Tag Archives: Hunter

Oh, Christmas Tree

I’m celebrating my 66th Christmas this year and while decorating Christmas Tree #1, my mind was full of thoughts.

There are so many things I remember from those Christmas’s growing up. That was back in the day when we’d go out and get a real Christmas tree, mom would spend an entire day in the kitchen making her various Christmas cookies and treats and my dad put his wood-working skills to use and created Mr. & Mrs. Frosty and the snow kids. For a couple of years, my folks actually put this white fiberglass “snow” on their front yard, to give the illusion of a winter look in Southern California. It only took a couple of years that formerly pristine snow had the look of 6-week old dirty snow and went away.

For my very first Christmas, at just three months old, mom & I posed in front of their glorious tree by the big picture window in the living room.

 

In time, the tree was relegated to the office, which eventually became my bedroom.

In later years, it finally earned its spot back in the living room, but not always by the picture window.

Over in nearby Gardena, where I was born and around 15 minutes from my parents’ house, my dad’s relatives lived in a home where they had one of those tinsel trees with the rotating color light bulbs. It was a thing at the time.

You’d just set up one of these:

Hit it with one of these:

And it’s Christmas.

There are several events for me that help kick off the holiday season, but it isn’t until the Christmas tree is up and decorated that I feel the season coming on. To me, that signals commitment and a time-sensitivity, especially as you watch the tree dry out in record time from the moment you bring them inside.

Back in the 1980s, the Seattle P.I. had a writer named Ann Combs. When I was at KOMO radio, I got to interview her and she told me her story of how the Christmas tree worked at her house. From the time they could reach a branch, she would have the kids do all the decorating. Oh, sure, when they’re real young, the tree was only decorated for a couple of feet. But her thinking was, when they’re old enough and big enough to reach the top, it was time for them to move out.

At our house, Christmas Tree #1, as I mentioned above, is the artificial tree I bought at Lowes a decade or so ago. I went there the day after Christmas one year to see if I could score any screamin’ deals on Christmas decorations and they had a sign up that said: “9-Foot Westinghouse Trees $20.”  I don’t know why they were blowing them out, but I actually checked with three employees before grabbing one, to make sure that sign was right. The original price was $259 or something like that.

So that’s the artificial tree in the house. Then, for our living room, we buy a shorter, real tree that goes up on a raised platform. Around 5-feet is perfect (and also, cheaper). That’s the upscale tree, with the fancy Norwegian ornaments, the clip-on candles and such.  The normal routine is for me to decorate the one in our dining room and Victoria does her fancy one in the living room.

For me, that’s perfect. The dining room tree is where all the ornaments I like are hung with care.  I’m talking Husky and Seahawk ornaments, some of the hand-made ones that have survived the years, and the ones that scream, “Oh, Tim must have decorated this one”–several Scottish ones, a Christmas pickle, a JP Patches and Gertrude ornament (a Seattle kids’ show host from the past), a Bigfoot ornament, my Santaur (looks like a cross between Santa and a….oh, let me just show you)

Plus, a bunch of cool Christmas ornaments from places Victoria and I have been over the years. Leavenworth, Alaska, Florida, etc.   It’s a friggin’ thing of beauty!

As a public service, while decorating the tree this year, I took some mental notes and would like to offer these up just in case you’re about to tackle the tree-decorating chore in the next few days.

TIM’S TREE TRIPS

1) You always start with the largest ornaments on the tree, by carefully placing each in front of the burned-out lights you just can’t seem to figure out.

2) Always buy a new box of ornament hooks in November when they first show up. Oh, sure, you bought one last year, but good luck finding that one.

3) The best part about artificial trees is, if there’s a thin spot, you just bend the branches.

4) Well, and the fact you don’t need to water them.

5) Candy canes trim a tree nicely. I’ve been using the same ones for a decade now and should anyone steal one from the tree, I bear no legal responsibility for what happens.

6) When shopping for a tree, remember, the person helping you is trying to sell more trees. So, if you ask a question, they’ll probably going to tell you the answer they think you want to hear. For example, the classic one my wife always asks is, “Are these trees fresh?”  The following response ranges from, “Oh, yeah, we just got ’em off the truck yesterday!” or “Absolutely! Sure. You bet!” without any qualifying for their statement or an explanation for why that “Hillary in 2016” bumpersticker is stuck between the branches.

