My entire career has been fiction-trumping.  I still feel a twinge when I think about being out of morning radio, but I left  with no regrets. Although  I have a rich voice career, my last serious jock effort ended in 1973 at the end of a wildly successful four year run on KCBQ in San Diego after my return from Detroit on the Martin and Howard Show. My adventures at KCBQ after Detroit  are chronicled in previous chapters. 

After my return from Detroit, The KCBQ adventures  include swimming across San Diego in 200 swimming pools, preceded by  a  swim through Sea World. There was a warm-up10,000 foot parachute jump into the Pacific to start things off. 

I also broke the world record for a jet passenger, flying around the world in  43 hours and 31 minutes. I walked Death Valley for charity, and  experienced a Twilight Zone  episode in which I successfully predicted 18 rains a good week or ten days before each rain, here in California, where it seldom rains.  

I was the Parade Marshall of all the major parades, climbed a 10,000 foot mountain in Baja for charity, and began that stint at KCBQ in 1969 by taking the station from fifth in the market to # 1 in the first book after an absence of eight years. (ARB Jan-Mar 69) This was in defiance of the old saw that you can’t go back.  But, what brought me here after the eight year absence?  My answer: Detroit. 

If you have read the “Trifecta” chapters , describing  how I went to Miami to pick up the pieces of the shattered love affair with Carol, you are now set up for the anticlimactic story of how the wheels came off in the Motor City. 

It started off triumphantly  with  a luncheon  meeting in Cleveland with ABC President Hal Neal who came to see Specs and me, offering us a treasure trove of money to come to Detroit where he was certain we would unseat J.P. McCarthy at WJR. We agreed before dessert arrived. Our future boss, WXYZ VP Chuck Fritz came along with Neal  to shake his head in agreement. 

We were free to go, because Westinghouse had neglected to insert a transfer clause in our KYW Cleveland contract, freeing us to leave when they transferred the license to NBC. I left Cleveland and flew to San Diego where Lee Bartell gave me shelter for a few weeks at KCBQ prior to flying to Miami to ooch Carol back into the box. 

Then, things happened. Hal Neal died right after signing with us, leaving us in the grip of the new ABC President Ralph Beaudin. Prior to that, it had been set. We were going to rock and capture 18-34 in Detroit which Specs and I would have done, no sweat. Instead Beaudin changed the signals. He decreed that we would play middle of the road music, clashing  head-on with  J.P. McCarthy at WJR, a station that  had a signal that swept  across mid-America….with middle of the road music.  Our WXYZ signal barely covered Detroit. The transmitter was a 5,000 watt directional stick that aimed east. 

The poor signal was unimportant to us when we signed, because we were ass kickers with the rock format and we would still dominate what area  that was open so dramatically that, regardless, we would  still have  delivered  the top 18-34 audience in the total market..  

However, we were not well suited to playing the vanilla pop standard stuff ABC assigned to us. This called for us to modify our style somewhat and come on with more mature restraint. We did okay, but did not threaten the great J.P. whom we had grown to respect greatly.  

A year and a half into our two year contract, Chuck Fritz approached me in the hall, and ominously asked me to come to the office where he revealed that someone had sent him a letter in which my relationship with Carol was described as “meretricious.” Meretricious…isn’t that a high fallutin’ word for meritorious? Apparently not.  

 In fact, the letter writer meant that Carol and I were living in sin, that the Mexican divorce and subsequent marriage, okayed by our Cleveland attorney, was not only illegal in this country, but called for  criminal charges in Michigan. Like all large broadcasters, ABC had a morals clause in their contract, and I was suddenly somewhat immoral. 

My principal concern was Carol. When I went home and used the world “meretricious”, she knew immediately what the word meant. She spent a few minutes coming to terms with this revelation, processed it with her clear mind, then said, “Call your San Diego attorney. Tell him what’s happened. We may have to dump this job and go back and settle things once and for all.” It was her way of saying we were going to stay together, no matter what. 

That was not my thinking at all. I had scaled the heights of major market radio and now saw myself  holding on by my fingernails to whatever handhold presented  itself. She was saying, “Dump it. Let’s go back, and deal with this thing.” 

Against my instincts, I got on the phone with my original attorney, the man who had handled things when my ex had filed for divorce. Phone in hand, I said to Carol, “You know this means giving everything up, don’t you?” She didn’t blink when she said, “We are going to be fine.” Her faith got my blood flowing. Of course, she was right. Alone, I would have stripped myself to the bone to settle it, but she was saying, “ We’re together now. Strip away.”  

