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application?” he asked as I introduced myself.
    “Yes, sir, I stopped by last week and left it right here on this table.”
    He rummaged around for it, amid half-filled cups of cold coffee and greasy paper from fast-food burgers. He only searched the first few layers of debris, so it well could have been buried beneath the clutter. “Don’t see it. Why don’t you fill out another one?”
    I agreed, although I was pessimistic that the new one would receive any more attention than the first. I had no credits to recommend me, so I was strictly at their mercy.
    “Drama major, eh?” he said perusing my latest application. “Know anything about sports?”
    I only happened to live for sports, but by the way he sneered as he uttered the word “sports,” I sensed a certain contempt, so I bridled my enthusiasm. “Sure.”
    “Well, our sports guy is a no-show tonight. He’s not much good anyway. Think you can prepare three minutes of sports by nine? UPI wire is down the hall. It’s just basically rip and read.”
    “Sure.” My voice cracked a little and I hoped the adolescent squeak wouldn’t disqualify me. I had a decent baritone, devoid of regionalisms, but I certainly couldn’t match the polished tones of the man across the desk. And what did “rip and read” mean exactly? To ask would only demonstrate my ignorance, so I hoped to learn on the fly.
    “Great. Follow me,” he said, leading me outside the offices down a wide hallway toward a small closet, mere steps away from where I took earth science. “Here’s our newsroom.”
    He pointed to the claustrophobic little room, probably a converted janitorial closet. It was barely wide enough to squeeze past the clattering UPI machine, which was banging out the day’s top stories. “Here’s the switch for UPI. Remember to turn it off when you hit your mic key. And don’t forget to flip it back on again as soon as you’re finished so that we don’t miss anything. What do you want us to call you on the air?”
    This was a big decision. I hadn’t considered any flashy radio names. I wasn’t prepared to be thrust onto the air, but I didn’t want to risk losing my big shot. “Uh, I don’t know. Richard Neer’s my name. I guess that’ll be good.”
    “Dick Neer, great. When I say, Here’s Dick Neer with sports, you start talking. See ya.”
    With that he left, the objection still forming in my mouth. I hated the name Dick and had always quickly disabused anyone I cared about of the notion of using it. It conjured up Dick Nixon, Tricky Dick, and hundreds of ribald puns I didn’t want to be associated with. But now here I was, stuck with it. Once it was used on the radio, it became official. But rather than chase down the corpulent station manager and express my distaste, I figured I’d better practice this sports report, now due in ten minutes.
    With the UPI machine’s racket destroying my concentration, I selected a few stories that were tacked up on a pegboard above it and tried to read them aloud. Finally, I threw the “off” switch on the ticker a few minutes before nine. How would they know anyway? As long as I turned it back on promptly when I was finished. As the newscast began, I placed the hard plastic headphones over my ears. Oh God. The station manager, who had such a booming professional voice, sounded small and tinny in the headphones. What would I sound like? Was it too late to run away, screaming that I just couldn’t do this? Would my career be over forever if I did?
    “And that’s the WALI news at nine, now with sports here’s Dick Neer—”
    Silence.
    I was saying, “Thank you John, here’s what’s happening in sports,” but I wasn’t hearing anything in the headphones. Was that how it worked? You heard others but not yourself? I kept reading, thinking that if I
was
on the air and stopped that I’d sound foolish. After what seemed like an eternity but was really only twenty seconds, I saw a madras-sleeved arm out of the