Dear George -
Most people reading your blog will remember WKGN when it was housed in really nice studios atop a Hamilton Bank branch in Alcoa Highway. I was the program director when we made the move there.
When I first arrived at ‘KGN as a midday jock, however, the station was in an old building (probably a grocery store) at 22nd and Cumberland on “The Strip.” It was actually two long, narrow buildings with a hole punched through a wall to connect them. There was still an overhead rail inside a back door where animal carcasses could be hooked and moved into the building. One day copywriter Patsy Hess asked me to record a few commercials after my 9-12 noon shift. When I walked into the production studio and turned on the lights, there was a large rat sitting on the console, looking at me and making no move to leave. It took throwing heavy open reel tape mailer containers, a broom, shouts, and two or three minutes before I had sufficiently wounded the beast and he limped out of the studio.
I felt it necessary to explain to a couple of fellow staffers that - no - Possums and rats are not related. My genus is marsupial and the interloper’s was rodent.
Thanks for hangin’ with the Possum (Riley)