Oh, the Places You'll Go

In my most recent blog post, I recalled the anniversary of Rush getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, on April 18, 2013, and what a privilege it was to be there.  But around this time of year, there's another anniversary I like to recall: May 13, 2011. For obvious reasons, this one didn't get the media attention that Rush got, but it certainly meant a lot to me: it will soon be ten years since I got my PhD at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, at the age of 64.

If you had told me when I was growing up in Dorchester, Mass., that I'd one day have a PhD, I would have been skeptical. At that time, I had fallen in love with radio, and even though there were no female deejays, I knew that's what my dream job was.  When my family moved to nearby Roslindale, I continued to dream of being on the air: I loved rock music, I loved listening to my favorite deejays, and I couldn't wait to join them.  

Of course, growing up in the 50s and early 60s, I was told girls could only be teachers or nurses or secretaries, and being a deejay was something that guys did. Still, I dreamed of proving everyone wrong. In fact, one of the first things I did when I got my first car was drive to Paragon Park--an amusement park at Nantasket Beach, about 20 miles from my house, to see the WBZ Radio deejays who did remote broadcasts. But all I heard from teachers, peers, and even my parents was that I would never be a deejay and I ought to choose something more realistic. (My other dream was to be a sportswriter; I was told girls couldn't do that either.)

Many of you know that when I enrolled at Northeastern University in Boston in 1964, I applied to work at the campus radio station. But they told me girls couldn't be on the air-- because, I was told, they don't sound good on the radio; I asked how many female deejays they'd had, and the program director said none-- because they don't sound good. I always wondered how he came to that decision if he'd never given any of us a chance...  It was really frustrating (and depressing) to get sent away, and for a while, I nearly gave up, but periodically I kept coming back, and gradually, attitudes began to change. In October 1968, I was given my own show, becoming the first female deejay in the history of Northeastern University. 

From there, it took a while before any commercial stations would hire me (radio still wasn't hiring a lot of women), so I taught in the Boston Public Schools, and continued to apply. In 1973, I was hired at a small station in Cambridge, Mass. called WCAS, and that led to my getting hired at WMMS-FM in Cleveland later that year. And if you are a Rush fan, you know what happened at WMMS in the spring of 1974, when I received a vinyl album from a Canadian record promoter friend of mine, and I got a song called "Working Man" on the air. And several months later, when Rush got their first U.S. record contract, they came to Cleveland for an appearance (Neil had recently joined the band), and I was there to celebrate the occasion with them.

My radio career took me from Cleveland to New York City, to Washington DC, and finally back to Boston. After being an announcer and a music director for about 13 years, I opened up a radio consulting business, working all over North America with a wide range of radio stations, hiring and training announcers and managers for nearly thirty years. (And during all that time, I kept in touch with Rush; I still do, to this day.) Along the way, I met some amazing performers: Bob Seger, Fleetwood Mac, Bruce Springsteen, Garth Brooks, Madonna, Z.Z. Top, Kiss, Dolly Parton, and so many more. Not bad for a working-class kid who was told when she was a kid that she'd never have a career in radio. 

And then it all changed. Deregulation of broadcasting happened. Then media consolidation happened. And by the early 1990s, a handful of big companies had gobbled up hundreds of small and medium-market stations. Many of us lost our jobs-- I lost my consulting business, and suddenly, in my 50s, I had to confront the prospect of reinventing myself. It took me a while to decide on the next chapter (I knew there had to be one), and I decided to go back to school and become a professor. I had been a part-time instructor (I had even won several awards), but I knew I'd never get hired full-time in academia without a PhD.

Unfortunately, nobody seemed eager to give me that chance; every school I applied to turned me down. And then, finally, the University of Massachusetts in Amherst (nearly 90 miles from Boston) took me in.  It wasn't easy, and it took me nine years, going part-time-- teaching in Boston (usually at Emerson College) and then driving out to Amherst; but I have never regretted doing it.

I was 55, and I hadn't been a student in thirty years, and at first, I worried that I wouldn't be able to do it. But it was something I needed to prove to myself-- especially to show certain people that I wasn't "too old" (something some folks had actually said to me), that I could do the work that younger students were doing. And I did. I even got good grades. I will always be grateful to UMass. for seeing my potential. 

And as it turned out, getting the PhD really did change my life. I don't know if I sound any smarter (or if my blogs are more erudite), but the fact that I was able to become a professor and get taken seriously by folks in the academic world is because of that degree. I completely understand why Dr. Jill Biden wants to be called by her title-- she too went back to school as an older adult and she too got a degree that some folks did not expect her to get. If you've ever undertaken a doctorate, you know how much work it requires. (My dissertation was 365 pages long.) Meanwhile, here I am, age 74, still teaching, still writing, still blogging. And I'm proud of what I finally accomplished... ten years ago, May 13, 2011, an anniversary that I will always remember, because it proves it's never to late to write that next chapter or take that next step.