While there are lots of parts of the Christmas celebration I can take or leave (did I SAY lutefisk?), I just gotta have my real Christmas tree. The watering, the needles, the price—yeah, I can understand why a lot of people have gone to fake or no trees at all. Maybe someday, I’ll have to opt out.

But for now, just give me my tree and no one gets hurt.

 

Tim Hunter

The History of Julio

Someone returned into my life last week and he brought along with him a wealth of memories.

Like so many great singers, he doesn’t have a last name.  Back in his hey day, he was known simply as, “Julio–the World’s Biggest Seahawks fan.”

THE MYTH

Julio was a lounge singer who performed at the White Shutters Inn in Renton and boy, did he love his Seattle Seahawks.  So much, that every Friday morning before a Seahawks game, he would drop off a cassette at the KLSY building that contained a customized Seahawks song which he had recorded and which we would feature on the Murdock, Hunter & Alice Morning Show. The basic formula for each song was to have a few lines commenting about the last game, toss in something about the upcoming game, work in a clever play on words involving the next opponent and then wrap up with several, “How ’bout dem Hawks!”  As time went on, he dragged in celebrities to help him say, “How ’bout dem Hawks” including Elvira–Mistress of the Dark, Tiny Tim, Aaron Brown, Stan Boreson, Scotty from ‘Star Trek’ and many others. Here’s one of several wrap-ups Stan Boreson did for Julio.

THE REALITY

I went through three different program directors at KLSY from the inception of Julio to his last song on the station.

Again, we’re talking 30 years ago so I’m going completely on what details I remember. My first KLSY program director, Chris Mays, turned me on to the song by Matt Bianco song, “Yeh, Yeh” and I couldn’t help but notice how much instrumental there was in that tune. So, I took out those pieces and created a music bed, searching for something I could do with it.

Even though KLSY was marketed as “Classy” and offered up Soft Rock songs to a mostly female audience, we still did sports things. For a while, we had a Don James show in the afternoon. Seriously. And eventually, Seahawks quarterback Dave Krieg became a regular guest on the morning show. We got to know him so well, his wife Sue would do fill-in administrative work every now and then. Great people.

So, we had a Seahawks connection and it just seemed logical for me to create a rah-rah song supporting the team. The next thing you know, I did a couple of these “How ‘Bout Dem Hawks” songs and a character was born.

Back in my college years, I spent a couple of lost summers working at the United Airlines flight kitchen down in Los Angeles. That definitely needs to be the topic of a future blog. We’re talking scraping dishes and putting them into a conveyer belt where they would receive a high-temp wash and then be organized on the other side. I was either loading or unloading, 8 hours a day.

One of our supervisors was a guy named Julius. My guess would be that he was somewhere in his 50s, had a big round belly, receding hair and was always wearing one of those paper hats made popular in the food services industry. Picture him, walking around, making sure everything was moving along and then, when the time came, yelling out, “OK everybody, break time!” It’s that voice I have in my head when I sang as Julio.

Being a Latin music bed, it seemed only right to take that voice and modify the name Julius to Julio.

Eventually, we switched program directors and Bobby Irwin arrived on the scene. He was big on backstories. It was Bobby who found a picture of a mom with two kids, one around 5, the other in a stroller and taped it up in the control room so that every personality would remember that we were talking to “Darlene.” We should always say things that mattered to her, never saying anything that would embarrass her in front of her kids–THAT was our listener. He also recommended we humanize Julio and give him a backstory. Bobby gets full credit of coming up with the fact he was a lounge singer that performed at the White Shutters Inn in Renton. However, no matter how real we made him on the air, he would be Santa-esque–he would come and leave something, but no one ever saw him drop off that cassette in the early hours of a Friday morning.

Geeze, I think about those days and remember having to explain the concept to celebrities after an interview with them.  I hoped each would play along and say “How ’bout dem Hawks” for use in a future song. Elvira was all about it and ad-libbed her way through a couple of great lines.

There was also the time we did a week of shows in Japan and I even pulled off doing a Julio overseas by singing along in the stairs of our hotel in order to get the reverb. It wasn’t the greatest, but it kept the streak alive.

Then, after 7 years or so of doing Julio, it just felt like it was time for him to fade away and so he did. The Hawks were giving us very little to “How ’bout” about and so, he became a part of KLSY history. At least he survived until the Barry McKay (program director #3) era, which meant his tenure covered three PD’s!  It wasn’t long until, as staff changed over, there were KLSY employees when asked about Julio who would respond with, “Who?” and I’d say, “No, it’s who–LEE-o!”

