[Electronics-talk] Article about Ed Walker

[David Andrews]

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>I thought some of you would find this interesting It was taken from 
>the Washington Post. John
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>Ode to Joy Boy;
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>DJ Ed Walker Is Up for Election Into Radio Hall of Fame.
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>Steve Hendrix.
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>On a recent afternoon at WAMU, an engineer cues some melodramatic theme
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>music -- the swelling strings and sonorous piano of a more earnest age
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>--
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>and the smooth man in smoked shades leans into the mike. Hello again
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>everybody," he croons. My name is Ed Walker and this is 'The Big Broadcast.'
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>" Walker has been doing this every week since becoming host of the popular
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>old-time radio series Sunday nights on 88.5 FM almost 20 years ago. He
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>roooounds his vowels and pops his final T's and K's, just as he's done
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>throughout a career of talking on the radio that spans nearly six decades.
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>And he smoothly runs two right-hand fingertips over the bumpy sheets of
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>Braille that help him negotiate his world -- a unique realm of rich sound,
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>high drama and absolute darkness -- just as he has done since the day he was
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>born in 1932. We'll have another episode of 'Johnny Dollar,' America's
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>fabulous freelance insurance investigator; we'll have 'Dragnet' and
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>'Gunsmoke,' the 'Adventures of Philip Marlowe' and then 'Gangbusters,' "
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>Walker says, setting the stage for his weekly, backward-facing cavalcade of
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>pop culture from a time when the gumshoes were tough as 20-minute eggs and
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>dames were to be trusted only as long as it took to get one in a lovebird's
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>clinch. Right now, it's time to forget everything except the nostalgia of
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>old radio," Walker purrs, "as we go back into the '30s, '40s and '50s and
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>bring back . . . The Big Broadcast. Swoon, violins, swoon. Is it easier for
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>a sightless man to look back? For Walker, the answer is usually no.
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>Despite
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>his role as undisputed dean of long-gone radio, the 77-year-old is typically
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>too busy to be mired in rear-view longing. The husband of 52 years and
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>grandfather of five still plies the city via MetroAccess, traveling each
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>morning to NBC's Washington bureau, where he works part-time answering
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>phones for his lifelong friend and radio partner, Willard Scott, who still
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>does occasional weathercasts for the "Today" show. Walker is fully wired,
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>surfing the modern world with text-to-voice software and scanning the skies
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>of satellite radio. Now, Walker is poised to ascend into the Radio Hall of
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>Fame in Chicago, awaiting the outcome of an online vote
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>(www.radiohof.org)
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>that ends Aug. 1. As the well-wishing e-mails and calls have poured in,
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>Walker has spent a lot of time lately pondering a life of broadcasts gone
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>by. Radio has been everything to me," Walker says, sitting in the office he
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>shares with Scott at NBC studios on Nebraska Avenue NW, its walls lined with
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>sombreros, banners and the other goofy souvenirs of Scott's zany "Today"
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>show career. When I was a kid, radio was my comic books, movies, everything.
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>Now I look back and marvel that I was able to make a career out of it for 50
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>years in one market. I've gotten to interview all the people I used to
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>listen to -- Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby. It's just amazing.
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>Since
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>he and Scott signed on as a DJ duo at WOL in 1952, Walker's voice has been
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>heard on Washington radio more than just about any sound short of the
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>emergency broadcast test signal. He's been a big band jock, talk show host
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>and, most famously, half of the "Joy Boys" tandem through which he and Scott
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>dominated Washington airwaves for nearly two decades. Each day on the old
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>WRC, the two buddies sang their theme song ("We are the Joy Boys of radio,
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>we chase electrons to and fro!") , voiced a multitude of silly characters,
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>ad-libbed clunky sound effects and riffed seamlessly about everyday
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>absurdities, a pair of Siamese jesters joined at the mike. That was the
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>best," Scott says. That was the most fun I ever had in this business.
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>Anybody who saw Eddie work, they just marveled at him. But getting that
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>first chance to prove himself was anything but easy for a young blind man in
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>the early 1950s. Walker had been obsessed with radio almost since he was
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>born, completely blind, in Forrest, Ill., during the Depression.
