Rick Zeisig's fascination with radio started as a young child, he began his on-air radio career as a teenager, and he's never looked back. He's been a DJ in markets as large as Atlanta, and has truly enjoyed his work, whether spinning tunes, reporting traffic, calling Friday night high school football games for thirty years, or attending other community events. He loves his family and friends and gets a kick out of a good story, especially telling one. While he has met many interesting (and some famous) people, he reminds us that it's not the position someone holds, or how much money they have that matters most, but it's all about how we treat one another. Rick truly loves living in a small town – for many reasons – and he shares some of his thinking about that in this conversation, recorded in mid-September, 2023. Rick is also a two-time throat cancer survivor and when we spoke he was battling the disease for the third time.
SHOW NOTES
0:55 - Contextual introduction for this episode’s unique features
3:20 – Sample DJ clips
4:15 – Guest introduction
5:05 – Cancer, voice change, a long stint behind the high school football stadium game night microphone
6:00 – Rick starts his three-decades of announcing Friday night home games
7:55 – Son Rowdy follows Dad Rick at the football field
8:45 – Family members want to hear the players’ names
10:30 – Daughter Grace, a performance from the (very) early years
12:00 – David (Reynolds) stands in for Brad Pitt
13:25 – Wife Margaret makes a huge difference in the community
15:55 – The story behind Be Nice to Grace Day
21:05 – Jeanne Burr (and Walter Hooper) as a catalyst for Rick on the air for the first time (at age 17)
24:45 – Listening to Chicago’s AM station WLS
27:00 – John Records Landecker
30:00 – A lesson learned about making others feel important
32:24 – Interviewing Garth Brooks
33:40 – The first time cancer rears its head
39:30 – Focused radiation, bolted to the table, and a special mask
43:10 – Jimmy Buffet embedded in a family tradition
44:40 – Cancer reappears – in a new location
46:00 – Friend Amy’s powerful question
46:40 – God’s gameplan for Rick
49:45 – Lydia, a face from the past, and a new connection for the future
52:35 – High school reunion delays
54:10 – Living in a small town, great friends, great community
58:00 – Sharing one’s story to give others hope
59:40 – A lesson Rick wants us to hear
1:04:40 – One of many similar stories of good fortune – Running out of gas on I-75 North
1:07:00 – A mini-facelift’s role in the past twenty years of Rick’s life
1:07:50 – The most recent doctor’s visit and current prognosis
1:09:40 – The unexpected result of Rick losing his voice
LINKS:
Instagram: @therickontheradio
Rowdy Zeisig, the new Dalton High School football announcer
Jimmy Buffet’s ’Twas the Night Before Christmas
Music for Lead. Learn. Change. is Sweet Adrenaline by Delicate Beats
Podcast cover art is a view from Brunnkogel (mountaintop) over the mountains of the Salzkammergut in Austria, courtesy of photographer Simon Berger, published on www.unsplash.com.
Professional Association of Georgia Educators
David:
What matters most in learning? The challenge, the thrill, the benefits, interacting with other people, or something else entirely? What is the connection between leading and learning? Does change drive learning or does learning drive change? What's more important, teaching or learning? Is everyone a leader, a learner, a teacher? Want answers? Listen in as we address these intriguing issues through commentary and with guests who share their thinking and tell us their stories. Lead, learn, change.
This episode features Rick Zeisig. In early September 2023, Rick posed a serious question to his physician. Rick and I recorded our conversation a week or so later, and this episode is being released a few weeks after that. These details are shared to provide you with a bit of context as you listen. And before officially kicking off this episode, I want to mention that my conversation with Rick is unique in at least four ways.
First, this is the longest standalone episode aired to date. Of course, thanks to this great medium we call podcasting, you can pause if needed and finish listening whenever you'd like.
Second, you may want to avail yourself of the transcript that accompanies the show notes. Rick's voice has changed significantly, and to my ear, listening to him is like learning how to hear different inflections and pronunciations from someone who has a slightly different accent than I do. During our call, there was nothing that was unclear and there were only a few moments that slowed me down during editing. Trust me, it's worth the minimal effort required to get in sync with Rick's voice because his real voice, the message he is sharing and his stories, are definitely worth listening to.
Third, unlike almost every other discussion on Lead. Learn. Change., Rick and I never directly addressed the often recurring topics of school, education or one's favorite teachers. Instead, our conversation was more free flowing, with Rick leading the way. And along the way, there were plenty of lessons. And therefore, ample points are directly and subtly made about teaching and learning and life.
And fourth, while all of us are mortal, it is likely that only a few of us are planning each of our day’s steps and interactions based on a well-informed and fairly accurate medical prediction of when we will breathe our last breath. Yet, as of this publication date, Rick is facing that situation and he is doing it with incredible resilience, a remarkable attitude and a perspective that somehow focuses even now on the future. Throughout our entire conversation, Rick continuously uncovers various significant messages and his anecdotes prompts us all to think seriously about our priorities. Let's listen.
Rick:
Today's Country hits, Kicks 101.5, Keith Urban. My name is Rick Zeisig, rolling ten in a row. And one of my guilty pleasures, I always stop by fourbucks on the way into work here at the radio station.
Good afternoon, Friday weekend is here. My name is Rick Zeisig on Atlanta’s Fox 97.1, kicking off another ten fun oldies in a row. Songs that pick you up and make you feel great, including Diana Ross and The Supremes.
Classic Rock KZ106. What's going on? What's your name and where are you having to work late at tonight? My name's Rodney. I'm working at All-Tech Fence Company. Hey, we salute you my friend, on the Friday night all request show on KZ106. Classic Rock in Chattanooga’s KZ106.
David:
Today's guest on Lead. Learn. Change. Is Rick Zeisig. Rick, thanks for taking your valuable time to speak with me today.
Rick:
Well, thank you for wanting to talk to me.
