The Magical Mystery Tour 

Biography of Dennis Davidson 

I was born in Detroit, Michigan on February 27th, 1942. My dad, at the time, was a nightclub musician in the evenings and worked at the Ford Rouge Plant during the day. My mother was a waitress in the nightclubs in Detroit; this was in the late 30s and early 40s. The night club scene was big at that time; they were just coming out of the depression and WWII was starting, so people were looking for relief from it all. At age 3, we moved to the thumb area of Port Sanilac, Michigan, where my parents opened a restaurant along with my uncle and aunt. My dad eventually became the village president and served for a couple terms. Port Sanilac was a resort town, so it’s quite busy in the summertime, but pretty drastic in the wintertime. In the wintertime you just depend upon the 150-200 people that live in the town to support you.  My parents got very involved with the community, my dad formed the first Lion’s Club in Port Sanilac, and my mother started the first Lioness Club. Of course, they’re in a small town so everybody was into something. The Masons were big; my mother joined Eastern Star, which was part of the Masons.   

I never really went looking for celebrities, but I always seemed to encounter them. My first was the Governor of Michigan, G. Mennen Williams. There is a harbor in Port Sanilac, Port Sanilac Municipal Harbor, it was the first harbor of refuge on the Great Lakes. It was dedicated in 1950, which would have made me about 8 years old. The governor came for the dedication, and I had the chance to meet him. I spent most of my youth in Port Sanilac, though we moved a couple times.  

My dad, who had an alcohol problem, managed to quit drinking on his own and eventually went into the ministry. We had a younger minister come to Port Sanilac, he was about 22 years old; everybody loved him. He was so dynamic, my dad convinced his bar buddies to start going to church. At the time, church was on Sunday evenings. So, the guys started going every Sunday night and eventually became involved with the church, one of them became the choir director, another the church treasurer.  I started going to Sunday school and I came home and asked my dad, “Are we Christians?” “Well yeah”, “well, are you saved?”, “well yeah, of course”.  Then in 1955, my dad went into the ministry, and he became a Methodist minister. His first church was in Memphis, Michigan; I was a freshman in high school.  

I graduated from Memphis High school in 1959 and went on to Kendall College, in Evanston, Illinois which is a 2-year Methodist school on the Northwestern Campus, I did not graduate. I then attended the Midwestern School of Broadcast Arts in Chicago and received my certificate from there. That kind of started my radio career. In 1963, I moved from Evanston, Illinois to Flint, MI where I worked at the radio station called WMRP (Methodist Radio Parish). While there, I met my second celebrity. He was a Heisman Trophy winner from Notre Dame by the name of Leon Hart; he ended up playing for the Detroit Lions. He had a charity going on, and he wanted our station to help him out. I remember how large of a person he was; when we shook hands, his hand engulfed mine. 

In the Army 

I left the radio station, well they asked me to leave because I wanted to do more than religious music, I wanted to do Rock n’ Roll. That was my music. I had trouble finding work at other radio stations because at that time there was the military draft, and I hadn’t been called; I was 21 years old. I had a friend that I graduated from high school with who was in the Navy. He came home on leave and suggested I join the military. So, I went to Port Huron, Michigan and I met with a recruiting Sergeant. I told him I wanted to go to Germany, and I wanted to be a Broadcaster with the American Forces Network (AFN). A couple of days later, he called me back and said the information school was full. The school was in Fort Slocum, NY. The Sergeant told me to enlist anyway and then reapply. He didn’t tell me I had to re-up for another 3 years. So, I went to basic at Fort Knox, KY. I was counseled at the intake center by an older Sergeant. He asked me what I want to do, so I told him I wanted to go into the American Forces Network in Germany. He asked how much experience I have. Well, counting Broadcasting school and WMRP, I said one year. He told me I needed two years. I guess I must have looked very disappointed; he said he’d put me down for the two years. That was a turning point in my life.  

When basic training ends, all personnel must attend a Military Occupational Specialty School (MOS). The schools could be anywhere from electronics to infantry. On the day of graduation from basic training, I looked at the company bulletin board for my name to see which school they were sending me to. All it said was “Fort Benning, Georgia”, however they assigned me an MOS 603, which was Broadcast Specialist and said to report to the Garrett. I was thinking that I was going to go into some sort of training, instead they asked me what I was doing there. I told them that I was a broadcaster, and they sent me up to the Public Information Office, which was in the main Headquarters at Fort Benning. I reported to a Colonel, who headed up the Broadcast Media Office. He told me they did not have room for me there because they only had a once-a-week show on Columbus, Georgia radio. He and a Spec 4 did all that was needed for that department. 

He sent me down the hall to the public information office where I mostly typed out hometown releases and things like that. I only spent five months at Fort Benning, but the most memorable, historical event happened while I was there. It was November 22nd, 1963, 1:00pm EST, we had just come back from lunch, there were four of us in the department. We had a UPI machine (United Press International Teletype machine), which was dinging and it wouldn’t stop. Usually when it dings a lot there’s a headline, but this just wouldn’t stop, so one of the guys went to look at the Teletype machine, came back with the page, and told us the President’s just been shot. We were probably one of the very, very first military people to learn of President Kennedy being shot in Dallas. We were located on the same floor as the Post-Commanding General, and we spent the afternoon running press releases down to him. At 2:00pm, we watched Walter Cronkite announce that the President had passed away from his wounds. Being in the military during the Cold War, there was a lot of uncertainty. Whether you could be sent to Europe, Cuba, or if the tension between the US and Russia escalated. 

Eventually things settled down, and in March of 1964, I was shipped off to Germany. At that time, the Army had its own Navy, so I reported to the Navy Yard in Brooklyn, New York and we all boarded a Troop Ship named the USS Buckner. I remember leaving port and was amazed as we sailed right by the Statue of Liberty. The trip became very demanding when we hit a bad storm in the North Atlantic. I remember lying in my bunk, and every now and then the ship would shake because the bow of the ship had gone down so far in the water, that the propellers in the back would come out of the water and cause the whole ship to vibrate. On the sixth day, we finally entered the English Canal, and I could remember seeing the white Cliffs of Dover in the distance. The ship entered the Weser River and docked at the port in Bremerhaven. I remember going on deck and looking around, and thinking to myself, I’m glad I’m not stationed here; the place was very smelly. I found out later that Bremerhaven was the largest fishing port on the North Sea, hence the smell. We debarked the ship, got on a troop train, and made an overnight trip to Frankfurt. After getting off the train, I walked up to the terminal where there was a Jeep waiting for me, which was driven by, believe it or not, two guys I went through basic with. They took me to Heidelberg, I reported there, and they asked me what I was doing there. I told them that I was a broadcast specialist; they informed me there was no AFN station in Heidelberg. I wanted to see Heidelberg, I was told it was a beautiful city, but they wouldn’t give me a pass, so I had to stay on base. After a couple of days, I was sent back up to Frankfurt, where I reported into AFN Frankfurt, which was the headquarters for AFN Europe. The headquarters was in a Medieval Castle on the Main River. I was told that ships would have to stop there to pay a fee/toll to continue up the river. The castle was built in the 17th or 18th century and came complete with a moat and a dungeon. I reported to the headquarters, and of course I got the same question, “what are you doing here?”. They told me they had no position there, but they thought there was an opening in Bremerhaven. So, back on the troop train I went for an overnight ride to Bremerhaven. When I got there, there was a Sergeant waiting for me, and for the first time I heard someone say, “boy am I glad to see you”. I spent the next three years in that, what turned out to be, beautiful town, in spite of the odor of the Fischereihafen. AFN Bremerhaven was located in a long, two-story building right on the base. The base served a couple purposes; it was a staging area for people coming from or going back to the United States, they would board ships there along with their automobiles. The other portion of the base was made up of an Army, Navy, and later Marine Intelligence Center. I was not allowed to know what they were doing, but I assume it had something to do with our closeness to Russia and other nations.  

