"Finding" the key

The WMBG-WCOD-WTVR building was still an architectural treasure in the 1960s. The expansion to accommodate TV had added to the rear of the Art Deco building at Cutshaw and Broad. The interior still paid homage to the 1930s -- from the inlaid lightning bolts and globe in the granite floor of the foyer to the period on-air lights. Much of the building's character was lost in an unfortunate redesign that added incongruous plantation touches to the exterior and an infelicitous modern look for portions of the interior.

In the years between the Kennedy assassination and 1966, when I joined the Air Force, I learned a lot about how to create radio. But I learned precious little about the business of radio. Wilbur Havens, WMBG's founder and owner, was for practical purposes an absentee landlord. His focus was on WTVR TV, where the big bucks were to be made. He rarely bothered to concern himself with what those crazy kids in the AM radio studio were doing.

We were thriving. And so was WMBG -- more so than in at least a decade. We were challenging the king of rock and roll, WLEE, and I was still jerking WLEE's chain. The battle escalated. Following the "Mrs. Harvey Hudson promos we aired -- described in the "Always the horn" post earlier this month -- Goliath girded his loins and again came after David.

And once again, WLEE made the professional extremely personal.

Radio was all a game for me in the early 1960s. The winner got the most listeners. For me, that was all it was. But it was that and more for WLEE: It was a deadly serious money-making business.

WMBG must have been a painful thorn in WLEE's paw. We spent virtually no money on equipment or promotions, and our ideas about what we wanted WMBG to sound like were a combination of pure imagination and a propensity to steal sounds and ideas we liked from stations in other big cities.

It just never occurred to me that we threatened the Richmond radio establishment, that by taking listeners from other stations, we were taking money out of their pockets.

One of WLEE's big promotions -- I think it was in late 1965 or early 1966 -- involved giving away a car. The station hid a key to the car somewhere in the city and broadcast daily clues about where it was. The clues were obscure, designed to keep the promotion alive and draw out the suspense. Havens never spent much money on promotions for us, so all we could do was watch the excitement mount and grit our teeth.

In the early 1960s -- and still today for all I know -- rock jocks had groupies. They hung around the stations because they were fascinated by radio. One of my WMBG groupies was a kid named Mike Ritchie. Mike was a skinny, blond, blue-eyed nerd. (He was also a WLEE groupie, and he enjoyed trading innocent gossip about the two stations.)

Mike dropped by the studio one Saturday morning and told me he knew where the key to the WLEE giveaway car was hidden: in a phone booth in front of the Giant Food store at Willow Lawn.

"You should go get the key and then tell everybody on your show this afternoon that you have it," he said. "You'll shock the hell out of them."

I thought that was a dandy idea, and the two of us set off for Willow Lawn. We parked in front of the grocery store and scoped out activity for a few minutes. We saw what you'd expect: a phone booth with shoppers pretty much ignoring it. I got out of the car and went to the phone booth.

At first, I didn't see any key. But as I stooped down to examine the floor carefully, I looked up, and there it was -- an envelope taped under the shelf. I started to get excited. I peeled off the tape, tore open the envelope, and pulled out the key. I opened the phone booth door ... and walked right into a gaggle of photographers and WLEE deejays -- and Mike Ritchie -- all saying, "Congratulations!"

I had been set up by a groupie. The station was broadcasting live, telling the city that "everybody listens to WLEE, even the competition."

"How does it feel to win a free car from WLEE?" one of the jocks asked me with a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin. What could I say? Once again, my entire career was flashing before my eyes. "Uh ... it's great," I mumbled. I hurriedly made my way to my car -- alone -- and headed back to the WMBG studios. In the car, I switched the radio to WLEE. They were already broadcasting a promo about me winning the free car, and I heard my recorded voice saying, "It's great."

This is it, I thought. I've really blown it this time. My career as a rock jock is over. Thoughts of groupie betrayal and what was to happen to my job raced through my mind. I was alternately pissed off at Mike and afraid of what would happen next.

I knew I had to tell Havens what happened before he heard about it from somebody else. Much to my surprise, he wasn't at all upset. In fact, he didn't seem to care. His fatherly advice? "You probably shouldn't do things like that, Don."

On Monday, I got a call from WLEE asking me to stop by and take possession of my free car. It turned out to be a clunker, a 10-year-old Ford, I think. I was driving a used Corvair -- "unsafe at any speed" in consumer advocate Ralph Nader's words -- and even a used Corvair was better than the WLEE rattletrap.

"There's one more thing," I was told by WLEE's promotions manager. "We need you to record a statement about how you like your new car." I thought of one thing I could say that might salvage my dignity: "I'm happy to accept the car and even happier to give it to the Methodist Children's Home." Thus began another round of WLEE promos -- but at least, I thought, I don't look like a total jerk.

Nobody thought to question what WLEE had done. By duping me, it had duped its own audience. The station gave away a car not to a lucky listener in a fair contest, but to me in a rigged contest.

And it seems to me that the station took what was essentially an on-air battle of wits and made it intensely personal. This was the second time the station had come after my job. And because WLEE really didn't understand how free and loose the WMBG operation was, a WLEE plan to have me fired failed again.

In the aftermath, Mike Ritchie was banned from the WMBG studios, although he did express contrition for what he'd done. Some years later, he got back in touch and we'd sometimes have a beer and talk about the WMBG glory days. Mike became a highly successful copywriter for a Richmond advertising firm and later moved to the Chicago office of a top national agency. In the early 1980s he returned to Richmond. He asked me to cash a check for $20 on his Chicago bank. The check bounced, and I never saw him again.