Marshall Tucker Band "Heard It In A Love Song"

The storm was over.   Figuratively and literally.

The Blizzard of 2013 had spun itself out of the area.  The skies were clearing.  The Governor had reopened roads.

And 2 1/2 months of a whirlwind fundraising campaign to Save mvyradio, had culminated with the station signing of 92.7 for the last time, right in the middle of a Blizzard.

I'd spent the night at the radio station, and I was ready to venture out into the new world.

People have asked me, over and over, about my feelings on signing off 92.7.

Honestly, I was okay with it.  Not to say that I was happy about it.  But to be in a stable radio job for 13 years is extremely uncommon in my field.  And to have survived a station sale is even rarer.

I couldn't really begrudge our former owner, Aritaur Communications, for selling 92.7.  By all rights, they should have fired most of the staff years ago, to cut costs.  To their credit, they never did.

And I couldn't really begrudge WBUR for buying the signal.  Someone was going to.  I suppose that it's good that it went to someone who a) didn't want to take the parts of the station that it didn't need, and b) isn't really going to be a competitor, going forward.  It's just business.

So I didn't have much anger, and only a hint of sadness through this process.  And truthfully, most of those feelings were completely drown out by the adrenaline associated with effort of raising over half a million dollars in 60 days.

I walked away from my night of saying goodbye to 92.7, feeling at peace.

Hungry, I went down to The Black Dog in Vineyard Haven, one of the few restaurants open the day after the storm.

Stepping inside, I felt a punch in the gut.

On the overhead speakers, a Classic Rock radio station from Cape Cod was playing "Heard It In A Love Song."

Now, had this been any other business on the Island, I wouldn't have thought twice about it.  But this was The Black Dog.

The folks who run The Black Dog have been superior partners to WMVY over the years.  I don't know how they see us, but I know that I see The Black Dog in much the same way that I see the station---we are long-standing Vineyard institutions that folks who visit the Island feel embody the Island.  Listening to mvyradio, or wearing a Black Dog t-shirt says, "I have a connection to Martha's Vineyard."

No matter what Black Dog location you walk into, they are always playing mvyradio, because it gives the store/bakery/restaurant that Island feel.

But now they were playing someone else.

That hurt.

Not that The Black Dog had chosen to play another station, but that someone, a stalwart friend, was unable to listen.

I won't say I cried---I mean, I was eating a BLT with bacon stacked nearly to the ceiling---but it was the closest I'd come to crying all day and night.

A few days later, I saw Dan, who works for The Black Dog, who told me that the bakery isn't internet-ready, but that they were still playing MVY in their other locations.  We'd be back on their sound system as soon as they were wired up.

I guess this is the new reality.  We're losing some friends who can't come with us into this new technological world, and out of contact for a while with others . . .




Hear the song on Youtube.