At the station, there were only three of us assigned there, and we all had our own private rooms. My very first radio show came on at 5:00 in the afternoon and it was called “The House of Wax”. The name “wax” comes from early record recordings which were made of wax, not vinyl like we have now. My opening would be at 17:05, “It’s time now for The House of Wax”. It was an hour program, and of course, playing all the songs of that day which would include groups like The Beatles, The Supremes, and others.  

Bremerhaven was kind of a central place in a way, even though it’s in the far northern parts of Germany, so a lot of the rock groups at that time were coming in, they were kind of following on the tails of The Beatles. So, they would give me my own tape recorder, and I’d go off to places like Oldenburg and Bremen. I was able to go to the performances of several groups, doing interviews with people like Sam of Sam the Sham and the Pharaoh’s. They just had a couple hits called Wooly Bully and Li’l Red Riding Hood. I also did an interview with Ray Davies of The Kinks, in fact I went to two of their concerts, and I remember walking into their dressing room and Ray Davies saying, “hey, there’s Mr. AFN”, which I thought was kind of cool. Another group that was doing quite well in the US was Gerry and the Pacemakers. A couple of their big hits at the time were “Ferry Cross The Mersey”, which is a river in Liverpool, and “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying”. They were from Liverpool and in fact were managed by the same agent as The Beatles, Brian Epstein. I talked to Gerry Marsden, who was the lead singer, and found him very accommodating and easy to converse with. 

Bremerhaven had an American high school, and I of course covered their athletic teams. In fact, I was their football stadium announcer. They were going to play in Berlin, so a buddy and I decided to go there to see the game. At that time, Germany was divided. There was a West Germany and an East Germany. To get to Berlin, you had to go through Communist East Germany, and to do so, the process was to apply for what they called Flag Orders. Flag Orders was a document that had the American and Soviet flag crossed at the top. There was only one way to go from West Germany to Berlin and that was through Checkpoint Alpha, which was in the town of Helmsted. Crossing into East Germany at that checkpoint was a whole new world. There was a guy up in a tower with a machine gun looking at you, and you were told never to have anything to do with the East German Police, what they call the Volkspolizei. The one exception was, a white sheet of paper that you handed to a German, and that was it. Everything else you had to deal with Russians. We were directed to a little white building, where we presented the Flag Orders to a Russian officer. It was kind of funny because while we were sitting in the car, waiting for our orders to be approved, a tall, very young Russian soldier came up to the passenger window. He looked in and kept on saying, “licht, licht”, and made a flicking motion with his thumb. I said, to my buddy, “he wants your lighter”. He had a Zippo lighter which was a nice lighter at that time. So he gave the soldier the lighter and the kid gave him a handful of uniformed brass. Our orders were to go straight through East Germany and not stop for anybody. If we were, we had to ask for a Russian Officer.  

We entered west Berlin through Checkpoint Bravo. We were accommodated by AFN Berlin, and of course went to the football game, and then drove around Berlin. The war had only been over for 20 years, and we drove down to an area called the Reichstag, where Hitler’s headquarters were, including his bunker, where he spent his last days. The Brandenburg Gate was just over the wall, and we stood on platforms to look into East Germany. To see on the walls, bullet holes from the machine guns when they had their last battle, was quite an experience. Then we went to the, at that time very famous, Checkpoint Charlie, where people had to enter before going either into East or West Berlin. I remember having a picture taken, which I wish I still had, of me hanging off the Berlin wall, that itself was quite a story. Berlin at that time was gorgeous. In downtown Berlin, it was hard to tell if there was really a war, except for a church on the main Strasse, that had been bombed out and left that way, I think it’s still that way today. We’d sit out at the outdoor cafes and some of the most beautiful women in the world go walking by, I think a lot of them were flight attendants, and models.  

In July of 1966, my Sergeant at the time said, “grab your tape recorder we’re going down to Hamburg, there’s a group of guys coming in from Liverpool, I don’t know their names, Beasties or something like that”, I said “The Beatles?”, and of course by that time The Beatles were very famous, they had just come back from Japan. The press conference was staged at the Musikhalle, it was very chaotic. When the guys came in, they were kind of spaced-out from one another and were immediately surrounded by photographers. I managed to get close to Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, so I started talking to them. I talked with Paul about his big hit “Yesterday”, which he had named “Scrambled Eggs” until they finally put words to it. There had been, what had been known as a “fifth Beatle”, Stuart Sutcliffe, not much was known about him, other than the fact he had passed away. When I started to ask Paul, John Lennon yelled at me, “what about him?”, I looked at Paul and all he said was, “he died”. We left it at that. My conversation with Ringo was mostly about the movie they just did, “A Hard Day’s Night”, and an upcoming movie called, “Help”. We also talked about Ringo’s newborn son, Zak, who kept his father’s real name, Starkey, and went on to become a drummer with “The Who”. Kind of an amazing part about this is, Paul and Ringo are the only Beatles alive today and are both left-handed. I don’t know what that means but Ringo is left hand and Paul of course is left-handed. Paul and I are the same age, he just turned 83 in June. Other people I interviewed were a jazz pianist by the name of Oscar Peterson and I also managed to meet Col. John Glenn, the first man in space. I went with one of the other guys at the station as he interviewed Della Reese. He also did a German TV show with Connie Francis. Like I said, everything kind of came to me, it was all part of my job. I regret that I never had pictures taken or got autographs because at the time, as a reporter, that’s something you didn’t do.  

I was told that my name is probably on record in Moscow since they kept track of everything that happened.  I don’t know if it is or not; I haven’t heard from the Russians ever. One of the interesting things is, when I went into the service living in this little town, Memphis, the FBI came in and interviewed people about me. I don’t know why to this day, but it was talked about quite a bit, people would ask if I remembered when the FBI came around and asked about me. I said “yeah, wow that was something else”.  