I took rational stock of things. ABC was unhappy with us, anyway. Specs and I had a half year left on our contracts. We had to assume that we would be blown out. Carol made sense. 

Things took care of themselves. Specs and I went on vacation, and WXYZ fired us while we were gone. It was startling and gratifying to hear that J.P. McCarthy had  criticized WXYZ  on his WJR show for such  a  callous way of handling it. ABC honored our contract by paying us a half year’s salary. 

I do not recall who said, “When one door closes, another one opens.” Maybe Sigmund Freud, Buddha, or Chuck Blore, but it is true. I saw my attorney upon returning to San Diego. He heard my tortuous tale, sighed and said, “Harry, did you ever pick up your Final?.....What?....She was the plaintiff. I thought it was up to her to file the final.  “No, he said, “if she didn’t file for the final, you can cross-file and get your divorce in a matter of days.” 

All that wasted time. A retroactive divorce dating back eight years after she had filed?. In minutes, I had morphed from the defendant to the plaintiff.   

A few days later, after a brief hearing, at Judge Leland Nielsen’s San Diego court room he granted the divorce, then said, “ I know what  I have just ruled, but I have no idea how to dictate it.” My attorney, a brilliant  legal scholar, said, “With Your Honor’s permission I will dictate it.” The judge nodded, and my attorney  dictated the decision without a stumble to the court clerk, and California’s first such legal action, a retroactive divorce, was entered into the books.  

In a short time after the papers were filed, I was a free man. The day of the hearing,  the judge had smiled and  said, “ When you are liberated, come back to me. I have to get you two married” Turned out he was a Happy Hare fan. This week marks our 40^th anniversary. 

The doors also opened for Specs. He established the Specs Howard School of Broadcast Arts which now occupies a majestic building in Detroit. Tens of thousands of students have been graduated from his school and now occupy positions (ironically) not only at WJR,  but most of the other stations in Detroit.  His alumni have fanned out all over the world. There is no other man whom I respect more. We have remained close for fifty years. 

Dick Purtan succeeded  us at WXYZ, and scored respectable numbers, then left after ten  years  for CKLW in Windsor. Music was a non-issue for  Dick. His morning show consisted of a cast of funny people with little music to clutter the show. Specs went to Dick’s WXYZ farewell party and announced that we were happy for him. and wanted  to take this opportunity to say that “Harry and I will be returning to WXYZ to succeed Dick.” Jaws dropped. Gotcha! 

Bonus! Bonus! I had landed on San Diego’s doorstep, unclaimed, only to find that KCBQ  wanted me back big time,  and, more importantly, our return coincided with  the amazing  California  boom in real estate. 

When I left radio, I never looked back. The fun was going out of it. Wall Street became more than important than Main Street. In 1970, I was surprised to hear that CBS had placed Specs and me on their short list of morning candidates  to take over at WCBS in New York in case  that station retained its music format. We were saved from making a decision because they went all-news.  We would have nixed it.  

When I left KCBQ in 1973, Peter Lund, then GM at news station KSDO, asked me to anchor morning news and I opted away. Peter later became President of CBS, and  apparently thought no less of me, because we have remained friends all these years. In fact, when I was honored with a  2004 Lifetime Achievement Award in San Diego, Peter sent a congratulatory  message of praise that put me away, the same when I was inducted into the 2006 Ohio TV/Radio Hall Fame. 

The great Chuck Blore will sponsor my candidacy for the Texas Radio Hall of Fame this year. Truth is, I did not expect any of this acclaim. I always regarded myself as just a plain every day working jock. I went into the studios at KGBC in Galveston, KLAC  in Hollywood, KCBQ in  San Diego, WADO in New York, KYW in Cleveland, and WXYZ in Detroit, and the only thing on my mind was what a rush it was. 

Don’t get me wrong I still think in terms of being on the air. I thought up a bit only this morning. Listening to Shawn Hannity a couple of days ago, I was amused at how he  talks over guests with whom he disagrees. I found myself  “doing” his voice. The rest just flowed. The premise was: What would happen if Shawn had Doctor Martin Luther King on as a guest? I do Dr King’s voice also. 

Shawn: Today we have as my guest, Dr Martin Luther King. What’s up, Doc? 

King:     I have a dream.  I dre….. 

Shawn:  That’s funny. Me too. I dreamed that one day, little white boys and white girls would walk hand in with little black boys and black girls. What was your dream? 

King: (Long pause)  Skip it.      

For Detroit adventures, scroll down to:

The Happy Hare Trifecta series

The Detroit Lions and Tigers and Hare series

The Martin and Howard Snow Job series

What do Happy Hare and Jimmy Hoffa have in common?