David:
I met Rick Zeisig when I served as principal at the school where his daughter Grace was a young student. I also met Rick's wife Margaret, who holds a pivotal leadership role in the United Way organization in North Georgia. On many mornings, I would join a colleague or two in front of the school and meet people as they walked into the lobby, or drove up and dropped off their child or children. It was during those moments that I had the pleasure of interacting with Rick, Margaret and Grace. And then my son and I started attending Dalton High School home football games quite regularly, and Rick was the voice of the Catamounts and he called the game during every one of our visits to Harmon Field. I moved away from the area, Grace moved to another school, and then a year or two ago, Rick and I started an online conversation. And one thing led to another, and I'm delighted to have Rick with us today.
Rick's audible voice has changed due to cancer and he can share those details later. But his real voice, his stories about his career path and his life's journey, continue to be full of insights applicable to all of us. Rick, sometimes introductions include a bit more material than I just embedded, that could easily be lifted from a résumé or a LinkedIn profile. But I know that your responses to almost anything I ask will uncover those career and life milestones through your memories and stories, and those are the things I really want to capture. Let's begin with the football announcing position you held for 30 years. That job now belongs to the other family member, not yet mentioned, your son Rowdy. What's most memorable about those 30 years in the booth and where does your son fit into this story?
Rick:
Well David, thank you for having me on the show. I have a 40-year broadcast career, and so when my eighth grade science teacher and football coach, who had done the public address announcing for Dalton High, when he was ready to retire after 30 years in education, they pulled me aside and said, "We'd like for you to take over next time." And if you're not in North Georgia, the South or Texas, high school football it runs the whole town. I mean, everybody is at the home football games, and Dalton at that time was very successful in football. And so they helped me to be the public address announcer and they always say, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." So after doing the show for the play by play in the stadium for the home games, I was in my 25th or 26th season and they asked me, "How much longer are you going to do this?" And I said, well, as long as I feel welcome, and I would love to go at least 31 years.
So obviously, with my voice, with the throat cancer that's returned, tumors throughout my tongue, under my tongue, attached to my epiglottis on one end, and obviously pressing against nerves, that has caused issues with my speaking voice and I was unable to continue. I wanted to beat his record. He went 30 years. I wanted to do at least 31, but he and I tied because I did not beat him. But my son, Rowdy and I do have the distinction of having the longest father-son duo being a public address announcer. I went 30 years, he's done six games, so he and I hold the record.
David:
Outstanding. And I know when you called games, you always, and I mean always, called every student on the field by their first and last name. You did not announce, "Reynolds sacked for a thirteen yard loss again." You would say, "David Reynolds was sacked for a thirteen yard loss again." I know why you did that, but I think it's better coming from you. How come you chose to point out the student's name on every single play?
Rick:
That's not original. Coach Broadrick, I followed him his last season with nobody knowing that was his last season. He started as the public address announcer in 1962. Well, Georgia Tech used to have their spring scrimmage training up here as opposed to having it at Bobby Dodd Stadium there in Atlanta and their public address announcer came up and when he was talking with Judge Broadrick, he was coach then, and he said, "Every person that's on the sideline, every football player has a mama up in the stands. And when her boy does something good, she wants to hear his first and last name." So that's what I do for both the home team and the visiting team.
David:
I think that's really a valuable lesson that people want to have significance. They want to be seen and heard, and they want to know that their child is not just number 33, that somebody knows that that's a real person out there. Stick with Dalton Public Schools for just a minute longer. This will be a “Grace story.” The listeners might be amazed to know that I was once a stand-in for Brad Pitt, and you knew it was happening before I did. Tell us about that.
Rick:
Well, every year the elementary school that you were principal of had a talent show. And a lot of times at that time – the movie Titanic came out and that first year Grace was at Westwood talent show, and, you know, one student would just be staring off into space and sing this five minutes song. Well, she wanted to be in it the next year. So Margaret, when she was in high school in Atlanta, that's where she grew up, at Parkview High School, and she was on the dance team who performed with the band as opposed to majorettes. So they had all these dance routines. So the next year I set up my mobile DJ equipment. So we set it up in the backyard and she wanted to do the song that was popular at the time, Shania Twain's, Man! I Feel Like A Woman! So Margaret figured out the choreography and Grace would move the mic away from her mouth. I told her, I said, "Grace, when you move the mic, can you hear yourself on the speakers?" And she said, "No." I said, "Well, nobody else in the audience will either."
We taught her to keep the microphone close. Margaret shows her a little bit about stage presence and it just.. it clicked. And so what we told her to do was to figure out, while she's singing that song, where you are standing and there's a line of course towards the end of the song where Shania is talking down to this guy. Says, “he’s just a pretty boy doesn't have his brains.” The line in that song is, "Who do you think you are, Brad Pitt?" And she flipped her head and walked away. Well, she figured out where you were, so she adjusted her choreography. This is like a second or third grader, and she walked near where you are in the back of the room and she goes, "Who do you think you are, Mr. Reynolds?" And she popped her chin high and walked away. And as you remember, the entire audience just lost it. They just thought that was really hilarious. And so from that very young age, she understood and realized how important that stage presence is, and that’s helped her all the way through high school drama.
She was president of the Dalton High School players her senior year. She was also the drum major, her junior and senior year with the band. But it really kicked off when she was looking at you instead of saying, "Who do you think you are, Brad Pitt?" Said, "Who do you think you are, Mr. Reynolds?" And so, yes, that's one of our favorite memorable occasions.
David:
Before we leave Dalton, one more story because we've talked about Rowdy-
Rick:
Maybe two. But anyways, go on.
David:
We've talked about Rowdy, we've talked about your career there at Dalton. We talked about Grace now starting her stage presence there. So let's talk about Margaret for just a second. Tell us about the great work that Margaret does in the area. If I'm not mistaken, she's been serving the community there for more years than you announced football games.
Rick:
Correct. This is currently her 38th year working for United Way of Northwest Georgia. So it's the two counties of Whitfield and Murray, which is Dalton, and then Murray Counties is Chatsworth. So she was there nine years before I met her. Technically Grace is my bonus daughter. Dear Abby says, "Don't say step, say bonus." So when Margaret and I met, Grace was two and a half, she was five and a half when we got married. I took her to raise.