Working in Broadcasting 

When I got out of the service in March of 1967, my dad at that time was pastoring at the Methodist Church in the upper peninsula town of Newberry, Michigan. He had arranged for me to work at the local radio station, WNBY. So, I went to work there, $50 a week and of course I did my DJ work plus doing play-by-play football and basketball for Newberry High School. In 1967, a year before they won the world series, I had written to the Tigers about coming down to see a game since we carried the Tigers broadcasts on the station. I received a letter, which I still have today, from Ray Lane, who of course was a play-by-play guy, along with Ernie Harwell. In the letter he said, “anytime, just let them know, and they will leave you tickets”. I went to a game and immediately went to the broadcast booth at Tigers Stadium, which was a little gondola hanging off the facing of the second deck. I went into the booth, this was of course long before the game started, and introduced myself to Ray and Ernie, and that was the beginning of a great friendship which would later help me in my careers. 

Another interesting thing about working at WNBY, was that the Newberry schools in their Class all were 60 to 100 miles away. It wasn’t like in Detroit where you could easily go to places like Romulus High or Wayne High School. So, I’d have to get in my car and drive, the closest was Sault Ste. Marie and Manistique, which were 60 miles away, and Marquette, which was 100 miles away. I remember driving back from Marquette after a basketball game, which was usually an hour and a half trip, but there was a bad ice storm, and it took me over three hours to get home. Eventually, I got married and could not survive on the money I was making in Newberry, so I decided to go back to Detroit. I worked at Ford Motor Company for a short time, but I didn’t care for the factory work, and wanted to get back into radio, even though it was for less money. I went to work at a station in Marine City, WSMA. It was a country/western station, I wasn’t a big country fan, but it was radio. Then I became a sports director at the station, so I got credentials to cover all four of the major sports teams in Detroit: The Tigers, Red Wings, Pistons, and Lions.  

Sports Broadcasting 

It was the opening day of the 1970 baseball season in Detroit, and my first day covering the Tigers. Unfortunately, the PR department for the Tigers never explained to me what the rules and regulations are regarding being in the Clubhouse, being on the field, etc. I was sitting in the press lounge when Ernie came in and I told him I was a bit confused about where I should be. He told me I was allowed to be in the clubhouse before the game and on the field up to 15 minutes before the game started. At that time, I went to the press box for the game, and then I was allowed into the Clubhouse afterward. Ernie said, “come with me” and we went down into the Tiger’s Clubhouse. Some of the players were there, then we went out towards the field and went by the umpires’ dressing room, where Ernie introduced me to the umpires working that day. Then, we went out to the field, went behind the batting cage, and watched batting practice for a while. I got to know the routine, and it felt very comfortable after that, especially when getting to know the players and other officials.  

Interesting thing was, this was 1970, and the Tigers won the World Series in ’68, so I would go in the locker room, there’s most of the players that won the World Series: Al Kaline, Norm Cash, Willie Horton, Gates Brown, Mickey Lolich and I got to go in and interview all these guys. In fact, I made friends with Norm Cash, who is no longer with us, he drowned in an accident on Beaver Island. In 1971, The Tigers bought a new manager, Billy Martin, who was a legend, and for whatever reason Billy liked me. Since I worked for a small radio station, I didn’t get the VIP parking inside the player’s parking lot that the other major media did. A couple of times, Billy would come out in his car and ask where I was going, and I told him I was going to my car, which was usually parked a few blocks away. He said he didn’t want me driving around this neighborhood, so he’d drive me to my car. One time he came to me and asked if I knew where the Playboy Club was, I told him yeah, it’s on East Jefferson. He had to meet some people there and he didn’t have a car, so he asked me for a ride. I’m thinking to myself, I’m going to the Playboy Club with Billy Martin. When we pull up in front of the club, Billy says, “thanks Dennis, see you tomorrow”. I didn’t get a chance to go to the Playboy Club after all. Another time, during the off season, I was downtown for some reason and stopped into the Lindel A.C., which was a famous sports bar in downtown Detroit frequented not only by local athletes, but those from out of town. I sat down at the bar and ordered a beer and when I went to pay for it the bartender said, “it’s on those two guys there at the end of the bar”, and there sat Billy Martin and Norm Cash, grinning at me. 

My first press credential was with the Detroit Tigers, and I was told by the PR department that to get credentials, I had to join the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association (DSBA). This association included every major announcer in town. All the play-by-play, Ernie Harwell, Ray Lane, Dave Diles, Al Ackerman, and all those guys plus newspaper people like Jerry Green and Joe Falls. I made a lot of friendships there, and one of the friendships I made in the press box was a guy named J.B. who was the sports director for WJR at the time. When I was in high school, J. was a DJ at the station I was now currently working at. It was a rock station then called WDOG, at the time he was known as Johnny Ding Dong. I got to know him and told him I remembered him from high school. He was from Marine City, so we became friends. In 1974, he became the PR director for the Detroit Red Wings. At that time, I was out of the radio business and was in sales. I called J.  and told him if he needed any help with the Red Wings, to let me know. He told me to come on down and work in the press box. It was as a volunteer, therefore there was no pay, but there were other benefits. I started out working in the press lounge, which meant I kept the refrigerator full of Stroh’s beer and tuna fish sandwiches. Eventually I went into the press box and became the main assistant to the PR Director. I worked for J. for a few years, then there was the succession of other PR directors such as Budd Lynch, Al Coates, Al Blade, and eventually Bill Jamieson. My job was to keep the press informed of starting lineups, goal scoring changes, attendance, etc. I did this for almost 30 seasons and eventually became the press box PA announcer, not the stadium announcer who was Budd Lynch. Since it was hard to hear the PA announcer in the press box, my job was to announce the goals and assists, penalties, and other information that was meant for the press only. For instance, I would say “Toronto penalty to Dave Williams, two minutes for high-sticking Brendan Shanahan. Time of the penalty: 15:35”.  

I grew up basically without television until I was about 12. At that time, all the home games for the Red Wings were hosted on Channel 7, which only showed the third period. The announcer was Budd Lynch, I was 12 at the time. It’s amazing to me that 20-some years later, I would be friends with him and all the guys that played back in the glory days of the Red Wings: Gordie Howe, Alex Delvecchio, Ted Lindsay. We all became friends. Also, Mickey Redmond when he came in, to this day is a friend. So, in that respect, it was quite an experience as far as my media career was concerned.  