During his run on KLSY, I easily recorded over 100 “How ’bout dem Hawks” songs that still exist, although on tape and that is fading fast. I’m trying to digitize them as quickly as possible along with the hundreds of other tapes I have under the house. It’s a “spare time” thing, which means it’s almost impossible.

THE RETURN

Last weekend, as we approached the Green Bay game, it just seemed like the perfect time for Julio to make a comeback.  I didn’t know if it would be a one-game thing, or if he would go along for the ride through the playoffs and eventually, to the Super Bowl. Besides, if Marshawn Lynch and Robert Turbin can come out of retirement, why not Julio–the World’s Biggest Seahawks Fan?

So, I got out the rhyming dictionary, started thinking about the subjects I could talk about or make fun of, and Julio was back. I even gave his return a little hype the day before on social media.

Here’s how it sounded on KRKO.

I was already thinking ahead to the next week. Had the Seahawks won, Julio was definitely going to be back for at least one more week. When I heard San Francisco was the first NFL with a comfort dog, I imagined Julio tossing a cat into the locker room. I was even giving thought to doing a video to go along with the song. However, it was all not meant to be.

The power of Julio and “How ’bout dem Hawks” was not enough to extend the Seahawks season. Still, what an amazing run for a really banged-up team that none of us were planning on seeing go this far. Where do we go from here?  I don’t know about you, but I’m going to take up Marshawn on his advice and take care of my body, my mentals, my bread and my chicken and stand by until the next Seahawks season, 7 months away.

Hopefully, Julio will swing back around and rejoin the party.  In the meantime, you can still catch him at the White Shutters Inn in Renton, Wednesday through Sunday nights. He’s off Mondays and does dishes on Tuesdays.

How ’bout dem Hawks!

Tim Hunter

 

Happy December 17th!

A lot changed on that day back in 2003.

It was the day I part of a live broadcast of the Murdock, Hunter & Alice Show on 92.5-KLSY. Several years before, we started a tradition of doing a Christmas show with live performers and this time, we were out-doing ourselves. Bryon the Producer had pulled out all the stops and arranged for us to have the Village Theater in Issaquah as our morning playground.

The theater was open to the public, so people could come and go throughout the morning as our three-hour spectacular unfolded. Among the performers that special morning–the Dickens Carolers.

Newspaper columnist and morning show fan, Sherry Grindeland from the Bellevue Journal-American and KING 5’s Tony Ventrella popped in for a visit.

 

KING 5’s Dennis Bounds read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.

Bryon the Producer did a performance of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with a local school.

Children’s entertainer Tim Noah performed.

There was an acapella group of Microsoft employees. I’m spacing on their name right now. (See, that’s why I’m writing this stuff down now)

They even sent in the Marines to plug the annual Toys for Tots drive.

It starts to get blurry but this photo reminded me of the last group to perform. It was a bell choir from somewhere. That’s about as good as I can do.

As they wrapped up and started putting their stuff away, we said our goodbyes on air and then the three of us headed backstage. It was there we bumped into Mr. KLSY, Marc Kaye, the General Manager of the station. He asked if our show was over and we replied yes. It was then we went from the high of that stellar and festive broadcast to the low of finding out that was our final show on KLSY. “We’re not going to renew your contracts,” was the exact wording. “No rush on cleaning out your office. You can get to that whenever. And we’ll have a little going away party to thank you for all the years you’ve been here.”

Yeah, right.

I went straight to the station, cleaned out my work area and packed up my car. I remember employees with tears in their eyes coming up to say goodbye. I hauled my stuff downstairs and left the halls of Sandusky Broadcasting for the final time. That “Thank You Party” never happened.

I’ve been let go a couple of times in my career. In radio, it happens. But each time it does, I’ve ended up in a better situation and that was once again very true in this case.

Yes, it was 16 years ago today and from the highs and the lows of that particular day, you can see why it is so etched in my brain.

We all have our December 17ths and now you know mine. It’s basically a microcosm of life–there will be highs and lows (not usually in the same day) but they’re all pieces of what shapes our individual world to create what we have now and I love my now.

All that being said, have a joyous holiday season and cherish those around you. They won’t always be there.

Oh, and Happy December 17th.

Tim Hunter

There is a Now

I was gazing over to the side of my computer monitor the other day. It’s the place where I have photos of the people that are or were special in my life so that when I need a little reminder about what’s important, there they are.