Margaret is basically number two in command at United Way. And over the years, whenever there was an opening, several of the volunteers said, "You need to apply for the president's job." And she goes, "No." I said, "Why?" She said, "Right now I help 100 volunteers decide where all the money goes. So I'm able to interact with them. We go to the agencies that United Way funds to implement all the good things and what people need, whether it's childcare. And for the working poor, the cost is what is determined the ability to pay." So that's one aspect. Working with seniors, Meals on Wheels. Sadly, the battered woman's shelter.
So she goes, "If I serve as the president's job, what's my responsibility? Raising over $4 million a year? Having to do administrative stuff, staffing and all that? And that's not what I enjoy." So she really loves working with those volunteers and seeing, over the course of the years, people rotate on and off those committees as well as the board. She's able to see all these people make decisions that help our community and she just presents all the things that are applicable for them to help them make the decisions. So some people say that she helps 100 volunteers decide what it is, or 100 volunteers help her decide. She goes, "No, they're the decision makers. I'm just there to facilitate the knowledge that they need to make the best decision possible."
David:
A lot of good done for a lot of people, probably not able to be numbered, in those 38 years. Let's take one-
Rick:
Before we leave Dalton.
David:
Sure.
Rick:
One story, if you don't mind. The day we are recording this, is actually Be Nice to Grace Day. My daughter. What happened basically is her and her father, he was big into music. Matter of fact, right after he graduated college, he was asked to be part of Aretha Franklin's touring show. He was going to be the lead guitarist when they went on tour. And he says, "Now when we get back, we'll be able to go into the studio and record the next album. Right?" "Oh no, we do studio musicians." So he knew that the real money was in recording because then you get a percentage of all the albums sold or downloaded or streamed. So he turned that down and went to law school, and Margaret and he met at Georgia State in Atlanta. To make a short story long – I'm a master at that by the way – what they did was Grace and her father were really big into music, and so she was always exposed to different types of music.
And back then, the Dave Matthew's Band was really popular. They were at the height of their career and Grace was a freshman in high school at the time. And I don't mean to speak ill, he passed away back in 2015, but the day of that concert was September 18th. I can't remember the exact year, but it was in Atlanta. So Rowdy, Margaret and I were given some free Atlanta Braves tickets. So we were going to go to the Braves game, while Grace went to the Dave Matthew's Band concert with her dad. And he's diabetic, so maybe his sugar levels were off. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt on that just because he's not here to defend himself. So I'll use the benefit of the doubt that his sugar levels were maybe off that week. Well, what happened was they had not talked to… since Tuesday. So Saturday around lunchtime we're getting ready to go to the Braves game and she's getting ready to go to the concert and Margaret looks at Grace and says, "Call your daddy and see what time is he going to come pick you up."
So she called and he goes, "Oh, I didn't think you still wanted to go. I sold your ticket." She was devastated, I mean horribly. And I don't know where I came up with this, but it's divine intervention so to speak. I looked at Margaret and I said, "Do you know somebody we can give those Atlanta Braves tickets away to?" Since we only had three, not four. So she made a call and we had people with that. And so then I went to Grace and I said, "Hey Grace, whatever you want to do tonight, we'll do. If you want to go to Chattanooga, eat at a restaurants there, or go see a movie..." And as I started talking, I did not know how my sentence would end. And I said, "We'll do whatever you want to do because today is Be Nice to Grace day." And so we did. We went to a restaurant in Chattanooga. We walked over the Walnut Street Bridge. There's a walking bridge over the Tennessee River right there in the downtown Chattanooga.
So we paused on one side after eating, walked over the other side. Had a big ice cream. Watched the sunset, it was beautiful from there. I just said, "Today's Be Nice to Grace day." Well, I'll be darned, the next year, about a week beforehand [she] says, "Hey, don't forget next Sunday is Be Nice to Grace Day." And so it sticks, and it's still going on now. She just turned 31 and like I said, this started maybe her freshman year in high school. So, today the day we're recording this, is actually Be Nice to Grace Day.
David:
Grace, happy Be Nice to Grace day. I know it'll be later when you hear it, but it's a new holiday for our calendars.
Rick:
And she's posted things over the years saying nice things about me that she said, "Something went horribly wrong. And my bonus dad..." She calls me Rick Rick, my first name twice. So I call her Grace Grace. And she goes, "He dropped everything and actually created a holiday in my honor. And that's one of the nice things that she says about me in public, in her standup routines while she's doing storytelling and standup in New York. And so it's today, Be Nice to Grace day.
David:
Let's go a little bit further down memory lane. You've hosted a four-hour morning show on the radio and you've learned a lot about interviewing guests and you've worn a lot of hats in the radio world. Share whatever you wish, including if you like, some of your favorite interviews and even how you got into radio.
Rick:
Oh, absolutely sure. There is a woman in town, Jeanne Burr is her name. I was friends with her son Jeff. At that time for like 15, 17 years, somewhere in there, she hosted a local talk show. It was on every weekday morning from 10:00 to 10:30, and she actually did the interview from I guess the lunch counter at the old Dunaway Drugs. Remember years ago, hometown drug stores, when you walked in, they had little luncheonette there to the left or right, and they would serve breakfast and lunch. Well, she just did the show from one of the booths there. And she was also do her show live on New Year's Day and she would invite all the Yankees she knew and they prepared black eyed peas and collard greens for us, that normally didn't do that on New Year's Day. And so that was my first buzz seeing local radio in Dalton. And so that was actually the first time I was on the air.