Career in Boxing 

In 1976, while with the Red Wings an executive at Olympia Stadium came to me and asked me if I was a boxing fan. I said yes, and she told me there’s a young man who’s going to try putting together a boxing program Olympia Stadium and asked if I wanted to assist him. Emanuel Steward was running a boxing program out of the Kronk Activity Center in Detroit. He had a stable of up-and-coming fighters and needed a place to showcase them. So, he made a deal with Olympia to put on a series of fight cards. November 26th, the day after Thanksgiving, was his very first event. The feature was a pro debut of two of his up-and-coming fighters, Tommy “Hitman” Hearns and Mickey “Sneaky Pea” Goodwin. I was told to introduce myself to Emmanuel, I was wearing a light blue three-piece suit when I introduced myself. He was happy to see me and said that I was going to be his ring coordinator. I’m thinking to myself that sounds important, but my job was to make sure that the boxers are gloved and ready to go in the ring when the previous fight is over. It turns out the two dressing rooms were at opposite ends of the stadium. So I would run back and forth, making sure these guys were gloved up and ready to go into the ring. Emmanuel liked to have everything done before 11:00 so that local news would show the highlights. His next card was about six weeks later, I went in wearing a brown suit, Emmanuel came down the hall, yelling, “where’s my ring coordinator?”, I raised my hand, he said “where’s your blue suit? I don’t recognize you without the blue suit”. So for the next few cards, I made sure I wore my blue suit. I eventually went from Ring Coordinator to Emmanuel’s Public Relations Representative. He would call me up, he would never say “hi how are you”, he’d say “okay, here’s what we’re going to do”. One time he was in Germany and he called me and asked me to meet with a gentleman from the Ilitch Corporation, D.W. He wanted to put on a fight card at Joe Louis Arena. So, I negotiated all the particulars until Emmanuel returned from Europe. I wrote all the press releases, conducted all the press conferences, and did so up until his death. I stayed in the boxing business for a couple years, but things happened that I didn’t care for, so I got out of the business. The last event was at Cobo Hall and was a disaster, I was determined to not have my name on anything like this again.  

Golden West Tour 

In 1977, I was working as an automobile salesman, and I won a free trip to California and Las Vegas. It was called the 15-Day Golden West Tour. It was through a local tour company, Your Man Tours, and we flew first to San Francisco. We were met by a bus there, which took us to our hotel. They took us by bus for a tour all around San Francisco and we had time on our own, so we rented a car and did tourist things like, driving down Lombard Street, which is supposedly the most crooked road in the world, driving across the Golden Gate Bridge, and we also drove out to see the giant sequoias. On the fourth day, we started on our journey down towards Los Angeles on Highway 1, which goes through the Big Sur area, until we reached Monterey, where we spent the night. There was an option to go on the Carmel, Pebble Beach 17-Mile Tour. We decided to take it, our tour bus took us out, our driver’s name was M. In that area, there are no wells for drinking water; all water was brought in by truck. As we were driving along, M. said, “see that water truck? It’s going to Clint Eastwood’s house”. My wife says, “let me off the bus”. As we continued on the tour, we stopped at the Lone Cyprus, which is a tree out on a little peninsula. At that time, the whales were migrating and you could see them off in the distance, especially when they would spout water. We got back on the bus and drove by Pebble Beach Golf Course, which is one of the most famous golf courses in the world, and of course that’s when I yelled, “get me off the bus”.  

We went into Carmel, walked around and saw the sights, then my wife found out that there was a bar owned by Clint Eastwood, called the Hog’s Breath Inn. So, we stopped in and had a drink; unfortunately, Clint was not there. We spent the night in Monterey and then continued down the coast, heading towards LA. We stopped in San Simeon, where Hearst’s Castle is located, which was built by media mogul William Randolph Hearst. The castle was built at the turn of the century and all materials, especially Italian marble, were carted up the mountain by mule train. The castle was so large that it would take four tours to go through it; we took one of the tours. The castle had a big swimming pool, named the Neptune Pool. In the movie Spartacus, there is a scene where the main actor, Kirk Douglas, and Jean Simmons are in the pool together; this pool is where they filmed the scene.  

We started heading for LA, I had looked at my hockey schedule, and knew that the LA Kings were playing that night. I asked the bus driver what time we were getting to our hotel; he said about 6:00. I asked how far we were from the Fabulous Forum, where the Kings played, and he said we were across the street. The stadium would have been a long walk from our hotel. Upon arriving, we put our bags in our room and went back out. Another bus driver was standing there and said he was taking his bus back to the garage and would drive right by the Forum. While we were standing in line, a man came up to us asking if we needed tickets, he said he had sets right behind the visiting goal tender. I don’t remember how much the tickets were, but I started taking money out of my wallet and had $15 in my hand, he said that would be OK, even though the tickets were worth more than that. We get there, and sure enough we were five rows behind the goalie, just as they started playing the National Anthem. The Kings opponent that night was the Minnesota North Stars, I knew one of the players on the North Stars, Billy Hogaboam, who was the team captain. He played for the Red Wings, and we became good friends. So I said to an usher “I got a friend on the North Stars team, can I stand in the area where they come off the ice”, which he said I could. The period ends, I’m standing there, he comes walking off the ice and saw me first and said, “what are you doing here Dennis? Meet me after the game”. So, we went out and had drinks at the hotel with the Minnesota North Stars hockey team.  

Before going out to California, I called a friend of mine who was a TV producer for the Red Wings and professional football for CBS. I asked him if he had any connections in LA, that we were going on vacation, and if there were any TV shows we could go see. He told us it was late in the year, and all the shows had been recorded, but that he would check and asked to call him tomorrow. Well, he called me instead. Told me we were in luck, that he got us passes to see the dress rehearsal for the third to last Mary Tyler Moore Show. So now, we’re in Los Angeles, he says, “here’s the telephone number, and ask for Ted Knight”. Ted was a member of the cast that played the role of Ted Baxter, who was the newsman. Ted of course went on to star in a lot of movies, such as Caddyshack. Of course I was still doubtful we would actually be permitted in. So I made the call, and at first answer I said, “I’d like to speak to Ted Knight”. Then he came on the phone, I said, “Hi, this is Dennis Davidson”, he immediately knew we were friends of the producer and told us we have tickets waiting at the gate, and what time to be there. We went to the gate to get our passes, and we proceeded down the street toward the soundstage. On the way, I saw an African-American man walking down the sidewalk, he had his back to us. I said to my wife, “do you know who that is?”, she said “no,” I said, “it’s OJ Simpson”. Of course, she didn’t believe me, until we got beside him, and there’s OJ, and he gave us that big smile and that big wave. We were met at the studio entrance by Ted Knight who turns out to be a very nice person. He told us we could sit anywhere in the studio, except for the front row, which is where the producers and writers sit. Ted told us they don’t often have a guest star on the show, but tonight, Johnny Carson is coming in. While we were sitting there, some of the actors came out to say hello, including Mary Tyler Moore, Georgia Engel, and Betty White. Of course, they had their hair up in rollers and no makeup on. Then, Johnny Carson came in, but we didn’t get a chance to talk to him. He sat on the set and talked with Mary and the other cast members. The premise of his visit was, Mary, in her show, always had terrible parties and everyone teased her about it. Mary starts planning her party, telling everyone that Johnny Carson will be attending. Just as her party was starting, they had a huge blackout, nobody could see anything. Then her doorbell rings, and her friend introduces Johnny Carson. Of course, nobody can see him. All Johnny said was, “nice place you have here, Mary”, and that was the end of the scene.   

