Oops!

Please read or listen to the "Radio Rewind" post/podcast Skate, Skate, Skate first. I will see you in a minute to clear up my story…(thanks to digital technology, many of the errors in the post have been corrected. The podcast remains unchanged.)

Normally I take pride in the accuracy of my posts, but a previous blog needs correction. Over the years I have kept both written and spoken word diaries on tape and I will from time to time refer to them when writing these posts. Skate, Skate, Skate, posted last week, was a mostly accurate account I made straight from my memory without diary backup. I even neglected to consult a 1984 calendar for dates.

This morning I went back to my sources to fact-check and confirmed that the Christian Youth Skate was indeed held on Saturday nights at the Savannah Skate Inn as reported beginning June the 9th, 1984. However, the Youth Skate I brought over to Skatetime USA in the summer of ‘84 was on Mondays from 8 until 10:30 pm, not ever on Saturdays as I recalled previously. I can’t confirm that we directly competed with Skate Inn on my own radio station’s Christian Monday’s but I do log in early 1985 that we had just restarted doing Mondays at the Skate Inn and I was now volunteering (March, 1985).

Cannibalizing a party my main employer held would have been asinine, I was only 18 though. “Friendly” competition between the rinks was common then and it is a fact that Tommy Edwards, Skate Inn manager, resented the inference I made in a commercial for Skatetime USA that their facility was superior to his. I agree that it was unethical of me, Tommy had a point. No copies of those Skatetime USA commercials have survived, so I have no way of confirming content.

Two parties on the same night? It is reasonable to assume that both parties occurred on Mondays; why would have Tommy been so angry about just a line of copy? I am almost 100% sure now that there were simultaneous parties for at least a while.

I made the same hourly wage at Skatetime USA. The Monday party was an hour shorter than Saturday. I left the radio station early on skate nights and had floaters fill in on my shift.

It was Skatetime USA that had the Technics SL-1200 turntables not the Skate Inn. Their turntables did not provide the instants cues of the Technics. They were good consumer units, but I don’t remember the brand. I discovered a photo on Facebook of the Savannah Skate Inn sound booth from the era that confirms this. Both rinks sounded great! I give Skatetime USA the nod for sheer oomph.

My memory has been jogged by tapes that record certain events in minute detail. The whole skate party controversy is basically mentioned in passing. High school graduation angst is front and center. But a detail I inadvertently omitted is that Skate Inn discontinued the gig by “laying me off”. I blame slow ticket sales. My role was not as proactive as I had thought. There was a very brief gap between gigs. Monday Christian Youth Skate lasted a few weeks and I have confirmed it ended on Monday, August 20, 1984; corroborated by a personal letter I received, an ‘84 calendar and the audio diary. I don’t record when it started; by the time I logged it in the diary it had become a weekly routine.

Stay tuned.