My first non-farm job was at our county seat radio station. In the spring of 1966 Mr. Orton, our school newspaper advisor, introduced me to the radio station owner who offered me a part-time job.

While attending junior college I worked part time at the station and that led to a full-time job. It was a dream job: 70 hours a week, six days a week beginning at 5 a.m. and every other Sunday, two holidays each year and less than $100 a week. But, hey, it was show business!

Within the first year the boss promoted me to writing the local news which was right up my alley, but I still had some non-news air time. During my second year on the job I proposed to the manager that I convert my 9 a.m. time slot from music to a talk format and he agreed.

Thus was born the KJFJ Party Line program. It seemed to go over well with listeners. Some days I would host a guest to talk about a specific topic. Other times, I took calls from listeners on a variety of subjects and that led to the Party Line often being an on-air recipe exchange.

Soon someone suggested that I print out the recipes which led to a monthly publication of Party Line recipes.

I had a small (very small) amount of experience with cooking and baking and I tried my best to sound intelligent while taking recipes over the air.

One month I included in the publication a recipe which called for one can of Eagle brand sweetened condensed milk. This product was new to me and what I heard the caller say was “Ego brand sweetened condensed milk” and that’s how I listed it in the monthly recipe booklet.

A caller set me straight and I learned what Eagle brand milk is.

One day early in the Party Line experience the discussion turned to the poor condition of some rental properties in our community. A caller referenced by name a local rental property owner in a negative light. I quickly steered the caller to a less libelous conversation.

That property owner’s wife was listening and when I got off the air she was waiting to skreich at me in the front office. It was quickly obvious that she had been drinking that morning.

Fortunately, the boss returned to his office about this time and he escorted the enraged woman and myself into his office where he calmed her down. This was my first experience (unfortunately, not the last) dealing with angry and/or drunk listeners.

Sometime later a caller expressed her critical views of young people after a rash of vandalism in the community. An obviously juvenile caller responded to this call with a loud and profane rebuke of the critic.

Our small market station could not afford five-second delay equipment but I was able to cut off the potty-mouth kid after about the third cuss word.

As a still wet-behind-the-ears, just-out-of-school kid at that time I knew some words that neither the FCC or my mother would approve. During heavily ad-libbed times on the air I was always conscious of the rules against profanity on the air.

Each autumn we staged a Turkey Shoot contest in which winners received a frozen turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. The contest was good for the radio station and for our listeners but a pain in the rear for on-air staff to implement.

In off-the-cuff comments promoting the contest on the air I committed a Freudian slip (an unintentional error regarded as revealing subconscious feelings.) Referring to the Turkey Shoot contest I mistakenly replaced “shoot” with a common scatological term with a somewhat similar pronunciation. I caught the blooper immediately but just kept on talking hoping no one noticed.

A day or so later a downtown merchant ribbed me about the error but nothing else came out of the incident.

After four years of the Party Line we changed the programming for that time slot and in early 1973 I left the station and began a newspaper career.

It was a good run.

The Party Line was a good experience and helped me gain confidence and an ability to talk with anybody about almost anything anytime. And some today would point out that even without a microphone I have never quit talking.

Arvid Huisman can be contacted at huismaniowa@gmail.com. ©2024 by Huisman Communications.