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When
Mondays roll around
I'm
usually revved up and ready to get back to
business, but Sunday (Oct. 23, 2011) was
such a special day I'm not quite ready to
let it go. The day tied together two ends of my
professional career - the present and the
distant past (a past that doesn't seem distant
at all after, for the first time in decades,
re-uniting with with some special people from
those days last night).
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Diana
Jackson (center) chatting with Pat
and Rob Grant
on their Anna Maria Island dock
Sunday afternoon
(Oct. 23) while I snap a photo from an
adjacent dock,. |
Before
that reunion, my wife, Diana, and
I had a wonderful afternoon visiting two
people who are a big part of the domain
business that we are all part of and
love so much today - our friends Rob
Grant and his wife Pat.
After
last week's T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
conference at Fort
Lauderdale Beach Rob and Pat headed
across the state to Anna Maria Island
where they have a vacation condo. Anna
Maria is a relatively unknown jewel in
the Gulf of Mexico, a little over
an hour south of our home in Tampa.
Since
we were going to be passing so close to
them on the way to the evening event a
little further south in Sarasota,
we took the opportunity to drop in and
spend a glorious Florida day sitting on
their dock enjoying the sunshine and
chatting about events both personal and
professional. |
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We
were happy to hear how dramatically the
singing career of their daughter Lizzy
(stage name Lana del Rey) is
blossoming. Lana just performed
on national TV in Great
Britain and within the past 24 hours
news came that she had won a prestigious
Q Award declaring her to be
"The
Next Big Thing." As you
can probably guess from what I've
written about Lizzy in the past - that
comes as no surprise to me at all - I
felt she was destined for stardom
the first time I met her.
Rob
and Pat's place is directly across from
the 100-year-old Anna Maria pier that
has a great old Florida seafood
restaurant located at the end of it.
Before we retired to the dock, we had
lunch there surrounded by the gorgeous
Gulf waters. |
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Sunday
lunch on the Anna Maria Island Pier (left
to right):
Ron Jackson, Diana Jackson, Pat Grant and
Rob Grant.
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Robert
R. Nelson (with his wife Molly)
holds up the original
test pattern card that WXLT-TV
viewers saw on Oct. 23,
1971 until Nelson's new ABC station
went live on the air. |
Late in the
afternoon we reluctantly said our
goodbyes to Rob and Pat, but were
excited about heading off to a special
occasion in downtown Sarasota
that would take me back in time to when
I first moved to Florida as a
22-year-old looking to begin a TV
career.
Sunday
night was exactly 40 years from the day
a new ABC-TV station went on the
air in Sarasota on Oct. 23, 1971. To
mark the occasion, the original station
owner, Robert R. Nelson (who gave
me my start in that business) invited
some of the people who were there at or
near the beginning of WXLT-TV to
join him for dinner at Mattison's
City Grille. The station will also
be airing features about the
anniversary, including old news clips
from our heyday, during their newscasts
this week. |
WXLT-TV
40th Anniversary dinner Sunday night (Oct.
23, 1971) at Mattison's City Grille in Sarasota,
Florida. (Left to right: veteran news
anchorman Bob Keehn, sportscaster Ron
Jackson and his wife Diana, station
owner Robert R. Nelson, weatherman Steve
Newman (who went on to have a long career at
major stations across America, including KRON-TV
in San Francisco, and now runs Earthweek.com),
Pauline Lunin (wife of the station's
Chief Engineer), Reporter/Photographer/Producer
(and good at all of them) Gordon Galbraith
and Chief Engineer Dan Lunin).
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I spent 11
years at WXLT-TV, most of them as
the station's Sports Director, and had
not seen Mr. Nelson and some of my
former colleagues since 1983 when I
moved up the coast to Tampa's WTVT.
It was a huge treat to see them
again and it truly seemed like just
yesterday that we were all together,
making local TV history.
WXLT only
made it on the air after Nelson spent
five years planning the operation
and overcoming multiple roadblocks put
in his way by an ABC station in Tampa
that did not want to see a competing
network affiliate so close to them. His
perseverance paid off when, a few years
after I left for Tampa, he sold the
station for $41 million, an eye
popping figure for a UHF station at that
point in time (the new owners changed
the call letters to WWSB).
He gave
many, like me, their first jobs in the
TV business and I will always be
indebted to him for that. At the time I
took the job I also had an offer to do
radio in Pennsylvania for twice as much
money, but I wanted to live in
paradise and get a break in TV so I
headed south. |
Ron
Jackson on WXLT-TV in
1974
(no I was not auditioning for a role
in
Prince Valiant though the
hairstyle
could lead you to believe otherwise). |
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It
was one of the smartest moves I ever
made and I feel like the many good
things that have happened in my life
since then (including meeting Diana in
Sarasota) has flowed from that one
decision to choose doing what I
loved to do over money. I've made that
choice repeatedly over the years and
I've never once regretted it. |
This
1979 photo (including the captions) is
from the cover of Sarasota Town &
County
Magazine. Left to right are Ron Jackson (not
sure where I got the idea that tinted glasses
were
cool!), Wendy Ross (who took over weather
after Steve Newman moved to a larger
market),
station owner Robert R. Nelson (standing)
and anchorman Bob Keehn on the WXLT
news set.
A
lot was packed into the day Sunday and it went
by way too quickly, as great days usually
do. So, thank you for indulging me while I spent
this day reflecting on and writing about it.
Tomorrow it's back to business in another
business (domains) that I have really loved
being a part of. Back to business, but not
back to "work". The old saying is so
true - "do something you love and you will
never work a day in your life."
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