Among the rag tag collection is the “In Loving Memory” thing they produced for my dad’s funeral.  There he is, smiling away, in a picture taken probably ten years before he passed. He was older, slowing down, but mentally, everything was still there.

As he approached the final days of his life, there was a lot of failures. The body was giving out, the hearing selective at best, the wit sneaking out every now and then, but dulled by 90-plus years on this earth. However, going back to that picture–it made me wonder, did I really thank him enough for all he did? To appreciate all those things he did to support his family–working overtime, slinging bananas down at the docks in Long Beach when the United Airlines  mechanics went on strike, managing the Little League team I played on.  Those Pinewood Derbies, the camping trips, the times we went fishing.
I think he knew. But with Father’s Day approaching, it causes me to wonder.

I know I did my best on the last night of his life when he laid there, unresponsive but breathing, as his life slipped away. I spent the night and talked his ear off, clinging to the knowledge I heard somewhere (and I don’t want to check into its validity because I might find out it’s not true) that the hearing is the last thing to go. That you can still reach the person by talking to him and saying what was on your mind. I tried to re-live my entire life that night, enough that when the morning came and he left, he was probably thinking, “Great! Peace and quiet at last!”

I don’t know much, but I have come to realize that one of our biggest personal downfalls is living in the future or the past, but not so much in the present. We hang on to unpleasant things that we experienced or live in fear of what might happen in the future. Oh, I’m still guilty to a degree, but I try to remind myself daily, whenever I feel overwhelmed, to just enjoy the now.

At this particular point, the only noise in my office is the keyboard tapping as I write this.  There’s no music, no TV in the background, the cat is sleeping (again), and later, I plan to wander out on to our deck and just breath in the air. The scent of cedars fills our backyard and can easily conjure up memories of those many family camping trips we took when I was a kid.

See, that’s the past, but a pleasant memory to savor like a vintage wine. It rolls around in the brain and then you put it away until a future moment. And that’s how easy it is to get distracted and leave the now.

Life is a collection of moments. You’re actually enjoying a few right now. Savor them. Cherish them. There millions and millions of people no longer on this earth who would do anything to experience just a few more.

And, at least for now, we’ve got all the moments we want.

The now.

Use only as directed.

Tim Hunter

What I Learned On My Long Weekend

 

I’m on the left

I’M BACK

Yeah, I’m coming off of a long, on-the-road weekend. So, I thought that this week, I would drag you along on my adventures. Buckle up!

THE TRIP

The goal was to attend my niece’s wedding in Little Rock, Arkansas. The challenges were many, including the fact there are no direct flights from Seattle and that a round trip would take at least one stop, up to 9 hours in travel-time and cost over $400.

So, I came up with this scheme: use my Alaska Airline miles and fly directly into a city, then rent a car and drive to Little Rock. It turns out, with miles, I could fly round-trip to Dallas from Seattle for miles and $19 cash. Sold! Add in a rental car and gas for a little over $200 and I ended up saving $200, arriving in Little Rock in the same amount of travel time as if I flew there. Plus I got to see parts of the country I may never see again.

Zapruder was standing on this ledge when he took the home movies

THE TOURIST SPOTS

My mom & sister decided to join me on my indirect adventure so we met in Dallas, grabbed a hotel room and then we got up Friday morning and hit Dealey Plaza & the Kennedy museum in the infamous Texas Book Depository. There is so much history in that little chunk of Dallas. As you look down from the 6th floor of the building, you can see white X’s on the road where each of the shots hit the president. You could easily spend hours there listening to audio and looking at a exhibits, but we had an almost five-hour drive ahead of us and a rehearsal dinner to get to.

WHAT STUCK WITH ME THE MOST was when they pointed out that in 1960 when Kennedy was elected, over half of the population of the United States was under the age of 25. Today, that’s like 25%,.

The day after the wedding, we went to the Clinton Presidential Museum not far from our hotel. I was not a fan of the man but I have to say that the museum won me over a little, at least, giving me a higher respect of his accomplishments.  And kudos to the creators for including the Monica Lewinsky chapter of his presidency. I have to say, it’s very odd, looking at a museum of things where you remember everything that happened.

WHAT STUCK WITH ME THE MOST: There are blue boxes full of documents up and down the library in shelves, like books. Over 4,000 of them on display. And that is only 2-3% of the documents resulting from his two terms. Everything is required to be preserved, no matter how insignificant.

