Part One: Radio Aspirations and a Side of Fries

All my good fortune began at a small diner - Gentry’s Drive-In on Highlands Highway in Walhalla, South Carolina. It was the family business and known for its hot dogs, hamburgers, my dad’s famous ham sandwiches and my mother’s country cooking. It was my first job. I was 12. 

Mom loved Charlie Pride, and the jukebox was this big magical box with speakers all lit up with the word Wurlitzer on the front. You hit B4 and the machine would magically pick up a 45 RPM record, place it on a turntable, and play. 

“Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’” played all the time. God bless Charlie Pride. “My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison is another one I remember playing a lot. 

I remember when my dad started advertising on the local radio station, WGOG (W-Garden-Of-the-Gods, the town’s nickname). The account representative for the small-town station was Marvin Hill. The local disc jockeys were Jerry Dyar and George Allgood.  

I was just a 13-year-old kid the first time these guys walked in, and I was amazed. They were the people I listened to on the radio. I soon became obsessed with radio. They had such big voices, and I would hear them on the air every day. Not only that, but they were doing our radio commercials. They were stars to me and that’s where my fascination with radio began.  

Six years later I worked my first shift at the station. I can still smell the vinyl records as I placed Hank Williams Jr on a big turntable covered in green felt. The song was “All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down).” 

I worked the afternoon shift and was paid $50 a month. They called it a training fee. What they didn’t know was I would have done it free. Come to think of it, I almost was. 

I would soon find out that there are characters in a radio station, and Allgood was one of the biggest. He would moonlight as the lead singer in a country band at the VFW club. He liked to have a drink or two and on Saturday mornings and when I worked, he would occasionally be late for his shift.  

A lot, actually. 

One morning he showed up wearing two obviously different shoes. Late night at the club, I guess. I went to see him one night and he was wearing a vest that had a big replica of Dolly Parton’s, well, you know...   

He did that every time he sang a Dolly song. The crowd went wild. 

A character. 

I had no idea that those contacts made at my parents’ diner would have such a significant impact on my life. Radio has taken me all over the Southeast, and it has been an adventure – an adventure that continues. 

It’s a long way from waiting on customers as a 13-year-old, putting quarters in the jukebox. Thank God for Gentry’s Drive-In.