But back up, Dalton is the carpet capital of the world and my dad and I both and my sister were all born in Akron, Ohio, where my grandfather had a small carpet outlet store. Well, back in the day, what they would do before they laid the carpet, they would come to your home and measure everything. Well then at their work room, they would cut the carpet accordingly. That way when they got on the job site, they could just installed it rather quickly. And my grandfather was a master carpet installer. When my grandmother was pregnant with my dad, and there was December blizzard – and she had been pregnant nine months – the blizzard was so bad that when she went into labor, they could not drive her and take her to the hospital. So they took her to my grandfather's work room, and my dad was literally born in the carpet industry. So he worked for my grandfather for several years. Then he went to work for a distributorship. And then he was actually a salesman that had the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan as his territory. And he represented several different carpet mills. Some did residential, some commercial. One of those companies promoted him and asked him to come to Dalton to be their vice president and national sales manager. So that's how we moved to Dalton when I was ten. So then six months later they made him vice president of sales. And then my junior year in high school, he started his own small little carpet mill. So that's what got us to Dalton. Well, my mother was born in Chicago and we would always spend two weeks during the summer, right around the Chicago carpet market. So what we do, we'd go to Chicago, hang out at my grandmother's house for a week. Then my dad would go to downtown Chicago for about five days during the carpet market, then he'd come back out to the suburbs where we were, we'd hang out a day or two and then drive back. While I was there in Chicago for those two weeks, all my cousins listened to this really popular radio station.
It was WLS, it was owned by Sears and Roebuck, and WLS stood for World's Largest Store, just like the first radio station I worked for in Dalton, WTTI, and that stood for world tough to test out industry. We would listen to WLS and it was amazing. I mean, Chicago is the third largest radio market in the nation. Number one, LA two, Chicago, Dallas, that goes on. So we would listen to this radio station and I loved it. Well moved to Georgia and so we didn't have to go to Chicago as much as we used to just because of the distance, much harder to drive from Dalton to Chicago then from Akron. My mom had this old Zenith radio. It was AM/FM short wave. We actually heard a speech by Fidel Castro in Spanish – we could only pick out a few words we understood, but then flipped over to FM. and that was experimental at the time. So I flipped it to AM because back then, as you know, more people listened to AM than FM during that time.
There are certain stations at night that do not have to power down. At most, the AM radio stations that does, have to either sign off or lower the power. And I'm not going to get too technical on this, but AM stands for Amplitude Modulation and it bounces off the ozone layer. Well, at night the ozone layer goes really, really high. So if you keep up the same power, Boom!, you might interfere with each other. So everybody should lower their power. But back in the 1920s, the Federal Communication Commission had like 15 radio stations across the country that did not have to power down, and all the other stations on that frequency throughout the US had to sign off. Well, at eleven I did not know that, but I'm flipping around on the dial and Boom!, out here in Dalton, WLS out of Chicago. And I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing!" But I didn't know that they promoted the fact that they could be heard in 38 states.
So the DJ at night from 7:00 to midnight, his name was John Records Landecker, “where records is truly my middle name.” That was his schtick. Well, his mom's maiden name was Records and it really was his name. And so I listened to him every night and he was so incredible. And also my father being in the carpet business, he was a master storyteller. And I loved to hear the laughs that my dad would always get when he would tell his stories and it was all across the country and all that. And so the combination of the two, it's like, “I know what I want to do for a living.” So since the sixth grade I knew I wanted to be on the radio, and Jeanee Burr, who we talked about, had that local talk show, she came to me... She always called us by our last name. Said, "Hey Pye, Zeisig, y'all head over here."
And so one afternoon, she pulls me aside and said, "Hey, there's opening at the radio station. The program director's name is Walter Hooper. You call him and tell him I told you to call and I'll give him a heads up and you knock his socks off and impress him. There's a meeting with him down at the radio station, and hopefully he'll hire you because we have a weekend opening." And so he did. So October 22nd, 1978, is the time as I was a junior in high school that I flipped the mic on for the first time, and that's when I started my radio career. Several years later, I was probably in radio for a little over 20 years.. (you as an educator, you have conferences you go to and principals and superintendents, different teachers of the different conferences). Well there was one that was called Morning Show Bootcamp, and it was primarily for morning radio DJs. Well, one year, John Records Landecker was a keynote speaker at one of the luncheons and they always say, I'm sure you've heard this expression too, "Never meet your heroes, they'll disappoint."
Well after his keynote speech, which was hilarious, a bunch of people go up to talk to him afterwards. And so it's my turn. There's about 10 or 15 people there. And over the years in trade publications, when they asked a real popular program director or DJ, "What got you started in radio?" And they always had listened to John Records Landecker. Well, he had made a few cute remarks during his keynote where he kinda made fun of that. So I was hesitant to tell him this story, and I abbreviated it and made it much shorter than what I've told you just because there's 15 other people behind me that want to talk to him. And so I started telling him, he goes, "Oh, really? What part of Chicago?" I said, well, my mom was born in the city, but then raised in Berwyn and Riverside. He goes, "Oh, I've got friends in Highland Park." Which is just on the other side of Riverside. And he would ask me questions back and forth.
And I knew he had heard that story 100 times to the minimum. But that day he acted like it was the first time he'd ever heard it. I mean, what a gentleman. He didn't have to do that. He could've just, "Oh nice, thank you very much." Moved on. But no, he took the time to talk with me about that. And a, that was very inspirational for me to continue my career, but it also taught me a valuable lesson. You've always heard car salesman, "Hey, the bank president or the bank janitor get the same price on a car." And I've been doing this a long time and I hate the word celebrity, but everybody in Dalton knows who And my kids used to hate going to the grocery store with me because people I didn't know who listen send to me, but they felt like they knew me, which meant I was really doing my job, would want to stop and talk. And so I'd always do that. And is when people, "Oh, I did college radio." Which is a whole different animal than the professional.
And [I’d say], “Really? Where?” And they’d, “No, never…” And I said, "No. Tell me, where?" And they’d go, "Oh, at Milan." Or they tell me different things. And I would always ask them questions because I learned that from John Records Landecker, but it was an honor for me. And if I can relate to some other people too, maybe in a smaller sense, they feel a little more connected with me. Instead if I put them off, "Oh, Rick Zeisig is a jerk." And probably a jerk is not the word they would have used. But no, that was really one of my big memorable things. I got to interview Garth Brooks two or three years ago right before tickets went on sale for his big show at Nissan Stadium in Nashville. He has never done a stadium show in the home of Music City. So that interview is memorable for me. Because he acted the same way. I mean, I pulled a few anecdotes out from my personal experience that blended in the (quote) “The talking points” that they gave me, which I just glanced at and put them aside and just had this conversation with Garth, that was probably one of the most memorable interviews that I ever did.