The next stop was Las Vegas. We were staying at the Thunderbird Hotel, which was right next to the Riviera. I saw that impressionist, Rich Little and the singing group, The Letterman were playing that night. I purchased tickets and that evening, we get to the Riviera, and there was a big, long line to get in to the venue. We were told to get in the back of the line since everyone else had tickets. I’m thinking, we’re going to be seated way in the back. The venues in Vegas have long tables down to the stage. It is designed so that no one has their back to the stage. To my surprise, they took us to our seats which were kind of stage left, but not too far off the stage. While sitting there, there was a couple from Minnesota who sat across the table from us, very nice people. While talking to them, the woman leans across to me and says, “who are you?”. I said, “I’m Dennis Davidson, this is my wife, we’re from Romulus, Michigan” and she said, “Seriously, who are you?”. My wife keeps saying to me, “I don’t know who they think you look like, but they think you’re a celebrity”. It was a great show. A couple nights later, we got tickets to Caesar’s Palace, who was featuring singer/dancer Ben Vereen and comedian Buddy Hackett. Once again there’s a long line, I’m thinking, once again, we’re going to be seated in the back of the room. This time however, our seats were off center stage and back, maybe 30 seats. Each person gets two complimentary drinks. We were just served our drinks when the Maître D’ came up and said “I have to move you”. I’m thinking they’re going to move us back farther, instead they moved us closer to the stage and brought us more drinks. My wife didn’t drink much at the time, so that was fine by me. We were sitting across from a young couple, having polite conversation and, this is the honest-to-God truth, she leaned over, looked at me, and said “who are you?”. I said, “Dennis from Romulus, Michigan,” and she said, “No, really, who are you?”. Still to this day, I don’t know who they thought I was. I noticed there were some celebrities in the crowd, but Buddy never acknowledged them. Part of his act was to say insulting things to people stage-side. Towards the end of his act Buddy Hackett finally he said to one of the ladies he was ragging on, “you do understand it’s just an act?” and gave her an autograph. He asks where she’s from and she said, “Detroit, Michigan”. He says, “Oh, we’ve got your Sheriff here, Bill Lucas”, the Sheriff of Wayne County. That was the only person he introduced from the stage. I ran into Sheriff Lucas in the lounge and introduced myself. A few years later, when I went to work in Romulus, he and I worked together a lot, and we talked about that night. So that was my 15-day Golden West Tour. It was a very amazing and eventful trip.  

Government Work and Civic Involvement 

I eventually ended up in government and in 1978 went to work for the City of Romulus in the Ordinance Department, which was a big turning point in my life. For the job, I had to go out and talk to people about unkept premises and in-operable motor vehicles and all that. In 1980, they appointed me Parks and Recreation Director, a job I enjoyed for five years. There was a group called the Romulus Downtown Businessmen Association (RDBA) that met once a week in the building where my office was. They decided that they wanted to have some sort of festival to bring people into downtown Romulus. We put together an annual festival called the Michigan Week Festival because at that time, the third week in May was Michigan week. Every day during that week was designated toward a certain subject, such as government, education, congress, etc. They decided I should chair the festival, because I had nothing better to do with my time, other than run a recreation department which included a senior center, children’s programs, adult softball, and seven parks. Additionally, several youth programs such as ballet, dance, and karate. So, I gathered a group of people, and we put together the Michigan Week Festival Committee, which lasted for almost 15 years.  

In 1984, a new mayor was elected, and she decided to appoint me as Community Relations Director. In 1985, Romulus celebrated its 150th birthday, which was its sesquicentennial. I coordinated the city events to correspond with those of the historical society. The events included a parade, banquets, and a fashion show of clothes that were worn in 1835. It was quite a year in the community. 

Charlie Lau Day

Romulus High School graduated a lot of pro athletes. There was a pro basketball player in the 60s by the name of Shelar Holloman, and of course, in the 70s and 80s, Johnny Long, Grant Long, and Terry Mills. One of the most notable athletes from Romulus High was a 1954 graduate, Charlie Lau. He was drafted by the Tigers as a catcher, making his Major League debut in 1956. He played for the Tigers, Baltimore, and Atlanta. Injury shortened his career, so he decided to go into coaching. He managed a year in the minors before returning as the hitting coach for the Baltimore Orioles in 1969. Other teams he coached were Oakland, Kansas City, the New York Yankees, and his last team was the Chicago White Sox before passing away at age 50. He became known as the premier hitting coach in the major leagues. With Kansas City, he helped develop several young royals and major league players including Amos Otis, Hal McRae, and George Brett. He wrote several books and made videos on the art of hitting. He was also in a movie called Max Dugan Returns.   

In early 1985, a group of Charlie’s friends and classmates came to me and said they wanted to put together a committee to rename the Romulus High School baseball field in Charlie’s honor. I didn’t realize that at the time I was chairman of the committee, until years later when I saw the program listing me as such. We went to the Romulus Schools to get permission to rename the baseball field. We decided to make a memorial plaque and have some kind of coin to celebrate the event. Alex Delvecchio, who was a former Red Wing and NHL Hall of Famer, had a business that specialized in custom awards. Alex designed the plaque which was installed on a large boulder which remains today, behind the backstop at the baseball field. He also designed a commemorative coin, which we sold to help raise funds for the event. We started writing letters to all the major league teams, and of course they all responded. We created a big album that had all those letters, plus letters from government officials, including the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. We selected a day in May because we knew the Chicago White Sox were in town playing the Tigers. We contacted the White Sox to see if they would attend, and they said yes. A good friend of the Lau family was the Tigers play-by-play announcer, Ernie Harwell, who was also a very good friend of mine. I called Ernie, asking if he would come out and help me Emcee, since no one from the Tigers was coming out. On the day of the event, to my amazement, a van pulled up containing many of the White Sox including manager Tony La Russa, and General Manager Roland Hemond who presented us with Charlie’s jersey. It was a big day; all the local politicians were there, plus members of the Michigan and United States Congress. I remember one of the speeches was given by Congressman William Ford, he got up to the microphone and said, “somebody asked me what I was doing today, was I in Washington passing legislation? No, I’m in Romulus hanging out with Ernie Harwell,”. It was probably one of the best days in Romulus’s history.  

