Patient veteran radio guys

I HAD A blast with Greg Haubrich, Dylan Austin and the WGEM News Talk 105 crew this morning, talking about our Six String Heroes press conference and program. It brought back a lot of memories as we sat in Studio H at the corner of Fifth and Hampshire, a mere block from Second String Music.

When I was the crime and courts reporter at The Herald-Whig, I did a Tuesday morning segment with Greg and Rich Cain that became pretty popular. We called it the "You Can't Make It Up" segment, and we talked about court cases, the crazy people doing crazy and dumb things, and life in general.

We got into a pretty good routine. Then reporters at the paper started working random night shifts, and my last months at the paper I didn't do the radio show as much. I missed it, and still do.

This morning when I walked in, Greg was patiently working with a new producer, a young gal who seems pretty sharp and is learning on the fly. When we got done, Greg went over a few other technical issues, and I was impressed with how he kept his cool - radio is easy, right? You just flap your gums and mess around. The commercials play themselves and the bumper music comes on automatically. It's no problem!

There's a ton of work that goes on behind the scenes and it's not a job for the easily-rattled.

It's good to see a veteran like Greg still doing his thing. The journalism business is a young person's game, but you can't substitute for experience.

Thanks for letting me hang out again, Greg.