David:
Great stories. A ton of lessons in there. Shift gears now to a day around 20 years ago, a visit to the doctor, followed by tests and diagnoses and prognosis and treatments and a whole new world of vocabulary, procedures and places. Start wherever you like and we'll see where we go. We referenced this in the introduction with the change of your voice and you referenced it with your throat cancer preventing you from continuing with the voice of the Catamounts for a while. What would you share about the day or the season when you learned about this?
Rick:
Oh, sure. I had noticed a small little lump on the right side of my neck, maybe an inch and a half away from my Adams apple. And so I go to one of the local ear, nose and throat specialists, love living in a small town, and we called Sean Coleman because he was on one of those committees with Margaret helping decide the best way to help the elderly in our committee. So I went to Sean, actually called, and the receptionist at his office was the old reception receptionist from my doctor. When I said, "Hey, it's Rick Zeisig." Said, "Hey, it's Becky, how are you?" And I said, "I found this lump on my throat that I need to see him for." And she said, "When do you want to come?" I said, "When can I?" She goes, "How about 10:00 tomorrow?" I said, "Fine." Well, I first went to my regular doctor and he did an ultrasound on it, and Grace, who was about twelve or thirteen is like, "Well daddy, is it going to be a boy or a girl?"
And so when they did the ultrasound, she really couldn't see anything. So I told Dr. Coleman and he goes, "Oh, we'll just do a routine biopsy. No big deal. We'll be fine." I go in, I'm supposed to wake up at about 3:15 in recovery, between like 3:00 and 3:30. Well, I wake up at 9:45 and I'm in surgical ICU. And my mother was a Red Cross volunteer at the hospital for over 20 years. So when I woke up, I knew exactly where I was and I had all these tubes connected to me on the left side of me. So then the nurse comes in finally and I said, "Is Dr. Coleman still here?" She said, "No. He went home." And I said, "What about my wife?" "She went home too." And I said, "Wow, this sure took a lot longer than I thought. Is everything okay?" Well David, you and I need to refinance our house, give this woman all our money by a first class plane ticket to Vegas, and put her in a Texas draw tournament because she had the best poker face in the history of the world ever.
And I said, "Well, could you call my wife?" She says, "Well I'll bring you a phone." Because no phones in the ICU room. So she brings me a phone, and with Dr. Coleman had told me prior to surgery, the worst thing we could do is take out your tonsils because that might affect your voice. Well we found out later, it actually dropped it about a half an octave and made it a little smoother. Well, we didn't realize that at the time. So I call, and Margaret answers the phone. And I go, “Hey.” She goes, "Hello?" I go, "Hey." And then she goes, "Who is this?" I'm like, oh my gosh, my voice has changed. “It's your husband. What's going on?" She goes, "You want me to tell you over the phone or back down there?" And I say, "Whichever.” “I’ll be there in 10 minutes” and she says, "Okay." You know, you live in a small town, you’re close. And I told her, I said, "Do me a favor. Bring me a sweatshirt and a pair of boxer shorts. I'm freezing."
She then came in by about 10:15, 10:30 at night. And so she's like, then it was stage four squamous cell carcinoma. It was throat cancer in my tonsil, my right tonsil, and it had spread through the lymph nodes, and that was the lump I felt. So what they did, they went ahead and took out all the lymph nodes and that tonsil on the right side, where the tonsil on the left side was deteriorating, and back then protocol was to leave it alone. Anyway, what was so funny is this minor biopsy we did, Dr. Coleman was a football star at Dalton High back in the day. He's about seven, eight years younger than me. So I was gone, never got to see him play. But when we were scheduling that biopsy, because I'm the public address announcer, and that was right in the middle of football season, he goes, "Hey, next week we have an off week and two away games, let's schedule it then." So we schedule that biopsy around me doing Friday night nights, being the public address announcer.
Well, stage four. What they did is they said, "Well, wait about four weeks for the incision to heal." Because before surgery, Dr. Coleman said, "Tell you what, I'm going to put the incision in the crease of your neck, that way, heaven forbid, if we have to do more, it would just heal back and it looks like it's a crease in your neck. Well, it was a lot more. And so then because they had me in such a weird position with my right arm above over my head laying flat on the operating table for about eight hours, I actually had to do physical therapy for my shoulder in between the surgery, and then me starting chemo and radiation at the same time. Well, Dr. McKay who is a well regarded radiation oncologist here in town and since retired but still very active in the community, but that's who they sent me to. So he looked at it and he said they want to do a special type of radiation's called IMRT. I think that's immobile radiation therapy treatment. I could be wrong, but that's how I remember it.
He goes, "Oh, I've done IMRT hundreds of times, and I've been great.” But then he goes, “Well, I've only aimed at a prostate. Let me send you to somebody in Chattanooga who specializes in head and neck types of surgeries." How's that? A doctor actually admitting they're not God? Because a lot of times doctors come off with that. So I had to go to Erlanger for my chemo and radiation. So Monday through Friday I had radiation, and then Tuesday was my long day and they would do an IV in the back of my hands or my arm. They would flush everything out and then they'd put the chemo in and anti-nausea medicine. And so I went from the fourth floor of the B tower to the basement of the A tower where we did the radiation. So on Tuesdays, I'd still be hooked up to the IV. And what they did is they put, I had a little dot with a sharpie on one side of my neck and then one on the other side.