I left the city in 1986 and went into sales. At that time, I joined the Romulus Rotary and stayed involved in civic events with the City of Romulus. We built a Veteran’s monument, put in a time capsule, and all that sort of thing. I maintained my membership with the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association, and one of our big events was a golf outing, which we usually filled up to 144 golfers. There was a time when the Association almost dissolved due to internal conflicts. A few of the older members and I met and decided to do what we could to make the club viable again. One of the first things we did was reinstitute the golf outing, which raised thousands of dollars for scholarships for aspiring broadcasting students. I became the chairman of the golf outing and remained there for several years. I also chaired golf outings for Romulus Rotary, Belleville Rotary, Relay for Life, Greater Romulus Chamber of Commerce, and Romulus Community Schools. I don’t know how much money we raised overall, but it must be in the tens of thousands. I had a crew of three people, K., who I met through the Red Wings, she was part of the PR department. G., who headed up the PR staff for the Detroit Red Wings and M., who helped me with many events throughout the years. I referred to them as my “three amigos”. Believe it or not, it doesn’t take a lot of people to run a successful golf outing, just those three and a few volunteers.   

In 2013, Romulus elected a new mayor, LeRoy Burcroff. The mayor asked me to do community relations and cable TV; we did a series of shows on cable called, “The Mayor’s Corner”. One of the shows was with Wayne County Treasurer, E.S. It turned out that his father had also been a member of the DSBA and we became close friends. In 2019, he hired me to do community outreach with the Treasurer’s Office. My job was to hold events for people who were having trouble paying property taxes. We held seminars in cities such as River Rouge, Romulus, Ecorse, Inkster, and Taylor. People would come in and talk to counselors who would put them on payment programs so they could escape foreclosure. E.S. would say, “No house should be foreclosed in Wayne County”. People didn’t know that there were programs to save their homes. I remember one time an elderly woman came in and she said, “All I get is $600 a month through social security, and I can’t afford the taxes” and one of the guys said, “come with me”. She didn’t have to pay taxes due to her low income. I found the work was quite comforting.   

I Emceed many events in the area, in fact one person gave me the nickname, Mr. Microphone. Most of the events were with the Greater Romulus Chamber of Commerce. I Emceed their comedy nights and all the charity events. One of the comedy nights, there was three comedians; it was a big fundraiser. So, I went out to the three and said, “I’m your Emcee tonight”, and one guy says to me, “don’t be funnier than me”. I said, “well, don’t worry about that”. Well, the amazing part is, when I introduced him, he came out and said, “I’ve never been introduced by a corpse before”. There were a few giggles, but everybody’s kind of looking at me, I looked at my friend and said, “what did he say?”, I knew what he said, “never been introduced by corpse before”. I was funnier than him that night.  

Personal Anecdotes 

THE BIG THREE 

I’m sure everybody has had the experience of standing somewhere and somebody comes up and stands next to you, you look up and it’s usually a friend. This is a little bit different. 

It was 1997, and the Red Wings win the Stanley Cup. I managed to get on the ice. As I was standing there, one of the coaches skated up with an armful of championship T-shirts and Nick Lidstrom skated up and asked me to hold on to his helmet. So, I’m standing there with all this stuff in my arms, and then I notice there was someone standing next to me. It was Gordie Howe. I of course had known Gordie for quite a long time, but I think he was looking for a friendly face to stand next to as we observed the celebration that was going on in front of us.  

In 1980, the Professional Golf Association started a senior’s golf tour, in order to take advantage of all the professional golfers that had turned 50 or older. Thinking back to the 60s and 70s, of all the golfers who had made a name on the tour. There were a lot of big names such as Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. One of the first stops on the tour was at the Dearborn Country Club. I had gotten a press pass for the event and was able to go into the press tent which included an interview area, which is where we could talk to the players. I was standing in the press tent, looking at the leaderboard and I noticed somebody standing next to me. I looked up and it was Jack Nicklaus, who happened to be my favorite player. We had never met, but there he was just standing next to me. I don’t remember what we talked about, but just the fact that he stood next to me made my day. 

The third was in 1970, while I was covering the Detroit Tigers. The Washington Senators were in town, and their manager was Ted Williams. Before the game, we were allowed to stand behind the batting cage and watch the players hit. I was watching the Washington players practice, when suddenly there’s this big guy standing next to me. I look up, and it’s Ted Williams. I’m not star-struck by superstars since I’ve been around them for a while, especially like Al Kaline and Willie Horton, but for whatever reason, I looked at Ted and didn’t know what to do or say, so I just walked away. 

DETROIT TIGERS PRESS LOUNGE 

During the season, I would go into the Press Lounge for lunch before the games, and for refreshments after. I normally sat at a table closest to the door. One day, two gentlemen came in, they were the play-by-play announcers for the California Angels, one was Dick Enberg and he asked to sit at my table. During our conversation, I asked Dick where he was from, he said he went to school at Central Michigan. I asked what town he was from, and he said I’d never know it. I told him to tell me anyway, it was Armada. The high school that I went to, Memphis, is about 17 miles from Armada and one of the schools in our athletic association, the Southern Thumb League. I told him I was from Memphis, he said to me, “MEMPHIS, MEMPHIS? I was the quarterback at Armada, we played a game at Memphis, I stunk up the game so bad that I started to walk home”. The quickest way to Armada would have been through a wheat field adjacent to the football field. He said his teammates had to come get him and put him on the bus.  

Another time two gentlemen came in and asked to sit at my table. It turned out one was David Eisenhower, the grandson of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. David was a writer, and at that time was covering the Washington Senators for the Washington Post. The other gentleman turned out to be a secret service man. I don’t remember what we talked about, but I thought it was kind of amazing that he would sit at my table.  

GORDIE HOWE 

I have been very fortunate to be able to have a personal relationship with many Hall of Fame athletes, such as Gordie Howe. When you walk into Little Caesar’s area, there are three statues in the lobby: Ted Lindsay, Alex Delvecchio, and Gordie Howe. I am always overwhelmed when I look at these statues; that I knew all these gentlemen on a first-name basis. Gordie off the ice was very funny and mischievous, a couple stories come to mind. He had played in a celebrity All-Star game at Joe Louis arena, and I remember some of the celebrities included Alex Trebek and Michael J. Fox, who are Canadian so of course grew up on skates. After the game I went down by the dressing room and when Gordie came out, I asked if I could have a picture with him; he of course said sure. My wife was taking the picture, and just as she snapped it, Gordie hip-checked me into the cement wall, grinning.  

The press box at Joe Louis Arena was very narrow; it was hard for people to pass one another. I didn’t have a seat, I had to stand because there was a pillar right behind me, and I had to let people through. I was standing there looking down at the ice, and it wasn’t unusual for people to brush by you, but this time I got an elbow in the back. I turn around, and there’s Gordie, grinning at me. Now, it didn’t seem that he didn’t like me, but that’s what he did to a lot of people, it was his way of saying hi while being mischievous. Gordie was always cordial, if I saw him out in the corridors or in the dressing room, there was always a handshake and good conversation. Not everyone has a bridge named after a friend of theirs, of course referring to the Gordie Howe International Bridge which spans from Detroit to Windsor. 

