The following is a KSCO commentary. Here is Kay Zwerling:
Let’s take a rest from daily stressful occurrences and bad world news, and just reminisce about the happier, simple past.
After a while, one realizes that everything in life is timing. Case in point – my two lifelong teen girlfriends and I planned to go to a party one Saturday night in 1936. I decided not to go, and told them to go without me. I was worrying then a lot about my dad’s failing health. But, they coaxed me to go, and I did.
That party shaped my life – I met the young man – fleetingly – who was to become my husband, the father of my three children, and the love of my life for 58 years plus four years of courting. Sure – we bickered now and then.
If I had stayed home that Saturday night – we never would have met, and what a loss that would have been for us – and Louis, Regina, and MZ never would have happened.
Clearly, important life moments happen in unplanned times.
Also, during WW2, my husband Barry served in the Navy. Right after our Country conquered Germany, his group was ordered to San Francisco for several days in 1945 while en route to Japan, and as luck would have it VJ Day happened then, so this Navy contingent was not sent to Japan after all. See the unplanned good timing. My husband and his group remained in San Francisco for one year until they were released from the Navy, during which time he discovered how beautiful California was, and decided we should try to live here.
That was a good thought – we didn’t want to remain in New York, and the timing made California an option.
If you have a moment to think, you will discover that some inconsequential incidences may have shaped your whole life, also. Think about it.
Another prophetic incident – after our little family of four (MZ had not yet entered this world), on Labor Day 1947, we arrived in Santa Cruz from New York. That happened to be the day that KSCO came on the air for the first time. Little did we know then how important it would become in our lives.
When we arrived in Santa Cruz in September 1947, Barry planned to meet a certain retiring optometrist who wrote to us several times in Brooklyn about how wonderful life was in Santa Cruz, then population 12,500. He said he went fishing several times a week, and convinced us to come and look at his practice which he wanted to sell.
The morning after we arrived, Barry visited with the retiring optometrist for several hours, and became convinced that we should stay here in Santa Cruz, and purchase his practice.
In retrospect, it was a wonderful move, and a great place to raise our family. MZ joined us in 1951, and we were all thrilled with his arrival.
At that time, the early ‘50s, we had intercoms, and I woke the children every morning with KGO, that big San Francisco station that initiated the new format of interactive newstalk in the late ‘50s.
The rest is history. In his teens, MZ would go to San Francisco often on a bus for an afternoon just to watch the celebrities enter and leave the KGO building. As a teenager, also, he hosted a weekly high school program on KSCO until he was fired by the boss, Mr. Berlin, for making a fart noise with his mouth on the air. Decades later, when we purchased KSCO, Mr. Berlin, the original engineer owner, and MZ became very good friends.
Wouldn’t this be a good script for a movie?
This waxing sentimental must end for the time being. Thanks for listening, and yes you must agree that unplanned timing often changes the direction of our lives in an unusual or exciting way.
For KSCO, this is Kay Zwerling.
© copyright 2010