At the Clinton Presidential Library

THE WEDDING

The wedding itself was quite the family affair and I was so glad I could make it. We were unable to make my nephew Matthew’s wedding a couple of years ago and I won’t be able to attend his sister Laura’s big event this fall. However, the middle child, Megan, hit a window where I could actually be present. Laura was the Maid of Honor, Matthew was one of three ministers involved in the wedding and their father, my brother-in-law Darrell, another minister, was also in the wedding. Everything went fairly smooth with only a few glitches that happen with every wedding. The biggest challenge was the heat. Little Rock decided to hit the 90s that weekend, with a humidity to match. The church had some air conditioning, that helped. But unfortunately, the hotel where the reception was held, had challenges. They could not get the temperature below the 70s most of the night, which made for a very sweaty evening. On the bright side, doing the emcee duties for the reception, most of my jokes went over. The ones that didn’t, I blamed on the heat.

With our version of the Royal Couple

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

I thought of this gag, but in the madness and heat of the evening, I forgot to do it. Here’s what was going through my head earlier in the day.

After the Best Man and the Maid of Honor made their speeches, I opened it up to anyone else who would like to say a few words about the couple. No one stepped forward. That would have been the perfect occasion to have done the gag.

What I supposed to remember to say was, “OK, well, I’ve got a quick story to tell.  The second I arrived in town, I walked up and said, “Look, Megan, I know you and I haven’t been very close over the years and I didn’t get to see you a lot, but it warms my heart to see you getting married and I’m so happy that you found the one and your soulmate.”

And that’s when my sister Terri chimed in with, “Uh, Tim, that’s Laura. Megan’s over there.”

Dang it.
Carters everywhere!

A COOL SIDE-NOTE

When we arrived at our hotel, there were people everywhere wearing lime green shirts. Reading the back of the shirts, they were all part of a Carter family reunion. How awesome. They were everywhere. In talking with a couple of the extended Carter family, it seems that years ago, a couple with the last name of Carter had 15 kids. Over the years, the kids had kids, their kids had kids and now, every year, they gather somewhere for a reunion. It’s a weekend-long event including upwards of 200 people.  I think I heard that next year’s event is in Denver.

THIS TRIP’S SENIOR MOMENT

So, we enjoy a great dinner at a Dallas restaurant, a bit of an upscale establishment, with valet parking. After dinner, we headed out to the car and I tell the valet I was driving a silver Hyundai Ioniq. He spends five minutes looking for the keys, can’t seem to find them and then I remember, I’m NOT in Seattle. Our rental car was a white Ford Escape. More Ginko, please.

I’ll be honest–I was tempted

WHAT I LEARNED DURING THIS TRIP

My old broadcast partner, Bruce Murdock, used to always say, “It’s a pretty poor day when you can’t learn something” and I have to agree. Here are a few of the nuggets I picked up during my 5-day adventure:

  • Apparently, this area of the country has run out of names. They either borrow them from existing places like Paris, New Boston and Mount Vernon, or they take names and scramble them. For example, Texarkana and Arkadelphia. (I’m not making this up)
  • Texas is like Washington used-to-be. They don’t sell liquor in grocery stores, you have to go to a liquor store if you want your hard stuff.
  • Where I live, it’s common to hear in the winter, “It’s 25 with a windchill of 17.” Down in Texas, I heard, “It’s 97, with a heat factor of 101.”
  • Talk about two worlds. I was seat 32 D when I took off from Seattle. (I was so far back in the jet, I think technically, I took off from Tacoma) On the return flight, I was 4A. Just to satisfy your curiosity, 4A was much better.

ONE OF THE BEST MOMENTS OF THE TRIP

It happened when I approached the elevator at our hotel. As I walked up, a guy said out loud, “I think it’s broken, we’re going to have to take the stairs.” As he turned around, I saw he was wearing a San Francisco Giants baseball cap. At that particular moment, I was in my Los Angeles Dodgers polo shirt and pointed it out to him. “You know, we aren’t supposed to get along.”

“Yeah, I know,” he responded. We continued walking towards the stairs and I thought I’d clarify the situation. “Actually, I live in Seattle now. Los Angeles is where I grew up and I’m a Mariners fan now.”

He said, “Seattle? That’s the city I hate the second most. Damn Seahawks.”

We flipped each other grief, got to the second floor, smiled, shook hands and went our separate ways. That was cool.