TED LINDSAY 

Growing up and watching Red Wing hockey in the 50s, there was the style of play of Ted Lindsay. He was 5’8”, so he probably had a complex about being shorter than most of the guys in the NHL. He became very combative, known for using his fists and stick, and got the name “Terrible Ted”. In the late 70s, I think in 1978, Ted took over the team as General Manager. I remember before the season started, going into the Red Wing office, and my friend K., whose desk was there right as you walked in, to the left was the door to the General Manager’s office. Now, understand, growing up and hearing about this, what you thought was a horrible human being, that I really did not have any desire to meet the man. When I walked in, K. asked if I had met Ted yet. I was about to say no and that I didn’t want to, but the door to the General Manager’s office opened, Ted came out, smiling, shook my hand, and it turned out he was just the opposite off the ice as he was on. We became good friends, in fact, my wife and I went out to dinner with Ted and his wife. Many times, I was around him and I never saw him get angry with anybody, including the fans and the press. 

JOHN OGRODNICK 

John came to the Red Wings in 1980 and would eventually become a 50-goal scorer. There was a national TV broadcaster at the time, named Brent Musburger, one day he was doing hockey scores, and announced that the Red Wings had won, and the winning goal was scored by John. “John Ora-Ganick, boy these hockey names are hard to pronounce”. I remember going into the Red Wings dressing room at the next home game and told John how Musburger messed up his name. John said “Mushburger said that?”, deliberately mispronouncing the name. There would be an occasion, especially if there was a nationally televised game, that I would be asked to go assist the network announcers. One game I remember, I was assigned to the studio for USA Network, where they did their in-between periods and post-game shows. At the end, they wanted to interview the star of the game. We were playing the Calgary Flames, and one of their players was Jim Peplinski. Jim was a very good player, and I think team captain, and since fighting was prevalent in the league, Jim had no problem dropping the gloves. The studio that they used was right down the hall from the Flames’ dressing room. That night, they named two stars, John Ogrodnick and Jim Peplinski. That was of great concern in the studio, because they thought all hockey players hated one another, and there would be a fight. I went to the Red Wings dressing room to get John, and he skated over to the visitors’ entrance. We walked down the hall, past the Flames dressing room, and into the studio. Peplinski was already there. No one in the room knew what to expect, Brent asked if they knew one another. John said no, shook hands with Jim, and they sat next to each other for the interview. So much for hockey players hating one another.  

JOE LOUIS ARENA 

Joe Louis Arena was under construction during the late 70s. One day, in 1979, I went over to the new stadium accompanied by someone from upper management at Olympia. We walked into the main part of the area, I looked around, and I could not see a press box. I said to her, “where’s the press box?”, she said, “fuck the press”. I was a bit astonished because the f-word, at that time, was not a common word women would use. The team at the time was not doing well and was having trouble drawing fans; there would often be empty seats at Olympia Stadium. I asked where the broadcasters and reporters were going to sit, she said, “we’ll make room for them somewhere”. Somehow, I don’t know if it was the NHL or not, found out about the lack of press facilities, and made them tear out the last two rows of the upper bowl in the arena. Al Coates was the PR director at the time. Later on, when he was with the Toronto Maple Leafs, as an executive, he came in for a game. I asked Al about what happened to the press box at the time. He said he had designed a gondola, similar to what they had in Toronto, which would hang over the stands, looking down on the team benches. He said when he presented it to the higher-ups at Olympia, they rejected the plan. People even today think that, when the stadium was built, that the press box was an oversight, it was not, it was never in the plans.  

REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION 

In 1980, the Republican National Convention was held at the newly constructed Joe Louis Arena. That was the year that Ronald Reagan was nominated for President of the United States. I remember one morning, during the convention, a tremendous storm hit Southeast Michigan, which included Romulus. We all think to this day, it was a tornado, because of the tremendous amount of uprooted trees. We, as Romulus City Government, decided to have a hospitality suite for the convention, which was in the Holiday Inn, which at that time was located on Wickham Street, right next to I-94. They had just finished putting on the dome, and we were referring to it as the “Holo-Dome”, which made it one of the nicest hotels in the airport area. They also lost power during the storm but managed to generate enough power so that we could open our hospitality suite. Our public information officer asked if we could prepare some food for the suite. He brought ingredients and a roaster over to my house, and asked my wife to prepare it, but then realized we had no power. So, we ended up going back to the Holiday Inn, and plugging everything into outlets, which were in the hallways. We managed to get the suite open to entertain the Republican delegates that were in town. I had brought a six-pack of beer and was in the process of consuming one of them, when the governor of the State of Michigan walked in, William Milliken. I said, “Governor, would you like a beer?”, he said “yes, I would like one,” which meant I only had four left for the rest of the night. 

PERSON OF THE YEAR 

On March 28th, 2025, the Greater Romulus Chamber of Commerce named me the 37th Person of the Year. They had a big banquet, in which I received many awards from representatives of federal, state, and local governments. The Detroit Sports Media, which used to be the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association, awarded me Lifetime Membership for my service over the past 50 years. During my time with them, I served as Golf Committee Chair, VP, and Sgt-at-Arms for many terms. The Association has always been important in my life; keeping me in contact with the media. It connected me with the Red Wings, boxing, etc. Then the Rotary awarded me the Paul Harris Fellowship Award, which is one of the highest rewards a member can accomplish. It was quite a night. My family was there, and people got up to say nice things about my work in the community. I started out on my speech by saying “no man is an island, and it takes a village”, which meant you can’t do anything without committees. I never did anything on my own, but I had many people supporting me.  

Reflections 

Nowadays, it seems like we have problems getting younger people involved in their community. That includes fraternal organizations such as the Fraternal Order of Moose and Fraternal Order of Eagles. It’s the same thing at the VFW. When I first came to Romulus, the VFW was made up mostly of WWII veterans. They really didn’t want Korean and Vietnam vets in the organization because they didn’t consider either conflict a war, they were what they called “police actions”. In fact, Korea’s still going on even though there’s no fighting, there is a truce and that’s all. The WWII guys were getting older so to sustain the post, they started letting the Vietnam guys in. Now, it’s being run by the Vietnam era veterans, and unlike the previous leadership, they want new members to come in, like vets from Afghanistan, Desert Storm, and other conflicts. Nobody’s joining; not many younger people want to get involved and that’s too bad.  

