Second guessing some things

Did I make a mistake in writing about my wife’s dismissal, and did I leave out some deserving hosts from my top-10 list of Seattle’s all-time best sports radio shows?

Did I blow it by not having David Locke on my top-10 list?

BEND, Ore. - Thinking we all do it, looking back and wondering why we did something and wishing we’d done something else. Or being OK with whatever we did but understanding a different point of view in hindsight.

Earlier this week I wrote about my wife, Kathie, getting fired from her concert job for having a margarita four hours before a company meeting. I still don’t think she should have been fired for that because she wasn’t intoxicated.

But a Facebook response from Mark Crandall made me think twice about my firm feelings about Kathie’s firing as did a response we got from a friend who works for the concert company, upset that I would throw her bosses under the bus like that.

Crandall was a criminal justice major at Washington State who worked for 28 years as the Washington State Patrol’s coordinator for the highest trained DUI officers.

He brought up a couple things that I had thought about but didn’t think much of such as the size of the drink and metabolism of alcohol slowing down as we get older (Kathie’s 66). Her margarita wasn’t a jumbo, but it wasn’t an 8-ouncer either.

Thing is, I’m married to her and I’ve seen her drunk. And yeah, vice-versa as well. From personal experience, I know when she’s drunk and when she isn’t. And as I mentioned in the post, I also know that she can act the way she did that night when she’s sober. I can see why her boss thought she MUST have been drunk to ask as many questions as she did. It was an inaccurate assumption.

I’ve also hurt our close friend by what I wrote. She helped us get our concert jobs and she’s upset to the point of disowning us. I hope in time we can repair the damage done, in her eyes, to the friendship.

We don’t think she understands our point of view that Kathie was unfairly fired by one of her superiors. I’d like to think she could see our point too, but that doesn’t seem to be the case at all.

So yeah, I’ve got some writing and posting regret but it hasn’t changed the way I feel about what happened. It’s taken awhile, but we’re just gonna let it go now and move on.

With my top-10 list of Seattle’s all-time best sports radio shows, some thought I should have included the T-Man and Locked on Sports with David Locke.

The T-Man had a terrific late-night show on KJR in the ‘90s, and he was my last cut. I can see why some thought he should have made the list. The T-Man went on to host a successful local show on KUBE and then hosted a nationally syndicated show before retiring to become a professional gambler in an admirable career move.

Locked on Sports was a mid-day show on KJR in the late ‘90s and early 2000’s. Locke was a good host and I like him personally, but his show, for me, just didn’t warrant being in the top 10. I knew we’d have some disagreements and get why you might think otherwise.

In what amounts to a poor career move, David talked to me once in Park City, Utah, where my kids were playing in a baseball tournament. He asked me to be part of his growing network of Locked on Sports in which he had daily podcasts for teams across the country.

Locked offered the Seahawks’ job to me, and I thought about taking it, but then I thought, c’mon Jim, you know who you are, and there’s no way you can do that on a daily basis, you’d burn out in the first week.

David built a big network with his Locked On podcasts and sold the whole thing for millions, no doubt, to TEGNA in 2021. So I probably blew it by missing out on even a small piece of that action.

Locke is also the play-by-play man for the Utah Jazz.

QUIBBLING WITH CAR DEALER ADS

We’ve all heard Rick Rizzs say it during Mariners broadcasts in reference to whatever car dealer he’s representing now:

“Come in as a friend, leave as a member of the family.”

And the other day I heard Ashley Ryan say something along those same lines in another car dealership ad during the Chuck and Buck show on KJR-FM.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like Rizzs and Ryan and if those dealers wanted me to read those same lines, I’d do it too.

But as consumers do we really believe that? First of all, we’re coming in as strangers, not friends. I don’t even know the salesman I’m about to talk to.

Secondly, if I don’t buy a car, I’m not leaving as a member of the family, I’m leaving as someone the dealer will never think about again. Or if I am somehow a member of the family, I’m the black sheep.

And even if I do buy a car, am I really a member of the family? As Pat Cashman wondered the other day, will you be invited over for family dinners at Thanksgiving and Christmas?

Imagine that, coming in to the car dealer’s home and sitting down at the big dining room table with the car dealer’s kids, all looking at you, thinking who the hell is that, dad?

When I buy a car, I don’t think to myself, geez, I hope when I leave, they’ll think of me as a member of their family, it’s what I’ve always dreamed of as a little boy to someday be a family member of a car dealer.

I just want a good car for a good price. You could be a jackass of a salesman who’s done some shitty things in his life, but if you sell me a good car at a good price, you’re OK by me. And I don’t want to be a part of your dysfunctional family anyway.

One more thing, why do we always hear about family-owned businesses, like that’s such a big deal, like they’re setting themselves apart. Isn’t every business owned by a family? I mean, yeah I know, corporations own businesses, but whoever’s running that corporation comes from a family or has a family too, am I wrong?

I lied, I have one more thing as an example of why that “come in as a friend and leave as a member of the family” is all B.S. I’ve bought four cars from a dealership in the north end and developed good relationships with several people there. But when I approached them about a very modest endorsement opportunity with Puck Sports, do you think they said: “Sure Jim, sounds good, after all, you’re a member of the family!”

Nope, I was soundly rejected.

Thanks for reading. Hope you all have a good Fourth of July. I enjoy it but admit to enjoying the Fifth of July more than the Fourth of July.

Why? Because River can’t stand the fireworks. He pants and pants and walks all over the place looking to escape the loud noise outside. We give him a doggie downer and try to comfort him.

Skye just hangs out and acts like nothing’s happening. But River reacts like there’s a war going on and doesn’t know what to do. If you have a dog like River, you can relate, good luck with that and I’ll be just like you, grateful when the calendar turns to the Fifth of July.