Jonathan Evans Meat Lover

It's not his real name. His real last name is short, but subject to some non flattering alterations on the air by callers with little minds. He was named after his Father, and I guess he was a "Chip" off the old block.
He started joining in on the " Personals of the Airwaves" show created on WREB in the 70's by a girl named Chris Plasse. Chris was also featured in the TV show I was on at the time, Odyssey, but I had never met her. Recently, I got a copy of an episode of that show featuring Chris doing astrological stuff. Funny how you know somebodies voice and be on the same television show with her, but never know what she looked like till 25 years later on a copy of an old show you have forgotten about. Also on that show was Alice Brock, from the restaurant fame. I have talked with her on the air a few times, as well as Officer Obie.
Although I never called her radio show, Chip did, and the first time I met him was at that little mall in Holyoke, and we struck up a friendship. When Chip got on the air at WREB, he was doing a daily show, when the Kielbasa Festival came up. Ah, The Kielbasa Festival. The town of Chicopee Massachusetts has a large Polish community, and in the 70's, somebody got the bright idea to have a festival honoring this wonderful little chunk 'o meat. Everything was kielbasa at this festival. Kielbasa pie, kielbasa sandwiches, kielbasa shakes. All Kielbasa, all the time. Hundreds of souls gathering yearly to worship and pay homage to this huge chunk of meat that the Chicopee Provision made every year. Each year it got bigger, and lived in a glass case full of ice for those hoards to marvel over and get their picture taken with it and Aunt Sophie at their side.
This was year number three for the old K-Fest. I was working for Hannon Security at the time. Hannons needed their best to oversee this three day celebration. Unfortunately their best had been arrested, so they sent me. I wore out a pair of shoes that weekend. Teddy Kennedy came to worship this meat. One of the Kennedy boys, the one who lost his leg to cancer, tripped on a rope going to see it, and I grabbed him. I were the hero. Sorry for the word " were" but this was the Kielbasa Festival. Richard Simmons showed up to marvel, and do his exercise routine he was just starting. Sweating to the Horseradish I guess he was doing.
Broadcasting "live" from the K-Fest was one Jonathan Evans on WREB. Joe Alfano gave him that name. He just found it in the phonebook, and a star was born. I would go on the air with Chip, and report no bombings, shootings, kidnappings or robberies had occurred since the last time I talked to him 15 minutes ago, so come to the K-Fest quick because Happy Louie was playing in an hour.
Chip and I had fun in those broadcasts, and he was looking for some ideas to promote the new bakery that was to be the new Langeliers Bakery in Holyoke. I went home that night, and wrote a battery of mindless ads for the place, along with a special, This Is Your Life Rene Baushman bit dedicated to the owner. A week later we recorded these things about halibut turnovers and square donuts and it was funny as it could be for the times.
Being in charge of security is not a task to be taken lightly when you talking about the Kielbasa Festival. You got your Kennedys, your Richard Simmons, and 300 thousand Polka Bands, with special guests like Bill Czupta, and Bob St Cyr, the guy in charge of the festival who rode around every day in an old firetruck.
The sausage itself weighed about 65 pounds the first year. By year three, it had grown to 85 pounds. The last day had come, the throngs had headed home to look for the Pepto Bismol, and the headlines in the paper the next day were glaring and ominous. "World's Largest Kielbasa Stolen!!!!" I guess I'll never get into the CIA now. This was the story of the decade. Forget politics or world affairs, hunger or crime. The worlds most worshipped hunk of meat had been pilfered from under the very noses of the entire city of Chicopee. I once got a lot of nasty calls from Chicopee residents when I asked one day, on the air ,how one would know when they got into Chicopee if there were no signs. Because you'd see maple syrup buckets on the telephone poles. Every area around any radio station has a city that is picked on for no reason really, and Chicopee was the one around here at that time.
The night the K-Fest closed, everybody, save 10 or 12 people, had departed and the question came up, " What do we do with this thing now?" Somebody said let's cut it up and we'll take it home. Sounded good to us, so we did just that. About an hour later, Bob St Cyr showed up, and there was me and some other guy there. He walked over to us and noticed the Mammer Jammer hot dog was gone. He went nuts. We told him we thought it was ok to share it. It wasn't.. He had to scramble to cover this up. So, viola, it was stolen.
The next day when I showed up at WREB with a chunk of this for Chip, I discovered he wasn't there, so I gave it to Tracy Cole. He referred to it as a nice gift from a listener, as he didn't want to be a principle in the great Kielbasa caper that left thousands speechless. So now the mystery is solved, and as the statue of limitations has run out, I think it is time the truth be known.
When I finally got my own show on WREB, Chip and I got to be the best of friends, and I would write a lot of scripts for our shows, in longhand. I would present these to him at various times, he'd scan them and we would record them, first take every time. After I left that station, we would pair up again at WMAS.
A lot of things are scripted on radio, but not on our watch at WMAS. I would dream things up, and Chip would roll with whatever I threw at him.. Listeners would always screw up his name. Jonathan Edwards was the most common, then it became the constant question to us when we did remotes ," Are you Murphy, or the guy that laughs?" Chip has a laugh that makes you laugh, and he laughed all the time. In 1980, I came up with The Top 10 List. Letterman is best known for it but I did it before anybody ever heard of it. So I brought it back during my stint at WMAS, and did it every morning with Chip. I knew it was good when he laughed, and he laughed a lot. One morning, I was reading a story about what one should do if you ever run into Bigfoot.
The words were, " If you should ever eye ball a Bigfoot" That came out ," If you should ever eye a big ball" He and I were on the floor for five minutes. Anytime I could make him laugh I would. We were a team, and it worked better than I could ever hope for.
We were sitting in my kitchen writing a skit for the air, the wives went shopping. I heard the car pull in, and said," Chip, take your clothes off!" Without hesitation we both got down to our undies, and the girls came in as we sat there calmly writing. They looked at us, walked by, and said nothing.
We both have strong ladies, and they grew to expect abnormal things from abnormal people. Chip and Me.
Chip and his bride run an herb shop in Chicopee now. http://www.theherbarium.com/ One day he came into the studio at WMAS. He said, " I have good news and bad news." He said, " I'm Leaving." I said, " So what's the bad news?" He laughed at that too. I knew at that moment that this amazing ride between two guys who had done so much together to make people laugh, was over. It was the beginning of the end, and I never did radio again in the same way. A few years later I was gone, but the spark that was there had left when Chip departed to work full time at his business.
Those days are now forever gone, and they won't come back. I still find a lot of laughter on the old tapes, but most important, I still have the friend that I shared time with one weekend when a huge chunk of meat was the catalyst for a lifelong friendship. I never could have done it without him. Thanks, Chaz. I love you, friend..