My first few weeks at 101Q were going quite well and I was becoming acclimated to my new surroundings. Evenings were my sweet spot and my new station was a dream to operate. During those first few weeks, upon my arrival to the station for my daily show, Dick, the General Manager started asking me if I wanted to do the Morning Show. I politely declined, mainly because getting up at 3:00 am did not appeal to me. With doing Evenings, that was about the time I was going to sleep. I wasn’t quite living the Elvis life, but liked being a night bird. Dick asked again and once again, I declined. Mornings? No. Mornings? No. Mornings? No thank you.

Finally, Dick said on a Friday, you’ll be on the Morning Show starting Monday. Thank you very much. My Life of Riley, easy peasy  Evening Show was done. I took a deep breath, sucked it up and made the preparations to transition from StocktonInTheNighttime to the all new StocktonInTheMorning show.

I was happy that Terry moved out of All Nights to take it over, but I wasn’t real enthusiastic about the 5:30 am Morning start. There were some upsides though. I would be working with Lovely Linda Barr, the Morning News anchor. Dennis Lévesque did sports and Dr. Love was in the adjacent studio doing the Morning Show on 79 WYNR. All were great and talented people to work with. The tough part would be the life changing hours. Living 17 miles from the studio further eroded my sleep. In the spring, the challenge was added to miss the open draw bridge over Brunswick Bay that would stay open long enough to let an entire fleet of shrimp boats pass through to the open sea. If I missed the closed bridge, it would stay open for a half hour. That meant I had to turn around and take the long way in on the Blythe Island Highway, leaving no time to stop at The El Cheapo convenience store for a fresh cup of coffee that clerk Allison had me timed to brew a fresh pot. Some mornings were like "Life In The Fast Lane". It was a mad dash to make my start time, just like the movie FM. Life in the fast lane can surely make you lose your mind.