Like I said at the end of my speech at the chamber dinner, “The microphone doesn’t fall far from the stand”. My dad was an entertainer, and in fact he always said that even when he went into the ministry, you’re still entertaining. That’s what preachers do, they get up and they entertain, some of them want to scare you to death, but you know nobody wants to sit there and listen to a hum-drum sermon. So, his saying was to be kind of funny, amusing, and informative. Since I grew up with a kind of celebrity dad, in his own way, I always wanted to be like him, always wanted to be the funny guy, always wanted to be the entertainer. I wasn’t the class clown, but I was the class comedian. So going into radio was natural for me. It started with an advertisement in one of the Chicago papers, with an ad for the Midwest School of Broadcasting, that was in 1963. That’s when I started looking for work in the broadcasting business. They have a school like that here in Detroit called Specs Howard School of Media Arts. Now, radio has gotten away from personality radio, and they do a lot of politics and sports. When I was coming along, as a sports fan there was no real programs like they have now. Currently in Detroit, you have two radio stations doing 24-hour sports, and you’ve got ESPN, which has three television networks showing nothing but sports. Unfortunately, that was before my time. I probably could have stayed in radio longer doing sports. At the time, radio was a tough medium to break into because it was the advent of rock n’ roll, and there were only so many stations in town, there was no FM radio at the time and there were several big names in local sports radio and TV. People like Ray Lane, Al Ackerman, Dave Diles, Dick Purtan, JP McCarthy, guy over at CKLW, Tom Shannon, and people like that. 

I no longer listen to radio; I mostly watch television. When I was growing up, radio was like television today, where you have programs like comedies and soap operas. Westerns were big and I had heroes like Roy Rogers and Gene Autry; I still remember my grandmother listening to soap operas such as Days of our Lives, which is still on television today. Radio was called “theater of the mind”, where you couldn’t see it, but you had to imagine it. Before I was born, in 1939, there was an actor by the name of Orson Welles, he did a radio program called “War of the Worlds”. It was a one-time live broadcast in which he did a fictional news program about flying saucers invading the Earth. People were tuning into the middle of the show and thought it was real, since it was done like a news broadcast, so you have people all over America run around and look at the sky, panicking “we’re getting invaded!”.  

The music of my dad, 30s and 40s, was the big band sound of Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, and people like that, which ended in 1945 basically. Glenn Miller, who led the Army Band at the time, died in a plane crash in the English Channel, and big band music started going down from there. Then it went into more of the crooners like Frank Sinatra, Patti Page, Perry Como, etc. In the 1950s, radio started changing. There was more music and less dramas. In 1955, there was a movie called Blackboard Jungle, which featured the music of a group called Bill Haley & The Comets, a song called Rock Around the Clock, that started everything. Rock n’ roll came along and went wild. Elvis came on the scene along with Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and others. Even though we were still listening to Como and Sinatra, they still had their hits, but music really changed with Elvis, and then it changed again with The Beatles. I think it really changed a third time with Bob Dylan because we went from music that was directed at teenagers of the 50s to, as they grew older and the Vietnam War came along, the music became mostly protest songs. Music started going down from there.  

I grew up loving sports; my grandmother took me to see my first Detroit Tigers baseball game when I was 8 years old. Even though my parents weren’t really big into sports, it was my mom that turned me on to Red Wing hockey. She had worked as a waitress at the Olympia Café, which was a couple blocks from Olympia Stadium, and all the Red Wing players used to come in after the game. My dad was a musician, but he played football and basketball for River Rouge High School. He never had a desire to play recreational sports like golf or bowling. As for me, it seemed like I played baseball and softball every year of my life until I was 45. 

It’s the joy of life, not the misery of life you know, and that’s easy to say because, what’s the old saying, I cried because I had no shoes until I saw a person that had no feet. So, there’s always the other side of things. I’ve got a friend named K., I worked with her at the Red Wings, she worked in the PR office and is still my friend today. She’s been in a wheelchair since probably, in 1974, went with the Red Wings in 1974. She has the most tremendous outlook on life, and now that she’s close to my age, she needs help getting in and out of the chair and in and out of bed, she can no longer go places unless somebody can get her into a car, or something like that. She still has the most wonderful outlook, she’s an inspiration.  

I had an older sister, D., she has since passed. She was 13 years older than me; I was born on the 27th of February, and she turned 13 on March the 7th. Well, the story she liked to tell me, she’d take me out in the baby stroller and a woman stopped and said, “oh what a cute baby is that yours?” and my sister says, “I’m only 13 years old”, the woman says, “well you never know nowadays”, this is in 1942. She was like a mom to me since my mother was always working. Her children, my niece P. and my nephew M., are really like brother and sister to me because we’re only six or seven years apart. She was quite an influence in my life. She had a thing about speaking proper English, in other words, the phrase “I ain’t got no” was never a part of my vocabulary. It was good training for going into broadcasting. My sister was very influential in my life. My mother had been married once before, so D. was from my mother’s first marriage; she always made it clear that she was my sister, regardless of who our dads were. She always told me that you never wear a hat to the dinner table and always had to wear a shirt. To this day, I don’t wear a hat while eating.  

Final Words 

To summarize my life into a few words: magical mystery tour; that’s the way I’ve always described my life. Of course, that was taken from a Beatles song. Now late in life, I look back and am amazed at all my experiences. I never made much money, but I had a lot of good times and a lot of good friends. The thing that I am grateful for now is my longevity, if this cancer thing had happened to me when I was 60, it would have really been a downer to have at that stage in my life. 

The main things in my life right now are family and friends. M.A., she’s like part of my family and she’s been extremely helpful to me, making sure I made all my appointments. Back in the days when I had to go out to the VA in Ann Arbor, she took me almost all the time. When she couldn’t, my other buddies would take me. I’m also very grateful to my niece P., who is a Registered Nurse, she has been very valuable in helping me make life decisions. And to my nephew, M., P.’s brother, and his wife, D., who have all spent much time with me during this hour of need. 

I stayed with E.S. until I got sick. I got COVID in 2020, I think, and then I went back to work, and then the cancer hit a couple years ago…then that was it. Y’know it’s like I tell my relatives and everything, “oh we feel bad for you”, no, I mean, I’m 83 and a 1/2 years old, have lived a life that most people would die for and, yeah, the Frank Sinatra song, “regrets, I’ve had a few,” well I’ve had a lot, Sinatra had a few, I had a lot, a lot of regrets. Yeah, personal life, marriages, all that sort of thing. But I really can’t complain. In October of 2023, I was diagnosed with throat cancer. I went in and did 35 days of radiation, which was seven weeks, during which I also had weekly chemo sessions. It wasn’t unpleasant but the after effect was. To this day I live on Ensure. Then, they said I was cancer free, but several months after, I started passing blood. So, they went in and found a tumor in my small intestine, which was cancerous. They put me on an immunotherapy program in January of 2025, where I had two treatments of that and a CAT scan. When I went for my third immunotherapy session in April, they said it’s not worth it because it’s not stopping the cancer from growing. I was then offered a more extreme chemotherapy program, which would not have been very pleasant. So, we as a family decided not to go that route. I said, “how long I got?” and they said maybe 6 months. I think I got longer. I’m not suffering from it; that’s the whole thing. Hospice has been very, very nice coming in and has done very good. I’ve got nurses and aides coming in several times a week, a massage therapist, and my biographer.