Today, May 11, Fresh Air with Terry Gross celebrates its thirtieth anniversary as a national public radio series on NPR. I’m proud, and a little amazed, to say I was there at the start, am still there today, and will be there tomorrow. Literally, because tomorrow I’m guest hosting.
Or, as they say, “sitting in for Terry Gross.”
There is, of course, no sitting in for Terry Gross, not really. But “warming the chair for Terry Gross” doesn’t have a very professional public-radio ring to it.
That first day of Fresh Air, 30 years ago today, included my review of the finale of NBC’s Hill Street Blues as one of its reviewer segments. I know that not because I’m that anal, or self-absorbed, but because years ago, I researched and uncovered that piece, and a few others, to present as audio pieces on TV Worth Watching, back when I launched this website 10 years ago.
Ten years may seem like a long time. Triple that, and that’s how long I’ve been working for Fresh Air. Put it this way: That’s long enough to have reviewed Twin Peaks the first time around.
I got involved with Fresh Air, originally, by accident, back in 1985, when it was still a local show on Philadelphia’s WHYY-FM. The town’s two jointly owned newspapers, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, were on strike. I worked as a TV critic for the Inquirer, and was asked by Fresh Air executive producer Danny Miller to come in and talk about TV shows that were coming up – to serve his listeners the way I would normally serve my readers.
Out of that, eventually, came produced preview segments that became part of the local broadcast of Fresh Air, along with similar pieces by other critics covering other disciplines. An Inquirer colleague, Ken Tucker, was another local contributor who appeared on that inaugural Fresh Air national broadcast in 1987 – and who, like myself, is still aboard three decades later.
I’m so proud to have contributed to the show, and so grateful for the many and lasting friendships that have come out of it. And selfishly, so many professional opportunities have come my way because of Fresh Air that I can’t even begin to even the scales. So I won’t.
But I will say thanks, for 30 wonderful years… the longest professional partnership of my life. And personal, too, now that I think of it. But we won’t go there…
Thanks, Danny, and Terry, and Phyllis, and everyone else. I owe you. I have no intention of paying you back – but I owe you.