reach back side of the closet and bring out the oxfords and woolen plaids to where I can more easily retrieve them every day. Normally this happens near the beginning of November, just after Halloween, but for the past few years it has been closer to Thanksgiving.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, I love the cool days with sunny blue skies. I’m just noting an annual ritual that seems to have sprung up in recent years. One of the things I have accumulated in my years is a rather large wardrobe that fills the hanging rods of two closets. In the last year or so, I’ve lost some weight and clothes that I should have thrown away years ago fit me again.
Don't Judge! One half of my closet as it stands now. I hate to say it, but I’ve become something of a pack rat. Just to prove my point, I went up into the attic this morning in search of some items we are planning to donate to the annual church sale we have the weekend after Thanksgiving. When I was done, the mud room underneath the western attic access ladder was full. Yet, I have just put a dent into the stash up there. What’s more, there is the other half of the attic accessible by the other ladder that I haven’t seen in years.
The attic will be my first major project when I fully retire next year. I figure it will take me a month or so to go through it. It will be like reliving the past 40 years. Heck, I still have my SCUBA gear that I used in high school and my first computer, an Apple II +, up there somewhere. Also up there are a ton of photos that used to hang on the walls of my office. That will be both a fun and an emotional project.
Another noticeable thing about the switch to winter wear; the weekly laundry loads grow substantially. The major addition is that undershirts are now in the load. After all, I’m a southern boy; we don’t wear undershirts under our golf shirts down here. Yes we do wear them under short sleeved dress shirts, but not under golf shirts. And as to wearing them under t-shirts! Whassup with that!?!
This week was cool and very wet; over four inches of rain before it cleared up on Friday. So, for the first time since spring, I began wearing sweaters and rain gear. Wait, that is not true, for the first time here in the US I began wearing sweaters. Last August, we wore them while in England, Scotland and Ireland. It was so cold last Thursday that I considered wearing the “Scottish” sweater, but when I put it on, I realized that it was a might too heavy for the weather outside. I am sure gonna love that sweater come December and January.
One other thing about the cooler weather; the WUSC-FM studio is a lot more comfortable this time of year. When the rooms in the West Wing of Russell House were reconfigured to move the control room to its present location, the duct work in the heating and air conditioning system were not reworked for the different heat loads. The studio is on the south side of the brick building, three stories above the brick patio, with two large windows overlooking the sun-baked patio. If that sounds like a brick pizza oven, it feels like one. Despite a much smaller equipment component, the meager A/C is completely overrun the summer months. Late morning temperatures in the studio run well into the 80s. And there is nothing that the maintenance staff can do. Now that cooler weather is here, the mid 70s are normal in there.
Studio temperature problems seem to be the norm. When the WCOS studios were on the second floor of the Cornell Arms Building, the all night show was a torture chamber. There was a single cooling tower that supplied the central A/C and heating system for the building. On summer nights the building management turned off the cooler because it was not necessary for the apartments in the rest of the building. With lots of vacuum tube equipment in the three control rooms, the nighttime temperatures would often be in the 80s as well. Add to that was the fact that we ran 5 hour DJ shifts back in those days, it was no wonder that I was a lot thinner than I am today. It’s a good thing that I was in radio instead of television because I often did my show in my undershirt in order to keep cool. Yup, we worked for the “hot” radio station in more than one sense of the word.
Back at #1 Radio Lane, the WIS studios had a large picture window facing west toward the tower array and the river. It could get a little toasty in there for an hour or so when the sun was in the right place in the sky, but we had an A/C system with plenty of capacity so usually the temperatures stayed in the 70s during the entire year. You can be sure that I kept up with the maintenance schedule for the A/C. Power outages were not a problem either. We had a big generator that supported the operational areas of the station; transmitter, three control rooms, the news room and the engineering area were the IGM DJ assist automation sat right next to my desk. Yup, A/C was part of that support. I think the three general managers that came through during my time there were a little jealous. But to their credit, they never complained.
Thursday is Thanksgiving Day! The weather forecast calls for partly cloudy skies with a low of 35 and a high of 58. For all of you travelling the highways over the hills and through the woods to Grandma’s house… Wait who’s Grandma lives over the hills and through the woods anymore? Well, wherever you are this Thursday, Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Oh MY!
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