November 19, 2020
Volume 50 - No. 47
By lyle e davis
Back in the late 1970's I worked at KFMB Radio in San Diego. I did the morning and afternoon traffic reports from a Cessna 172 and/or from the ground during inclement weather.
I also attended and participated in "I Love You San Diego" parties which the station hosted and promoted. I got to be something of a minor celebrity. Often, during my traffic reports I'd compose and recite "traffic poems." They were The Paper - 760.747.7119
website:www.thecommunitypaper.com
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always on the humorous side. Listeners seemed to like this bit of silliness. People actually wanted my autograph! I could never understand that. I was the same guy I always was . . . yet now I had somehow become popular and listeners were attracted to me . . . some of which were actually female! I was no more handsome, no more charming, maybe a little bit richer . . . . but I was still just lil ol' me. But now I had become a celebrity. I remember when Tom Selleck told the story of how he couldn't get a date when he was within the normal
population. Once he became a tv and movie star the women began chasing him. Amazing!
From time to time I'd get additional assignments. Such was the case on the following: There were many instances when my career in the broadcast media got me involved in an interesting but sometimes uncomfortable experience.
There was, in the late 1970's, a political flap wherein the courts had
ruled that many prisoners had to be released because the jails were so crowded that to retain that many prisoners in jail apparently constituted cruel and inhuman punishment. Sheriff John Duffy, (since deceased) in a brilliant public relations move, brought the limelight on the problem (and pressure on the county board of supervisors to fund a new jail) by inviting a number of community leaders and media people to spend a weekend in the county jail. The deal was. . .we would be
Doing Time in San Diego County Jail See Page 2