Safety first

My friend Chuck Hite took this picture of me in the WMBG studio in the 1960s.

I worked my way through college as a rock jock.

My job was a dream come true for a 1960s college kid: I went to class in the morning and then presided every afternoon over a top-rated rock-and-roll radio show on Richmond's WMBG. Sometimes my 3-to-7 p.m. program was rated No. 1, and sometimes it was No. 2, as upstart WMBG and its venerable competition, WLEE, battled for supremacy.

Until I left the station to join the U.S. Air Force in 1966, life seemed to be as good as it could get. There were billboards all over Richmond advertising my show. Record stores had printed copies of the Don Dale Top Ten on their counters. And the experience I was gaining was to stand me in good stead for the rest of my career. My tenure as a rock jock spanned the years from pop rock to the British invasion, from the Supremes and the Beach Boys to the Rolling Stones and the Beatles.

They were heady times, but I was reminded last weekend of at least one occasion when my budding career was almost snatched away from me – and it was my own fault. You'll recall that this month "Saturday Night Live" began its 35th season with an unexpected bang. New cast member Jenny Slate dropped the F-bomb – the last of the words that are really forbidden on network TV. I had my own F-bomb moment on WMBG radio about 45 years ago.

It was one of those times when I meant to say something one way, and it came out another. The National Highway Safety Commission was actively promoting the use of seatbelts, which were a fairly new feature. The station supported the effort, and there were two standard ways of wording the message. You could remind listeners to "fasten your seat belts" or you could urge them to "buckle up for safety." You guessed it: I conflated the two messages and urged my audience to "fuckle up for safety."

The program director took me to the woodshed about that one, but – mercifully – he didn't fire me.

I said something else that raised eyebrows a few months later when I accidentally dropped a piece of copy about a new movie playing at the old Loew's Theater. I knew I was going to be off-mike for a few seconds while I reached down to retrieve the copy. I meant to say "play among yourselves while I pick up the spot copy," but what I told my audience to do instead was "play with yourselves ..."

Yep. Another trip to the woodshed. But my career survived.

My own ambition almost burned me a few years later. It wasn't something I said. It was something I did. WLEE had an opening for a newscaster. I was majoring in journalism at the University of Richmond, so I applied for the news job with the competition. I auditioned. They liked what they heard. They offered me a job. I gave two weeks notice at WMBG and called WLEE to say I'd accept the new job. Two days later, WLEE pulled the rug out from under me: "Sorry, Don, but we've decided not to hire you after all."

Hat in hand, I made an appointment to see WMBG's owner, Wilbur Havens. I told him what happened and that I'd really like to have my old rock-jock job back. Mr. Havens thought for a moment and made a very practical business decision. "You can have your job back, Don. It'll save me the cost of taking down all those billboards with your face on them."

It was some weeks before I realized that rock-and-roll radio wasn't all fun and games. It was a cut-throat business. WLEE had outmaneuvered me. The best way for them to eliminate my show as competition was to screw me royally. Which they did. But they hadn't counted on Wilbur Havens and his tightfisted decision about those billboards with my face on them. My career survived.