1623
hours. Summer solstice. My Grandma Schick used to say, "Winter's
coming," on such a date as this. She was a pretty good long-range
forecaster, that's for sure. Four trees were taken out today and one in back
was topped. Those that I thought were eighty feet turned out to be sixty. Par
for the course as Carol would say. My use of hyperbole is pretty well known
when making conversation. I've mentioned this before so any readers out there
with any sense have been forewarned.
This sort of admission is always
embarrassing to you because in your youth storytelling used to get you into
trouble. Most of the day was spent focused on the workers and their equipment
and the art of tree cutting. You are at Pine Hill Lakes Park, far north lot
facing west; Carol is taking a shaded walk through the north woods. It has been
and still is an arthritic day with a new focus on a very sore left shoulder. It
reminds you of days in the fifties in Little League when you were a pitcher for
the below average team called "Supermen". - Amorella
That's a long ago thought, but yes, that is what it feels
like, only it would have been my right shoulder. We didn't have a very good
team and my efforts I'm sure didn't help matters. We did have fun though and my
grandfather, Popo Orndorff used to take me and one of my friends to Cincinnati
once a year to see the Reds play at the old Crosley Field. Crosley was still a
big name in Cincinnati in those days. Driving down SR 42 from Columbus there
was always the sight of the WLW Radio Tower -- we passed right by it on the way
to and from Cincinnati. I was always interested in radio broadcasting even in
my earliest days. I guess because Mom had it on for the war news and background
music when her record player wasn't playing.
** **
The Crosley Broadcasting
Corporation was a radio and television broadcaster founded by radio
manufacturing pioneer Powell Crosley, Jr. The company was an early operator of
radio stations in the United States. Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, Crosley's
flagship station was WLW(AM). Most of its broadcast properties adopted call signs
in which the first three letters were "WLW", which stood for " the
World's Largest Warehouse". By the 1950s, the company would operate a
small television network in the eastern Midwest.
History
During World War II, Crosley
built the Bethany Relay Station in Butler County, Ohio's Union Township [now
Westchester Township], one mile west of its transmitter for WLW, for the Office of War Information. It
operated as many as five shortwave stations, using the call signs WLWK, WLWL,
WLWO, WLWR and WLWS. It operated the facility for the government until 1963.
In 1945, the Crosley interests
were purchased by Aviation Corporation. The radio and appliance-manufacturing
arm changed its name to Avco, but the broadcast operations continued to operate
under the Crosley name until they adopted the Avco name in 1968.
Crosley (Avco) also owned WLWF,
an FM station it operated along with its WLWC (now WCMH-TV). In 1959, the
station was sold to Taft Broadcasting, owner of WTVN-TV also in Columbus (now
WSYX-TV. The transaction was the first in Ohio broadcasting history where a
broadcast owner sold one of its stations to a competitor in the same city. The
FM station is now WLVQ-FM.
From the 1950s through the 1970s,
Crosley operated a small television network in which programs were produced at
one of its stations and broadcast on the other Crosley stations in the Midwest,
and occasionally by non-Crosley stations as well. The company occasionally
produced programs picked up for broadcast on either NBC or DuMont. Programs
which aired nationally included NBC's Midwestern
Hayride (on which Rosemary Clooney [George Clooney's aunt] often performed)
and Breakfast Party. Other programs
originated on the Crosley network included DuMont's The Paul Dixon Show and The Ruth Lyons 50-50 Club. The Phil Donahue Show started in 1967,
originating from WLWD in Dayton, Ohio. The
Jerry Springer Show started from WLWT in Cincinnati and was distributed
nationwide by its syndication division, Multimedia Entertainment.
In 1968, Avco, which had just
purchased Embassy Pictures, consolidated its television operations into Avco
Embassy Television.
Beginning in 1975, Avco sold all
of its broadcasting holdings. In 1975, it sold WLWC-TV in Columbus, WLWI-TV in
Indianapolis, WOAI-AM/FM/TV in San Antonio (the AM station was sold to the
nascent Clear Channel as the chain's second property), and WWDC-AM/FM in
Washington D.C.; in 1976, it sold WLW-AM and WLWT-TV in Cincinnati, WLWD-TV in
Dayton, and its Avco Embassy Television and Avco Embassy Program Sales
divisions; in 1977, it sold KYA-AM/FM in San Francisco and WRTH-AM in Wood
River-St. Louis.
The closest equivalent to a
"successor" to Avco Broadcasting was Multimedia, Inc., to whom Avco
sold flagship TV station WLWT, as well as Avco Embassy Television and Avco
Embassy Program Sales in 1976. In December 1995, Gannett (who owned former
Crosley station WXIA-TV in Atlanta) acquired Multimedia, Inc., while the
respective syndication division was acquired by MCA Universal. By 1997, all of
the original Crosley radio and television properties had been sold off by its
successor companies, with the exception of WTHR in Indianapolis, which is still
owned by an affiliate of the Dispatch Broadcast Group.
By the 1970s the Crosley name had
ceased to exist in the memory of most US citizens (as would that of its major
successor company, Avco, a decade later); but many of the "WLW-"
station call-letters persist (see below). The deserted ruins of the major
Crosley manufacturing facility can still be seen on the west side of I-75, just
north of the area where the Cincinnati Museum Center (previously the Union
Terminal train station) is currently located and near where Crosley Field once
stood. The impressively huge transmission tower and old 50,000 watt transmitter
at the Tylersville Road facility near U.S. Route 42 (Reading Rd.), between
Dayton and Cincinnati still exists.
Selected and
edited from Wikipedia Offline
** **
There was a lot going on during and after WWII. Dayton's
National Cash Register and Wright Patterson Air Force Base have had their own
high tech connections with gathering worldwide intelligence since before those
heady days of WWII right up to today. Growing up, such matters made an
impression on this boy and adolescent.
We were not in the center of it all like New York City, but the area is
up to something. On the other side, coming down from Delaware the other day
vast stretches of corn and soy beans fields are at different levels of growth
depending on planting times. It is nice to be able to drive five miles north or
east and see farms and fields and woods and streams. I am so glad I had the
opportunities of seeing and being a small part of my great aunt and uncle's
farm life first hand from the ages of four to sixteen. Bits and pieces of an
older world and I gained from the insight.
Fortunately, none of this blog or Merlyn
books are required reading. Memories clothe the present world, dress it up a
bit, like when a young child puts on Daddy's or Mommy's shoes to play dress up.
Not much difference from what I see in here. Post. - Amorella
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