And they had these two light beams on either side of the room. Well, they made a mask, and when I say mask, it's a cross between a fencing mask and lattice. They dip it in hot water and then they mold it to my face so tight I could only talk like that. I mean, that's the best I could talk. And they would actually bolt me down to the table with that mask on and they'd have me wiggle until those two light beams were hitting those two sharpie spots on this side of my neck. And then they say, "For the next 20 minutes, don't move." But the machine moves. Breast cancer is just a big wide beam that they aim it, this one actually has lead rods in it, and they can adjust those to narrow the beam so it won't hit my vocal chords. And so doing that in Chattanooga, that saved my career. And so they might set it up, overturning to the right and then aim it at me for 10 or 15 seconds. Then it would move again, they readjust the lead rods.
So basically what they did is they zapped me 18 times a day, five days a week for six weeks. So my last treatment, believe it or not, was actually on Christmas Eve. Well, a few years earlier, we had set up this tradition very similar to yours and your son Jackson doing camping together. I read that in your book. And so what we would do is Jimmy Buffet, on most of his albums, had a hidden track. So on his Christmas album, which is my favorite Christmas album of all just being on the radio all those years, we heard so much Christmas music, sadly, we're tired of it and cannot appreciate it for what it is. So Jimmy Buffett's Christmas Island, the last song on the album is Christmas in Alabama, but that song's only four minutes long. But if you look for the compact disc on the CD, it's like seven minutes long. What happens is at the end of Merry Christmas, Alabama, the counter still keeps going, it does not stop and go back to the first track.
So there's almost a full minute of silence, and Jimmy Buffett read Clement C. Moore's ’Twas The Night Before Christmas. And so I'd always played that for Rowdy and Grace, either the CD and then the technology got better, and I’d have it on my phone. Well, Grace, living in New York City, Santa Claus cannot come until you're gone to sleep. So that's when we tell them to go to sleep. Since Santa gave one gift to Rowdy and Grace, and then we gave the rest that we wrapped. So you had to be in bed asleep before Santa came and set up all the toys or whatever you wanted that that year. And so we carry that tradition today. So Rowdy will FaceTime Grace on his phone and then on my phone, I would play ’Twas The Night Before Christmas. So my last treatment was Christmas Eve. Well, you can always count cancer free, it's five years from the day of your last treatment. So for 12 years, not only were we able to enjoy Christmas Eve and ’Twas The Night Before Christmas, we also could say, "I was another year cancer free."
Well then the second time in 2018, I found a lump on the opposite side of my neck. And we can talk about that later if you want to move on and circle back. Do you want me to continue with that or do you want to move to something else then we can return to it?
David:
We'll come back to it, I think just naturally. So let me ask you a broader question.
Rick:
Absolutely.
David:
This is the second diagnosis now. So 2018 is time number two, it's back. Now, I think you've had a third diagnosis or notice that you'll mention later. But what ways has this cancer impacted your view of time, your priorities, your intended legacy, just how you view things?
Rick:
Oh that second one hit me hard because it was on the left side and they had to do a full neck dissection. So they take the muscles from my shoulder, the nerves to my back and all that. And then also they had to take my jugular vein out because it was blocked, I did not know until that time it's your artery that feeds the blood to your brain, but then the jugular vein is where it runs out, goes to the rest of your body. So it's a drain. So they had to do all that and I'll never forget my friend Amy Davison... And I've told this to her, so it's not anything I'm saying behind her back, but Margaret said, "I finally found somebody that talks more than Rick, but that he listens." And after my second battle, Amy just very bluntly said to me, "Wow, you used your voice for a living. You never smoked, did anything like that and you had throat cancer, not once, but twice? What is God trying to tell you?" Well, that hit me lke a ton of bricks and for maybe only the second, maybe third time in my life, I was left speechless.
And so what I did is I prayed about that long and hard and probably over a year, and then I came through the realization in my mind it's like, "Wow, God is really trying to tell you something, and obviously He feels there's a gameplan for me." And what I did is I prayed that when it's presented to me, I would see it for what it is and do it in accordance with His will. And during the meantime, after my first battle of throat cancer, I would have to go back for checkups. Well, it was in the same waiting room at the bottom of the basement of Erlanger Medical Center, which is in downtown Chattanooga. So I was there and waiting, and I saw a lot of people that looked very sad. People obviously with scarves and bandanas over their head because they lost their hair. I did not. The type of chemo that put me on was not a hair loss. But I noticed a lot of people... Being on the radio 37 years, you know me, I worked the room.
Go around and talk to them and say, "Hey, where I am now is where you’ll be in a couple months. What's going on? What type of cancer do you have? Oh my gosh, I'll keep you in my prayer.s" That type of stuff. Well, fast forward five years. I'm the program director for the big classic hits station. There's a difference between classic hits and classic rock. Classic rock is more the hard stuff, Led Zeppelin, Ozzy Osborne, all that. Classic hits is the top 40 songs from that era, Earth, Wind & Fire. KC & The Sunshine Band, even the crossover hits from country. And so I was the program director and morning show host, and the station had taken off. It was on fire. And there was a festival in downtown Chattanooga called Riverbend. And back then it was like twelve days and they would have different artists from different genres. Well open the night that year was Huey Lewis and the News. And I actually got to introduce them, the stage was on this barge, there at the Tennessee River, about seven stories high, and there were 80,000 people there. And I got to introduce them, and it was really, really very humbling for me to get to do that. Well, I hate the word “humbling.” We'll talk about that later. No, we'll talk about it now. On Facebook people every year, "Oh, I'm so humbled by how many people wish me a happy birthday." To me, I'm sorry if this offends you, but I consider that you're patting yourself on the back. So it's a back-handed compliment. So anyway, I'm at the radio station’s booth. We had a tent right there, they block off the roads there. If you've ever been to Chattanooga, it's right between the Chattanooga Aquarium and the river. And they block all those roads off, for like two weeks. So our tents is there, and this young 18 year old blonde and her and mom are walking by and all of sudden she stops and she comes back to me in the booth and says, "Do you remember me?" I looked at her.
