This is Radio Clash

On the air in less than 24 hours, and my nerves are shot. It doesn't help that Mr Daisy has (unavoidably) had to leave the state on the weekend of my radio debut. In addition, my Green Party guru (and radio co-host) passed out on his cardiologist's floor this afternoon; my internet flickers in and out for no apparent reason that the bemused AT&T man can figure out, and I am suddenly worried that I will need to change my blog motto-- from Ain't Skeered to Skeered.



Gah!



I remember I used to get this nervous when doing AA talks, and I have to remember: talk-radio isn't nearly as unnervingly personal as that was. As I think Richard Pryor once said, even if you're funny, talking about yourself is always scary... unless you're lying.



Politics, one fervently hopes, will be a far easier topic.



Why do I find sending words over the internet (in blog or Facebook form) so easy, yet find the idea of speaking on airwaves (about many of the same subjects!) so daunting? I have been talking to the public, in various forms of customer service, for many years, so it isn't that. I think just a general lack of experience in radio, has given me pause. I am going where I have never gone before (or only a few times, long ago).



Wish me luck.



~*~



This is Radio Clash - The Clash

Betty Ford 1918-2011

I was 24 years old when I walked into my first AA meeting. Too young?

Certainly, I already looked like I belonged there, swathed in discarded old scarves like some pitiful hippie-ragamuffin. Although it was dark, icy and cold--January in Ohio--I had walked to the meeting at St Aloysius on West Broad Street. That fact seemed to impress the people at the meeting more than anything I had actually said, which was likely a jumble of drug-addled gibberish that made no sense.

I held onto the one hope I had: too young? Am I too young?

And then, she just sort of settled into my mind. Her presence. It was like she was with me.

The president's wife, you nitwit. It could be anyone. Anyone.
A-N-Y-O-N-E. Any age, any sex, anywhere; there is no membership requirement except the desire to stop drinking.

But... but...

Shut UP, said my conscience, eager to win one for a change. Shut UP. The president's fucking wife.

Anyone.

And she remained there, a presence in my consciousness, a presence occupying my head without my full realization... until now. And she is gone.

Betty Ford was crucial to me, to us. She was so important, possibly the most important person in the American recovery movement save for the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous. Because she was Anyone. She was the respectable person who passed out at a dinner given in her honor. She was a rich man's wife who started to drink to deal with social pressures. And she wasn't Dick Van Dyke or Robert Downey Jr, either, she was a WOMAN. A lady. She had been, after all, the First Lady.

If it could happen to her, it could happen to you. (And do you know how many times I have heard that phrase, in meetings, in monologues, in phone conversations? I have said it myself, and it has been said to me.) Why do you think it couldn't? Who do you think you are? Of course it could. Luck, goodness, intelligence, class, decency, none of that means squat: you can't handle it, leave it alone. Even she had to. It could be anyone.

Anyone.

And how many lives were saved, all because we could point to her and confidently announce, ANYONE? Her presence, her life, became an object lesson for millions... certainly, it was very important to me, to know that she was in our ranks. See? I'm not the only girl! (In 1982, it often felt like I was.)

My deep affection and love for this woman is hard to convey. Her simple honesty and her life lessons, helped so many of us. Just her presence, in our minds, meant so much.

Her legacy overshadows her husband's easily.

Rest in peace.