I'm Ready to Walk Out When the Phone Rings

by Mitchell Fink

I went to summer school in '63, and we had the greatest routine in the world. It was me, Howie Goldman, Barry Cilman and others. We took an accounting class, the only course that summer we took. It met each day from 9:30 to 11 a.m. By 11: 10, we were on the first tee at a nearby golf course. We played golf practically every day that summer. School at that moment was simply about having a good time. It was certainly never about anything else, at least over that summer.

But my life was to change completely when my father died the following semester, in the middle of my junior year. At first, they didn't even tell me he died. "A turn for the worse," they said, waiting for me to get home before telling me the truth.

I went back to school a few weeks later to take my exams, but I'd already made the decision to leave school so I could return home and go into my family's textile business, continue school at night and take on the world at 20 years old.

After taking the last of my tests at UB, I packed up my car, a Chevrolet Supersport, and started saying goodbye to my friends. I'm ready to walk out, when the phone rings and it's the general manager of the school's radio station, WBFO, and he says, "I've been listening to your tapes." Terry Revo, a fraternity brother who had a Sunday show, started having me on, and the general manager started listening to my tapes.

He said, "I want to offer you the prime-time disc jockey job, five nights a week, and I'll pay you." I hadn't been getting paid for Sundays, so this sounded spectacular.

But my decision had been made. I was leaving school. I said, "You know, I'm going to remember this call the rest of my life, but I'm leaving now. My father died, and I'm going into his business. I'm leaving this place, but I'll never forget this phone call."

He wished me good luck, and that was it. I got into the car and left, and only spent the next six years thinking about it, and how my life might have been altered had I taken the man up on his offer.