Today 101 continues the saga of WNOX morning DJ Sir Bernard J. Quayle! Here's another WNOX adventure as told to 101...
Love reading the K-Town blog and felt I had to respond to Bill Acuff's recall of my episode on the waterbed in Downtown Knoxville.
In 1970, The furniture store Fowlers were endeavouring to modernise their image and had installed a futuristic $28,000 waterbed known as Pleasure Island in their storefront window. WNOX booked me to broadcast the breakfast show there for three mornings which meant I had to be in the store before they closed for the night and dressed for bed in their window by 6.00 pm each night.
The station rigged a two-way so I could talk to the people outside the store and there was a constant stream of people all the way through the night. If I dozed off, some drunk would be hammering on the window to talk to me at 3.00 am. As you might guess, I didn't get much sleep. Another problem was that the downtown temperature was minus 12, so they heated the waterbed to about 75 degrees! It was like sleeping on a hot-water bottle.
The first night, I was wearing a tee shirt and shorts under the nightshirt, but because of the heat, I dispensed with the underwear. Most observers asked me to bounce up and down to show the effect of the waterbed and of course I obliged. A group of girls, who had just come from the cinema kept insisting on me jumping up and down. They were in hysterics laughing at my antics. When I enquired what was so funny about me jumping up and down, I was told they were laughing at the fact I wasn't wearing shorts under the nightshirt - I quit bouncing after that.