One of the hard things to deal with emotionally when you get older, is that calls you get about a death among family or friends, more likely concerns a friend or relative who is near your age, rather than a friend of your folks or a parent of one of your friends. It has been a pattern in our lives the past couple of years, but it’s still always a shock. That was the case on Wednesday night when we learned that our dear friend, and my former co-worker, Jimmy McGuire had died.

I met Jimmy the first day that I worked at ABC…August 8, 1976. Well, it really wasn’t day, but rather night, as I started my first shift at the WABC/WPLJ Engineering Department at 11:45 PM on a Sunday night. There were a lot more people at the station that night than would normally be around on a Sunday night, because on that night, the main WABC Studio was being dismantled, in preparation for a rebuild, and Jimmy was a part of that crew. A year older than me, we had similar backgrounds and we just seemed to hit it off. After 4 years at WHN Radio, where I was the youngest Engineer by a whole lot, it was good to be starting at a place where there were a lot more folks in my age bracket!

After my two weeks of training were over, I ended up working the evening shift (either 3-11 or 4-Midnight), which Jimmy worked too. This was definitely the shift where the younger guys and gals worked. We started our day with the second half of Dan Ingram’s show, were part of George Michael’s A-Team of Engineers, and finished up our day with Chuck Leonard. We also enjoyed the more laid back WPLJ radio style with Pat St. John, or Tony Pigg, and Carol Miller, ate dinner together, and thanks to Bill Mozer and his Volvo, we traveled home together many nights. Those beginning years at ABC were without a doubt, the best time I’ve ever had working, and since we worked the same schedule, many times our work life and our social life became one.

In May of 1977, NABET (our union) went on strike against ABC and now we had a lot of free time! We had to picket every other day, and we were on different picket schedules, but there was no more coordinating days off, so the younger group was available to hang out together. On July 3rd, because I didn’t have to work, I went to a backyard barbecue where I met my forever partner Susie, and soon she too was in the mix of my ABC Friends, so she’s known Jimmy about a year less than me. Now we had a foursome…me and Susie and Jimmy and his girlfriend Diane, or Dede as we always knew her.

When the strike was over, we went back to work, but we still managed to hang out when we were off. Jimmy liked to go out on my boat, even though he was a rotten sailor, and more often than not ended up hanging off the side of the boat throwing up in Long Island Sound. Jimmy and Dede were always at the Christmas Party we’d throw at my Mom and Dad’s house in Bayside, and were a part of the Christmas tree decorating party my folks had every year! When I popped the question to Susie, Jimmy was an usher in our Wedding party. He also was instrumental in planning my Batchelor Party along with our late friend George Berger, which was legendary!

At work we continued to be partners in crime! Jimmy and I worked so many remotes together for WABC and WPLJ. Big events like the WPLJ Dr. Pepper Concert Series at Central Park’s Wollman Skating Rink, and small 2-man jobs like the year we did Winterfest in Central Park. We also always seemed to end up working the shift before the twice a year time change, and had the task before we went home Saturday night of re-setting the clocks in every WABC and WPLJ Studio. When music ended at WABC, and when combo came in, and we stopped Engineering for PLJ, a number of people went to either TV or Network Radio, but Jimmy and I stayed around at Local Radio. When I became the daytime Group Seven, Jimmy worked daytime in Maintenance, so we were still together. We celebrated with Jimmy and Dede, when about a year after we tied the knot, they too got married. We helped each other move out of apartments into houses, and were there for backyard parties at each other’s homes. We were there for each other through the death of parents and the joy of the birth of our kids!

In the early 90s, ABC separated local and network radio from the companywide NABET seniority list, and Jimmy felt his best chances for the future was to now go to TV, while I stayed in Local Radio. Jimmy went to TV ENG, and loved what he did. He traveled the world on news assignments for ABC and enjoyed it all. As his schedule got crazier and crazier, our lives drifted apart, but there was still the warm bond between us anytime we were together. Over the years that happened many times, but we were all too busy raising kids (Billy, Krissi and Kenny on our side and Melinda and Christopher for the McGuires) and getting on with our lives to have the kind of relationship we had in our younger years.

When I retired in 2016, I went to the NABET Retiree’s luncheon on Long Island for the first time. Jimmy had retired a couple of years before, and it was great to see him and Dede and so many of the folks I started with way back in 1976! The funny thing was that I was the only one that had retired while still working in radio, but even after working for years in television, the group from the WABC/WPLJ Engineering Department sat together…that’s how special those years in radio were, I guess!

The last time we were all together, was five years ago, at a big party thrown to say goodbye to WPLJ that had been sold to a Christian Broadcaster, and would be changing format. Everybody I started working with in 1976 was there, as well as people I’d worked with during my 40 years with the station, and since I’d just retired 2 years before this party, everybody I left in January 2016 when I left WABC and WPLJ for the last time. Even though I knew all these people, Susie and I spent the night with our old friends from the early years at ABC, including Jimmy.

Jimmy and Dede loved cruising, and since as a Disney Retiree he got discounts from Disney Cruise lines, they often times cruised with Mickey and Minnie. In fact, they had just gotten back from a Disney Alaskan cruise with their whole family: Daughter Melinda and her Husband Tom, their two Grandkids, and their son Christopher. It was after a red-eye flight home, that Jimmy had gone out to his car, and had fallen “asleep”. Farewell my old friend…we will often think of you and remember the good times, and Susie and I are happy that your last week on earth you were surrounded by your family, and that your passing was as peaceful as it was. Love you Jimmy!