I figured it was for the guy behind me

THE SOUTH

The one depicted to us up in the northwest is the red-necked bigot named Bubba that still lives in the 1950s. What stands out as you go about your business in Texas and Arkansas is the amazing display of manners. “Yes, ma’am” and “Yes, sir”, doors being held open, people waiting for the ladies to go first, both black and white. People saying “Hi!” or “Good morning” as you walk past them. Manners and civility are quite alive in the south, at least in Little Rock & Dallas.

Heading into Dallas

A DALLAS WARNING

Some tips. If you’re planning to visit soon, be sure to double-check everything you book, including which airport your service is at. For example, I flew into Dallas/Fort Worth airport, only to find out that I had reserved a rental car at the Love Field airport.  For Pete’s sake. Fortunately, they had lots of inventory and it was no problem switching. Then, when I went to drop off the car, I went into the airport only to find out that I had clicked on a return trip to Seattle out of Love Field. Nothing that a $50 cab ride couldn’t fix.

But my adventures weren’t over. I checked into the airline, walked out to where gates 11-20 were located and sat down between 12 and 14. Odd that didn’t have 13 marked. Maybe they felt people were superstitious and they didn’t want to put up a sign. I couldn’t see beyond the big column in front of me, but I just assumed the gate was there.  The arriving flight was late, so it looked like they would be boarding a little later than planned. The next thing I know, I hear my name being announced, paging me to Gate 13.  I walked down past gate 14 and on the left side of the concourse were gates 11 and 13. For double Pete’s sake. I was there an hour before departure and almost missed my flight. I was the very last person to board.

It was a close call with a happy ending and a lesson learned, whenever you might fly to Dallas. This could explain why J.R. Ewing was such a jerk.

WHAT I’D LIKE FROM YOU

Is that when you encounter any of these experiences yourself and they help you avoid some of my misadventures, drop me an email and let me know. We’re all in this together.

Safe travels.

Tim Hunter

 

Stan The Scan Man

I found out the way most people hear news these days–on Facebook.

Stan Boreson had passed away.

I was a late addition to the Stan Boreson fan club. Kids who great up in Seattle during the 1950’s and 60’s were able to turn on KING 5 in the afternoon and watch a funny Scandinavian with an accordion and a basset hound named Nomo. It was back when televisions stations made the effort to provide live entertainment for kids after school.

Growing up in the Los Angeles area, I was unaware of Stan’s existence.  However, when I took a job at KOMO Radio as Larry Nelson’s producer in the early 1980s, our paths crossed and I had the good fortune to really get to know Stan.  He made frequent visits to the KOMO studios and would banter with Lar about Ballard, Snoose Junction, the Swedes and Norwegians, Ole & Lena, Ole & Sven and those old KING’s Klubhouse Days.

Some of my Stan Boreson stories include:

Stan coming in one holiday season and performing songs and offering memories all morning long. Then, to cap it off, another friend–Leif Eie from Scandinavian Airlines–was flying up in the KOMO Air Patrol with Ted Potter.  Leif sang an original song about KOMO Christmas Time in Seattle, while Stan accompanied him on the accordion in the studio.

You can actually here the KOMO broadcast and one of the KLSY visits on this week’s edition of my Wacky Week podcast.

After hanging with him a few times as Larry’s producer, Stan could see I liked to joke around. So, he invited me over to his house several times after KOMO to sit and write more parody Christmas songs. I think we wrote around a dozen of them and I even still have the original hand-written sheets.  He used several of them on one of his last Christmas albums, for which I will be forever grateful.

I stayed in touch with Stan over the years, sneaking him on the air over at KLSY a couple of times and even dragging him into a “Murdock & Hunter Deck Your Halls” promotion. I have some video home movies of that adventure.

I bumped into Stan here and there.  I was hoping to get him to perform at my wedding, but he said his manager wouldn’t let him do it for free.  I understood. When people know what you do, they aren’t afraid to ask, “Oh, just this one time….” and 93 one times later, you’re overbooked because you’re a nice guy.

I saw Stan at Larry Nelson’s funeral (was that really 10 years ago?) and once at Ballard Seafoodfest a few years ago.  Sadly, my final conversation with Stan wasn’t the greatest, but when you think about it, it was actually a funny misunderstanding and Stan was a funny guy.  You can hear that story at the end of this week’s podcast.

I will be forever grateful that our paths crossed and that I was able to get an up-close look at that special light.

Tim Hunter

PS–One more special video. I didn’t even know he ever appeared on the Lawrence Welk show.