Samuel's Blog

Always the odd one out…and proud of it…and now rambling

October 25th, 2006 at 06:20am

Yesterday while I was having lunch…or was about to have lunch…but certainly before I finished lunch (Yes, I know it doesn’t matter and that I should just get on with the story, but this minor details is going to bug me all day) John Stanley was reminiscing about how, when he was in school, he always brought the newspaper with him and read it at lunch time…and how all the other kids thought he was odd for doing it…now I remember, he said that before I started my lunch, it was during my lunch that he received an email from a listener who speculated that John only brought the paper to school for the racing form guide, and then John mentioned something about a two cent per wager betting operation he had going…and he chatted with a caller about how it was “probably illegal”.

It was actually rather interesting to me that he mentioned that (bringing the newspaper, not the betting operation), because it reminded me of myself in high school and college (not that I really need reminding…it wasn’t that long ago)…I never brought a newspaper to school, but I do remember in high school, especially in year ten, how I would, during morning roll call (Contact Group “Stephens One” to be precise), spend most of the time looking at the Daily Telegraph for a bit of amusement…often having a chat with the kitchen assistant at the same time.

Of course I had other odd habits…from mid 1999 until about mid 2003 I was a 2CA fan, and made sure that it was no secret, naturally enough this meant that I was “different” and had completely different musical tastes to the vast majority of students, although I think people got used to that by Year 10.

In mid-2003, amidst illness and behavioural issues, I switched back to 2CC, which was far more engaging than music radio ever could be…I distinctly remember when I was bed ridden for a week that 2CC helped to keep me sane…2CA, excellent station that it is, just didn’t have enough conversation to keep my mind active…and I suppose that is a good thing in some ways, as it helped me to rediscover my love of talkback radio.

By the end of 2003, when I was only required to attend high school for tests and to hand in assignments, the radio was with me pretty much all day, in fact George Moore, who was filling in for John Laws, was the first person to read out one of my emails on the air…from memory it was a light hearted comment about how Peter Costello could retire from politics and start his own lottery “Peter’s Costellotto”.

In college the radio was an essential part of my life…it was my escape from the day-to-day goings ons of academic life, I listened to it between classes, during morning tea and lunch, on the way to and from College, and even sometimes during class. It did lead another student to make a comment on RiotACT that I was the scariest thing at Dickson College…but I think for the most part, people were mature enough to accept that it was one of my eccentricities.

I actually seriously doubt that I would have made it through college if it hadn’t been for 2CC, amongst other things, it did help me to maintain my sanity in what was a very busy, confusing, demanding and ultimately rewarding couple of years.

It’s actually funny to think that 2CC was the first common link between me and my bus driver friend…for the majority of my time at Dickson, he drove the bus that I caught of a morning, and whilst it may have only been a few minutes of Mike Jeffreys most days, and a few extra minutes of John Laws on others (depending on what time I started in the morning) and a coversation in the middle of it all, it was enough for a friendship to begin…and that friendship was another thing which helped me get through college.

I must admit, it was always nice after a busy day at college, to spend half an hour listening to Mike Welsh whilst I did all sorts of thing relating to bus travel…waiting for the bus, catching the bus, riding on the bus, getting off the bus, walking home from the bus stop…

I’m making college sound quite arduous here…well it wasn’t, I quite enjoyed it for the most part…but life in general would have been an awful lot harder without these outside influences.

So what does all this have to do with John Stanley and his newspapers…well not much really…it’s just interesting that we both had a similar habit, we were both interested in news during our school years, and we tend to agree with each other on a lot of issues. It’s also a good excuse for a trip down memory lane.

Samuel

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