Michael Swickard
Please excuse me for being partly personal. Today I am returning to talk radio after being away three years. I love talk radio – it is like sitting in a coffee shop with friends just talking about the news.
Talk radio is a rather recent media phenomenon here in our country. It is the common-person media in which everyone has a voice and viewpoint. The ideas are rapid and some even make sense. There are yahoos and heroes and people who are so funny it is almost a danger to drivers who may laugh too much.
I find it amazing that people I do not know will share their time and often send me thoughts and ideas. One idea was that I trade my word processor for a trash compactor, but I thought that suggestion was just humor.
I am fairly hard to amaze. Sure, at times I stand transfixed while I gaze up at the Milky Way and ponder the meaning of life. And I do look with complete wonder at anyone who can dance the polka without moving their lips. And I am always amazed by politicians, though the word chagrined comes to mind often.
Talk radio is much like what happens to me at coffee shops. First a story is told and then a joke, and then I look up and an hour has gone by. I love sitting in coffee shops telling stories and telling what I would do if I was in charge of things – which I am not, nor should I be.
Soaking in the enjoyment
I have always been a bit shy in many circumstances, but not on stage. Early in life my parents hung the moniker, Little Filibuster, on me for some reason or another. Then in college I learned to play guitar, learned a couple dozen songs and somehow passed myself off as a musician, which was incredible since I had enormous interest and very little talent. But I would go on stage and time flew nicely unless some shouted, “Play something you know.”
About 15 years ago I had a serious spat with cancer and was laid low for quite some time. A friend who had an afternoon talk show here in Las Cruces asked me to come down on Thursdays to his show for two hours and talk about education. At the time I was unsure of my mind, unsure if I could hold a coherent conversation, but I did. It was so amazing that for the two hours on the air I did not feel the hands of sickness, I just soaked in the enjoyment of talking live on the radio.
A few years later I was at a crossroads because the Title V grant that funded my position at a community college had ended. I thought carefully about what I wanted to do and realized that my true interest was in doing talk radio full time. It seemed one of the few things that I was always jazzed to do, so I talked a local station into trying me and for almost six years I was on from six to 10 in the morning, five days a week. It was quite a load to talk that much but with guests, I really enjoyed it.
Then a calling came to use my education doctorate and introduce to New Mexico public schools a way of dealing with students who do not easily learn to read. Three years passed quickly as I drove all over the state. In the car I listened to talk radio and felt the tug to be back in it.
Sitting and talking at a coffee shop
Recently, one of my favorite guests when I was doing the talk radio, Jim Spence, asked if I would like to return to talk radio and be a co-host with him. I will do so, and will still be involved in my New Mexico literacy issues. Starting today I return to the airwaves with co-host Jim Spence, Monday-Friday from 7-9 a.m., for News New Mexico on KSNM-AM 570 in Las Cruces. The webpage is newsnm.com.
Join Jim and me as we talk about good ideas for our community. It is just like we are all sitting and talking at a coffee shop.
Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.
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