A Gala Evening!

I used to work as an itinerant rehabilitation teacher for the blind in a previous life.  During my tenure in the state of Virginia, at various times I covered Fauquier, Loudoun, Culpeper, Orange, Spotsylvania, Stafford, and Prince William Counties, and I drove as far as Charlottesville on a bad day.  When I was working, I occasionally did ride-alongs with co-workers, fellow professionals in various branches of the field, to see them work with clients and learn new skills.  On one of these occasions, I was sitting in the car having lunch with a co-worker and the topic turned to what we did to pass the time we spent driving.  I lamented the lack of good radio stations when she suggested I listen to NPR.  In my mind, I had never considered NPR, instead listening to audio books or the local news station that repeated itself every 10 minutes and drove me crazy.  As I considered NPR, I thought about Marketplace, and stodgy, uninteresting radio I associated with old people, but I agreed it was a good alternative and I'd give it a try.  I put on WAMU 88.5 and was hooked immediately.  I absolutely loved listening to the Diane Rehm Show and Kojo Nnamdi, which were such a breath of fresh air (pun intended) from the screaming O'Reilly's and Schlessingers of other stations I had long since discounted.  Unfortunately the station didn't come in throughout much of my territory, but I loved listening to it where I could.  On the weekends, I'd listen to Prairie Home Companion and we started going to Wolf Trap each year to see Garrison Keillor put on his life show, taking my dad as a Father's Day treat, picnicking on the lawn, and having a ball.  Christmas Eve isn't Christmas Eve without the Big Broadcast's transmission of Grand Central Station, and Sundays are better for the Big Broadcast.

One day I was listening and an announcement came on and said that they needed phone room volunteers for the upcoming membership campaign.  I knew from co-workers that we were allowed to get time off work once per month to do volunteer work, so I approached my boss and asked to be allowed my time off to go work in the phone bank.  Permission was granted, and I made my first trip to the WAMU studios.  I knew no one, and I was destined to spend 4 hours answering telephones, truly hell on Earth for an introvert of my persuasion.  I walked into a room buzzing with energy and excitement, nervously took a seat at an empty table that quickly filled up with other people, and had my first volunteer orientation with Anthony Washington, the volunteer coordinator.  Diane Rehm was on the air, and in no time the phones were ringing off the hook, and we were taking calls left and right.  Somewhere in the middle of the day, they served us lunch, and within the first hour, the room fell totally silent.  I turned to my right and there was a vision of a woman, a beautiful puff of white hair, chic in a black sweater and jeans, and there I was, face to face with Diane Rehm.  I was literally awestruck, as were most of the people in the room.  She stopped by each volunteer individually, shook our hands, and thanked us for helping out.  It was heart stopping and incredible.  Later I met Kojo, although when he entered the room, everyone was trying to bend his ear with story ideas and such.  I was hooked on volunteering.

With Cathleen

I told my sister about my experiences, and we agreed to start volunteering on Sunday nights instead of during the day shifts.  She couldn't get off work and it didn't really matter to me, so we decided we'd switch to volunteering during the Big Broadcast.  The crowd who volunteered on those Sunday nights was decidedly different.  It was a little bit older, a little bit more fun, more like family.  The callers were different too.  Many times, I'd answer for a parent calling in for their child who wanted to donate allowance money, or people who remembered listening to these programs with their parents, or people who knew the host, Ed Walker, from years on the Old Time Radio scene.  The staff was amazing--Lucy the phone room manager, the two Jacks who took the forms and gave us pop OTR quizzes, Cathleen who stepped into a phone room manager role and gave out Tootsie Rolls for fun quizzes she came up with, and of course, our beloved Anthony who kept things going.  Just walking into the place, I'd literally feel the outside world fall away.  I occasionally had friends who wanted to come and volunteer too, which made it a real party--we'd meet for a quick meal beforehand (although WAMU always fed us!) and then all go up to the phone room and party.  It didn't matter what I had planned in February and October when the pledge drives were on, I made room in my schedule for my Sunday trips.