She says, "You probably wouldn't because five years ago when I was 13, I was going through childhood cancer. I'd lost all my hair, my face was bloated, I was in a lot of pain. I was crying and I was telling my mom, ‘I just don't want to do this anymore. Please make it stop.’" And I stopped and talked to them when I was working in the room. I sat down and talked with her and her mom for about ten minutes. Well, after I left, she goes to her mom and she said, "That gave me hope and had me realize that I could do this." So that knocked me off my socks. So she's 18, I'm in my 50s. But pre-pandemic, we would get together at least two or three times a year and have lunch. Because we could talk about stuff that other people didn't realize, that they had no clue on the perspective of, what we went through. They essentially do, and they mean well, I'm not saying anything ugly, but unless you've been there done that, have the t-shirt and the hat...
I rhymed that time, I don't know if you noticed or not. We had this bond. And then even after pandemic, we tried to get together once or twice a year to at least to chat and talk on the phone. Well, then when I got my throat cancer came back for the third time, I'm having eating issues because the tumors all the way through my tongue it's attached to my epiglottis. Last June, July, talking about June, 2021…no, June of 2022, they did not think I would make it to Christmas. Just because it's in operable and… if we can't stop the tumor. So Lydia, what her and I do now, is she lives up in Cleveland, Tennessee, but she works in Chattanooga. She's a dispatcher, works for the 9-1-1 Center. So before she comes into work in the afternoon, we would go meet up at the local Baskin-Robbins there in Chattanooga, and we'd just have dessert for lunch. We still keep in touch. We call or text. Let me back up [to] another Dalton story. My 40th high school class reunion was supposed to be in October, 2020. But David, we didn’t have anything going on in October 2020, that would disrupt that. Now did we?
David:
I'm sure it went off without a hitch.
Rick:
So after we postponed it and then said, "Hey, we're going to go ahead and just have a forty-first year reunion." Well, the next year came omicron, so we could not do it in 2021. Well, I'm on the committee. And one time we mentioned, "Hey, let's have ‘A everybody turned 60 this year,’ as a popup slash class reunion." Well, I didn't hear anything about it. And then July of 2022, we had a message July 15th that says, "We're having our 40th class reunion on July 30th. I'm like, "Wait, I'm on the committee. I haven't heard anything about this." Oh, they decided to go ahead and just make an executive decision, which I thought was fine. We go to the reunion, it was awesome. It was, people either brought a dessert or appetizer, that type of thing. And it was awesome. End of the night, Margaret my wife pulled me aside because we had just gotten that real bad news a month earlier that they did not think I would make it ‘til Christmas. So Margaret at the end of the night pulled me aside and said, "You know they did this for you?"
When they found out that my diagnosis was terminal and the doctor's thought I had less than six months to live, they all got together and called Margaret and said, "When should we do the class reunion?" And she told them “Sooner, rather than later,” and they put together in like two and a half weeks. As you can tell, I'm emotional by nature, but it brings tears to my eyes that they would do that for me. I mean, they did. They put that together in less than two and a half weeks. And here's the thing, I did not know this, but we have a Facebook group for all class. Dalton High Class of 1980 reunion page. Well, when you get ready to send a message to the group, there's actually a setting that you can say, "Send to everybody but..." So I never got those notifications and then talking about, "Hey, I know it's short notice, but Rick doesn't have much time to live. Let's do it." And they did. And then about two weeks later, the principal of Dalton High, she calls me and is like, "I don't know if this is something that'll would interest you or not, but we'd be honored if you would accept be the Grand Marshal for the Homecoming Parade. So I got to do that. We would stop along the route and people would recognize me. I love living in a small town. They would stand up and give me a standing ovation. That meant a lot. I don't mean to be sacrilegious with this. So if I am, God, forgive me. But Jesus never did well in his hometown. Everybody's like, "Oh, that's just Jesus. His dad is Joseph, he's a carpenter. No, he is not the Messiah, the prophet. No, that's just Jesus."
And so even being on the radio in Atlanta, Chattanooga, Panama City, about four months before my third round that I'm still battling now came up, I was hired by a radio station in Lafayette, Louisiana to do the midday show. Well, with the power of technology, I can prerecord those elements of me being on the radio, put it in a Dropbox, and it sounds like I'm live and actually at Louisiana. So not only was I doing afternoon showing Chattanooga but also a department head, I was in charge of the Chattanooga Traffic Network. And then doing that show, doing my Facebook Live stuff, podcast…a video podcast. I was rocking and rolling when this hit my voice. And so many people have reached out and said, "You're such an inspiration." People when I see out and about they at Walmart say, "I know you don't know me, but…” just like I'm telling you here now, I would do Facebook Live updates, and if I have bad news from a doctor, two or three days after I had talked to my family about it, then I would share it with everybody via Facebook and Facebook Live.
So I was an open book about it, and they said, "You were so inspirational. My sister has breast cancer and watching the video is giving her hope and letting her know she can do the fight, still keep her dignity, and she does not need to just curl up in the corner of a dark room." So just getting back to what Amy told me about, "Hey, if it's giving other people hope and inspiration, I'll take it." I wish it was ten or fifteen years from now because it's really [unclear 58:46] not getting to see my children grow up. But as I said all along, you have to play the hand you were dealt. And you can't change that at all. So I have a choice. Am I going to be out there and live life and enjoy myself, and see all my old friends? I mean, there were stories that I forgot. I did.
David:
I was going to ask about the greatest lessons you've learned in the past 20 years or so through all of this, or the most important message you would like to share. And I think the message piece was clearly shared when you talked about the choice that you have to make in making things better for other people. Is there a lesson that you want to impart to everybody that you've not touched on yet, that you think would make a difference for somebody?
Rick:
Yes. Carl Bouckaert used to own a carpet mill here in town, it was Beaulieu of America. He was from Belgium, so was his wife, the family, and he was also a world class equestrian, on horseback. And over in Chatsworth, about 20 minutes from here, he has this huge sod farm, it's hundreds of acres. Well, they were able to set it up and qualify, and they hosted the Pan American Games for equestrian at his farm. Every year there'd be horseback riders from North and South America, that would come and compete. And matter of fact, a month before the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, they held the qualifying rounds for the US Olympics then. So the person who sponsored that was the heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune. So they always had me DJ those parties. And that one year was amazing. They had a tent that 1,000 people were able to sit in and have dinner. They had four of the food lines, and they had a 40 foot by 40 foot dance floor. And I had 500 people on the dance floor, and it still looked empty.
