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Are we on the air?
By
Linda Buchanan Wagner ’79
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1975 when many of my friends were joining fraternities, I became
a member of WGLS, the college radio station. So, our letters weren't
Greek ones, and maybe we weren’t the most polished group of
students on campus, but our brotherhood was a close one and we did
have the best music.
Unlike most fraternities, where new members are accepted only after
rituals of torment, our pledges were accepted first and tormented
later. Okay, okay, so we were a dysfunctional fraternity, I just
didn't realize it then.
Although we never called it a frat house, our home was a suite
of secondhand sound studios in Bosshart Hall, a squared-off, Mondrian-style
building crisscrossed by silver metal beams. On the blue station
door that never closed completely without a tug were the letters
WGLS. They weren't the giant wood cut-outs of the Greek alphabet,
but rather the small metallic ones often used on mailboxes by transients.
As I recall, the “W” was bent in a cocky sort of way and
the corner was peeled off. We were a proud lot.
Our all-night parties consisted of a party of one--the disc jockey
doing the graveyard shift. But what they lacked in attendance was
more than made up for by the variety of music. Like all college
radio stations, we received new releases free with the understanding
that they would get air play. Well, we played them all, from Manhattan
Transfer’s “Java Jive” to Janis Ian to Peter Frampton.
While fraternities promoted food drives, community service for
us was a radiothon to benefit the underprivileged. Once a year we
would set up a live “remote” from the Student Center and
broadcast 24 hours for several days. We would play your favorite
song for a quarter and air challenges for the live performance of
daring acts. One of our members shaved off his beard. Another student
wrapped in tinfoil and mined with pyrotechnical contraband presented
himself as “The Human Bomb” and proceeded to explode on
stage, setting off fire alarms and disrupting a Board of Trustees’
meeting.
Every frat has its strange initiation rituals; WGLS was no different.
One rite involved unsuspecting new members preparing for their debut
newscasts. Adorned with a set of earphones the size of coconut halves
and, in most cases, sweating profusely, the novice newscaster would
be fighting the urge to vomit when he or she would invariably hear
a voice in his or her ear whispering friendly profanities or kindly
personal insults in the vernacular of the ’70s.
My own experience still prompts a smile. I shuffled my news stories
before the cast began and resettled my elbows on the desktop when
in my right ear I heard, softly at first, a most profane soliloquy.
Being fully wired and surrounded by speakers, I was confused as
to its origin. When I realized that the voice was coming from the
headphones, I looked up to find the D.J. who controlled the soundboard
smiling and owning up to his mischief with a wink.
Not yet aware of the nuances of the studio but knowing profanity
was illegal on the air, I assumed we weren’t yet live. I signaled
that I had caught on with an expression of feigned outrage and prepared
a counter joust. Catching me hefore I spoke, the D.J. motioned through
the glass that I should remain silent. Doubting him, I questioned
out loud and inadvertently into the open mike, “Are we on the
air? Are we on the air? We’re not on the air, are we?”
Nineteen years later, I remember my initiation fondly. And of all
the abilities I acquired at college, what I learned at WGLS is probably
as important as any instruction I received in the classroom: To
surround myself with good friends and hard work, and to laugh…
a lot. 
_______________________
Linda Buchanan Wagner ’79 is a technical
writer at Dow Jones, which publishes The Wall Street Journal,
and a fanner news director of WGLS. She lives in the Princeton area
with
her husband Ken Wagner ’79 and two children.
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