Me and Jack French, one of "The Jacks"

Judy and I began competing to see who could rack up the most pledges during our time there, tallying up the calls we took, and of course, she usually ran away with it when she'd get someone with deep pockets who gave $1000 while I was taking in multiple $25 pledges.  (I did win exactly one time, but I don't know how).  There was minor sabotage involved--sometimes I'd unplug her phone cord from the back of the phone, occasionally she'd take my phone off the hook.  It was fun and funny and exciting.  She took a call from a soldier in Afghanistan one time who was streaming the programming from his computer.  He kept getting cut off and spoke to three different volunteers before we got his pledge filled out, and he wound up back with Judy, and they had an awesome conversation.  Some of the fun was listening to the stream the next morning to hear Ed Walker thank the donors on line and listen for the names of the people I'd taken calls from.

I remember the first night we volunteered, we had a goal the first hour of $10,000.  Within the first half hour, that was shattered.  So they decided to see if we could hit $15,000.  No problem, the audience responded.  $20K?  Did it!  The mood on the room was electric and ecstatic.  One little show on Sunday nights was raking in the cash.  There was another night we broke $30K if I'm not mistaken.

With one of my many Legibility Awards

There was also the Legibility Award, given to the volunteer with the best handwriting during each hour of the campaign.  I won that award no fewer than 8 times, and at least twice I was told "I'd have given it to you, but we ran out of time to award it a third time."  You got to have your picture taken with a bust of Mark Twain, was it?  And the bust sat at your table while you plugged away for an hour.  You also got great prizes--I still tote around my WAMU resuable shopping bag, and we got loads of OTR CD's.  One memorable night, one of the Jacks picked up the statue and headed our way.  I was so pleased, but then they handed the award to my sister!!!!!!!!!  My sister has handwriting that makes doctors envious, so we couldn't believe it.  We were laughing and crying and it was the best handwriting prize ever...

With another volunteer, Sarah, who stole my legibility prize! :D

The Man, The Myth, The Legend: Ed Walker

There was also meeting both Ed Walker and Rob Bamberger.  Ed Walker was a legend in the realm of Old Time Radio.  He was blind and we would often get to NPR early and wait till we saw Ed coming down the sidewalk with his cane before we'd go in.  To Judy, he was a god, and she was tongue tied around him.  One night, we followed him in too closely and she refused to get in an elevator with him.  She was too scared to ride up. LOL  One night, we got in the elevator, and he happened to get in after and we rode up in total silence because she couldn't think of a thing to say.  I'm sure he knew we were in there.  One night, she was totally fan-girling over him, and Rob Bamberger, host of Hot Jazz Saturday Night who helped Ed with the broadcasts, overheard her.  He told her he was taking her back to meet Ed.  She about wet her pants, but during a break in the action, he came out to the phone room, took her firmly by the arm, and propelled her into the studio.  I have no idea what happened in there, but she came back mute and with tears in her eyes.

Another evening, we were helping clean up after everyone left, and when it was me, Judy, and a friend who came, we were offered a quick studio tour.  We saw the various rooms where the shows were produced and someone pointed and said, "That's Diane Rehm's chair.  you wanna try it out?"  So I sat in it.  It was an amazing moment....

Eventually WAMU moved off the American Campus into a new studio and we still had a great time.  The phone room was larger and modern looking, although we were still tethered to dinosaur phones with actual cords and push buttons, filling out paper forms.  There were shelves and shelves of books that authors sent, hoping to get an interview on the air, and we would scour them every trip and take home armloads of books--most of which I never managed to read.  A fellow volunteer, John, would ask us what we were into and then suggest stacks of books, which we felt obliged to take and then eventually sneak back onto the shelves later.

And then, tragedy upon tragedy upon tragedy.  Ed Walker died.  It was devastating.  I remember the first trip back to volunteer after his death, the mood in the room was somber, all of us were hugging and weepy and Rob made a lovely speech about honoring Ed's legacy.  Not a dry eye in the house. Donors responded in kind and we made a LOT of money for the station that night.

Next, one of the Jack's died.  I had had a particularly entertaining experience with him at one point.  I asked him about if he knew who I could talk to about getting backstage to meet Sarah Koenig at Wolf Trap to hear her talk about Serial, as I had been told he was the man to talk to.  He let me know in no uncertain terms that he was completely disgusted by Serial and all "that woman" had done to that kid, and he had no idea why anyone would tell me to talk to him, because he was a Game of Thrones man through and through. And he proceeded to give me a 30 minute overview of George RR Martin and GoT and informed me that I better get on the stick and start watching it (to date, I have not).

