... and we're back!

At the moment, it's a beautiful spring Sunday morning, not quite 60 degrees Fahrenheit. As I write, I'm listening to a really good show (Ralph Kunkel's "And How That Rhythm") on our local community radio station, WVEW-lp. It is so good to have it back on the air,and it is good to have a Sunday off from work.

I am, of course, hoping for many Sundays off - I will be filing soon for early retirement. I had expected to do so a couple of days back, but was thwarted in my efforts. One can now file for Social Security online, but the time when one files has changed. I now have to wait until I am 61 and 9 months old. So, on June the 6th, D-Day, I shall file to retire this coming September. Financially I will still have to work the 20 hours Social Security will allow - provided I can get my job to give me 20 hours. That would mean a change in my part time classification where I work, but the people who are in that group are only getting about 4 to 12 hours a week. I am also hoping to take a break from work for a few weeks. But I digress.

I wanted to post a photo or two from our radio station's grand return to the air celebration held this past Friday evening during "Gallery Walk". (Gallery Walk is held the 1st Friday of each month and is a strolling around downtown run into just about everybody you know sometimes there's food for grazing while you see art by local artists event. Never mind that the economy of the last few years forced several of the galleries to close and that there is less art around than there used to be.)

It was late afternoon as a typical Brattleboro crowd started to meander around Main Street...

 Scotty (Scott Brown)  manned the WVEW information table:

Meanwhile, up in the studio, Dave Long observes as his music consultant Desmond sits at the controls...

Dan Lefkowitz dances with his daughter Zawadi

DJ Cam interviewed visitor Steve West, the host of a popular local talk show on one of our two commercial radio stations:

Frederic stands by as his impossibly cute son is coaxed into speaking on air by Steve West:

A little later, two of the poets from The Write Action Radio Hour (Molly Melloan and Toni Ortner) prepared for an on air segment:

By the way, the somewhat boarded up brick building you can see through the WVEW-lp studio windows is the Brooks House, site of our former studio which was destroyed in last year's fire.

I was much too tired to spend the voluminous energy required to hang out with a bunch of hyper DJs and their children, so I went home early. After all, I had to leave for the walk to work the next morning at 6am. From what I heard on the air, though, it sounded like a good time was had by all.

Oh, by the way, the station has a Facebook page, or you -could- visit our website where you can find an online player (and/or a link to our webstream) for listening to a certain show every Saturday night from 6pm to 8pm Brattleboro time (hint, hint).