So I made a lot of money being a DJ for private parties, and all those people would see me. And when their sons or daughters got married, they'd hire me too. So it was very lucrative for me. So I was always very nice to Carl when I saw him, obviously. Plus he's one of the major players in the carpet industry here. So I was always very nice to him. Well, one time, Margaret and I went to Kroger and somebody came up to me, who I really didn't know that well, and they acted like they knew me well, which meant I was doing my job right. And I was in a bad mood about something totally different, and I did not blow that guy off, but I wasn't that receptive to his conversation and I cut it off early. And then we went on and Margaret stopped me and looked at me. She goes, "Would you have treated Carl Bouckaert like that if you saw him in the grocery store?" I bowed my head, I said, “No.” And she said, "There." So that's when I really learned it.
Talking about eating humble pie, that made me feel about ten inches high is all. And so it doesn't matter what you do for a living, if you bump into a former employee and they're very happy to see you, pass that happy back. It doesn't hurt. It'll probably make you both feel good. But no, don't blow people off. That lesson, . . . and as I've told my friends, I'm on liquid diet now. The last time I tried to eat solid food, it took me over an hour to eat a banana. Sadly, my case is terminal and we can't cure it. It's inoperable. So our best bet is to try and slow it down to buy me some time. And I have all of these friends, and I know, I'm sure you're the same way, I was this way before. And I said, if we bumped into somebody we knew that they had not seen in a while, we'd be like, "Hey, let's get together for lunch. Let's go have coffee."
And we mean well, but we never follow through. We're just busy with our life. And when we say it, we mean it, but we never take it to the next step. And I know because of my diagnosis and my limited time left here on this planet, I know if I wasn't sick, I would not be having coffee with all of these people. But because of that, I am. And I'm very thankful for it. I'm not bitter. I'm not like, "Oh, well you wouldn't have done that if I wasn't sick." And Margaret and I basically realized, if you don't laugh, then you'll cry. So if I bump into somebody I haven't seen in a while, I jokingly say, "Hey, I've been dying to have coffee with you sometime."
David:
That's another great lesson that we need to take away from this. Don't take anything for granted.
Rick:
Margaret always said that I'm the luckiest person she knows. That one time I was driving back from Atlanta, after being on the radio Saturday morning, and back in the mid 2000s, 2007, 2008, the gas prices were really high. So I drove her Honda Accord as opposed to my Yukon XL, same size as the Suburban, but the GMC instead of the Chevrolet. And I love all that '80s funk music. F – U – N – K . So I made a CD of all that stuff, like Party Train, and all that stuff. So I'm in her car jamming and I forgot I had to stop for gas on the way home. And her little “Ding!” is not very loud anyway. And with me having the music jam, I'm driving northbound 75 and I'm a mile before the Red Bud Road exit. So I'm in the left hand lane, going about 80 miles an hour and all of a sudden, THUMP! Not a buh-bum-buh-bum-buh-bump. It just totally ran out of gas. And I'm like, "Oh no." So I put my flashers on, put it in neutral.
Of course, and you don't have power steering, so you're trying to wiggle the steering wheel enough to move in the center lane. Cars are driving by you back and forth as you're losing speed and I move into the right lane and I get right back to the Red Bud Road exit, that ramp... So Red Bud Road is downhill and so I coast down the hill, I look to my left, there's no traffic coming. So I do a rolling stop and with my hands as hard as I can, I'm turning the steering wheel. And I don't know if you remember back then, but right next to the Red Bud Road exit is a gas station.
David:
Golden gallon or something used to be there I think.
Rick:
Yes! And so I rolled through my stop sign and coasted and was able to stop right there at the pump. That kind of stuff happens to me a lot. In 2002, 2003, I had lost a bunch of weight and I had jowls. And I noticed at the time that the people that were getting the full-time jobs on the radio Atlanta were the pretty people. Well think about it, the internet was brand new. The website, picture of a DJ, you can finally see what they looked like and they're at live events. So I did an endorsement deal with Dr. Sherrill and I had a mini facelift. They took about five inches of skin off my neck, and so I actually had a defined jawline for the first time in 20 or 30 years. Well, when I stretched my neck, I found the lump and that's what got me going to see Dr. Coleman. Margaret is very convinced if I had not had that facelift, I would not have found that lump. And when we found it, it was stage four. So basically Margaret says that vanity saved my life.
And on ending note here, I saw my doctor last Tuesday and we finished proton therapy back in July. So from all June, half of July, I was driving up and down the highway going into the Emory Proton Center, which is right around the corner from the Fabulous Fox Theater. And I was also doing a chemo infusion. So on Mondays, I'd have a four-hour infusion, get in the car drive 86 miles to the Emory Proton Center, do 20 minutes’ worth of proton therapy and then come back. Well, because that continues, they say, to fight it and attack it, insurance will not approve a PET scan, an MRI, until three months after my last treatment, which was July 11th.
So we’re looking at mid-October for my next MRI and PET scan. Well, when I saw her last week, my doctor, looking at everything ,she did not think the proton therapy was working well. And before we started that she said, "If this does not work, we're running out of viable options." So I asked her then and I said, "Well, if we didn't slow this down, how much time do I have?" And she looked at me and said, "Thanksgiving." So that's where I am right now. Oh, there's one thing I forgot to say. Going through all this and meeting my friends and they're telling me that I made a difference in their lives, maybe it took me losing my voice to find my voice. For that, I'm grateful.
David:
I really appreciate you taking your time to tell us some really meaningful stories. It's been a pleasure.
Rick:
Well thank you, and hopefully I didn't take too much of your time. You know me, I could probably go another two hours, easily.
David:
Well, I'm impressed by your stamina and your attitude and your resilience and your future oriented approach to everything that you do.
Rick:
Well thank you. So am I. Talk to you soon.
David:
All right, have a great day.
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