Finally, last year, they ended the phone bank program.  The FCC made new regulations about taking pledges over the phone, and thus legally, they were not allowed to do pledge drives the old fashioned way anymore.  This was absolutely devastating.  For my sister and I, it meant the end of Sister Date Nights--especially once we both had kids, it was impossible to find a night to go out, have fun, get a free meal, and help a community we both felt very passionate about.  It cut us off from our friends, who we only knew by first name, but who had become a second family of sorts.  We were offered other opportunities for volunteering, but nothing thus far has really been worth the 55 mile drive to DC, certainly not cold calling donors to 'thank' them for donating.

Sisters

But just a few weeks ago, I got an email from Anthony telling me that I would be honored for my 10+ years of service to WAMU at a gala event.  I was allowed to bring one guest, but I emailed the woman in charge with my RSVP and asked if an open space came up, would it be ok to bring both my daughters?  She immediately responded that it was fine with her and I could bring them both.  So last night, we all got dolled up and drove to NPR HQ in Washington DC and attended the Volunteer Recognition party.  When we arrived, there was Cathleen!  There was Anthony!  There was Charlie!  There was John!  My name was scrolling around on a ticker tape thing thanking me for my service.  Everyone looked so fancy and dressed up.  It was beautiful and exciting and moving.

My name with my fave award

Judy pointed to one gentleman and said "It's Joshua Johnson!!!!  It's Joshua Johnson!!"  The host of 1A, the program which took over Diane Rehm's slot when she retired was standing mere feet away from us, holding court.  I consulted with Cathleen and we laughed about Judy's tongue tie around Ed and conspired to go and get Judy to meet Joshua.  Now I'll be honest and confess I haven't listened to 1A, but my sister has emailed me to tell me to listen to his program about gerrymandering, so I knew I had something to talk with him about.  Not really knowing who he was made all the difference to me, as I didn't feel particularly nervous talking to him.  Cathleen and I enlisted the help of Lauren, one of the staff, and we dragged Judy over to where Joshua was standing. She took a sip of wine for courage and off we went! 

The Kosior-Szabos and Joshua Johnson

He really could not have been nicer.  He shook hands with all of us and I introduced him to my girls.  He remarked on how tall Astrid was and got down to Leah's level to talk with her a bit.  Judy wasn't saying much, so I said, "I was so grateful that you were able to do a show on gerrymandering!"  He said it had been a topic in high demand and we talked about various anti-gerrymandering efforts around the country, including the ones I'd been involved in with OneVirginia2021, which I mentioned to him.  Then I asked him about stepping into Diane's showtime and he said he felt great, she had been very supportive, but because it was a very different show, he hadn't felt any pressure (indeed, the show is performing amazingly well!), and we took a picture and then it was over.  We had to move into the studio for the awards ceremony.

Reunited!

The ceremony itself was great--the station manager talked about WAMU's growth, Anthony talked about the volunteer program's growth, and Joshua and his producer Rupert talked about creating a new show.  Then all the volunteers were presented with a 10 year pin one by one, while Anthony talked about little memories of each volunteer, and then the Volunteers of the Year got their awards.  Then it was back out for certificates, dessert, and winding up the evening, which we did by grabbing pictures with Cathleen and Anthony.

It was such a special evening.  I was so proud to introduce both my daughters to my WAMU people.  Everyone said to Astrid that she was so tall!!  Everyone loved Leah's cute dress.  Hilariously, someone asked Astrid, "Oh you must be an old time radio fan too!" and she politely affirmed that she was.  So immediately they asked her, "What's your favorite show?"  I knew this was going nowhere good fast, so I stepped in with "She just LOVES Gunsmoke!  It really fits in with her American history class!" and saved the day.  It was funny and fun and we all had a good chat about Gunsmoke and Matt Dillon (who I always kind of picture as Matt Damon).

With Anthony Washington, everyone's favorite volunteer coordinator

My certificate and pin

It was so fun to get dressed up with Leah and Astrid and Judy and Lucas and do something fancy and relive so many memories.  It was an absolutely magical evening.  I hope I can still find a niche at WAMU to go and volunteer my time on occasion.  I do love it, and the people, so very much.  I am honored to give my time there and thrilled that I've done so for 10 years.  I truly had no idea it was that long!  Thank you, Anthony and WAMU, for giving Judy and I something so fun and worthwhile to bond over and enjoy together for ten years.

Me and my beauties