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>According
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>to family lore, little Eddie's first words were "Turn the radio on. His
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>mother told of how he once snooped out the big Delco portable she had hidden
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>in a closet awaiting Christmas Day. She would say, 'You'd think it would be
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>easy to hide something from a blind kid,' " recalls Walker's daughter, Susan
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>Scola, 51, a teacher in Potomac. But not a radio. When the neighborhood kids
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>were outside playing ball, Walker traveled with the Shadow, Fibber McGee and
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>Jack Benny to a world where he had the eyes of a fighter pilot. Not many
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>people get more from radio than Eddie," Scott says. What do they call it,
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>theater of the mind? That's perfect for him. Soon after his family moved to
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>Washington, Walker's parents turned him from listener to broadcaster by
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>giving him a phonographic oscillator, a kind of low-watt toy transmitter.
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>Walker hooked it up to an outside aerial, boosting its range to the end of
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>the block, and his radio career began, at age 8. I had my own show on that
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>thing," he says. After finishing his schooling at the Maryland School for
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>the Blind, Walker was ready for the real thing. He applied to American
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>University's new broadcasting program, the first of its kind in the country.
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>He had the voice, but not the eyes. The District's rehabilitation agency
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>would pick up tuition for a radio major only if Walker could produce a
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>professional willing to vouch for the concept of a blind person functioning
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>in a broadcast booth. Everyone said it was impossible," Walker remembers.
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>They wanted me to be a social worker or a piano tuner. That's what blind
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>people did. He finally found a program director willing to call Walker's
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>ambitions feasible. He became AU's first blind student, helped launch WAMU,
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>then a tiny AM campus station, and hit it off with Scott, a fellow student
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>broadcaster. We were doing satire from the first words we ever spoke to each
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>other," says Scott, who once let Walker take the wheel of his car on
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>Whitehurst Freeway to satisfy his friend's curiosity about driving.
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>We're
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>like brothers, only better. We really love each other. For years, they
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>scrounged on-air gigs. Walker found ways to accommodate his blindness.
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>His
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>father dictated commercial copy as Walker typed it in Braille. At one
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>station, Walker would deliver the headlines by listening to the news
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>broadcast of another station in his headphones and repeating the information
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>into his own mike. Like an interpreter, "he did it instantly," Scott says.
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>One day, he put the headphones on and it was the 'Bible Hour. They'd screwed
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>up the schedule. Ed said, 'Due to technical difficulties, we won't have the
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>news at this time.' " The pair hit the big time in July 1955, when WRC
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>signed them as the "Joy Boys. They were so popular, kids reenacted their
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>skits the next day in many a local classroom. Their theme song was hummed
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>everywhere. Their guests got bigger and bigger: Don Adams wrote a skit for
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>them; Bill Cosby dropped by. Scott went on to play Bozo the Clown and Ronald
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>McDonald on Washington TV, and to become weatherman and funnyman on NBC, but
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>he and Walker have remained a team off the air and both look back at the
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>"Joy Boys" time as a creative high point. That was a wonderful time,"
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>says
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>Walker's wife, Nancy, who is sighted. We were invited to Constitution Hall
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>for concerts, movie premieres at the Uptown. I was always amazed at how many
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>people we met who had no idea Ed was blind. Scola says her father has always
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>hated to be shut out of any arena or activity just because he walks with a
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>white stick. She remembers long games of hide-and-seek with him. You could
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>hide from him right in the middle of the room," she says. I would always
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>giggle, but my sister could be absolutely still. Walker doesn't often talk
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>about his blindness on the air. His official biography at WAMU doesn't
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>mention it at all. Those who know him say he's spent his life making sure
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>his achievements, which included shows on WMAL (630 AM) and NewsChannel 8,
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>are measured on their merits, not by his disability. I don't want to get an
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>award because I can't see," Walker says. It's not important. A blind person
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>can do just about anything, except drive a car or fly an airplane. And
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>Willard let me drive once, so maybe I can do that, too.