{"id":1496,"date":"2014-05-02T05:30:43","date_gmt":"2014-05-02T15:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grumpyseniors.com\/?p=1496"},"modified":"2014-05-01T18:21:41","modified_gmt":"2014-05-02T04:21:41","slug":"everyones-talking-about-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grumpyseniors.com\/?p=1496","title":{"rendered":"Everyone’s talking about you"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day someone said my picture at the top had a resemblance to Les Keiter.
\nNow that’s interesting.<\/p>\n

\"Les<\/a>Anyone that knew “The General” loved him.
\nSo that’s a good thing.<\/p>\n

But Les was the first one to say he had a face “only radio would love”.
\nSo I’m not too sure here.<\/p>\n

For one thing I have more hair.
\nAnd I’m younger.<\/p>\n

And I no way had the great career he did.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I’m amazed at the difference we see when we look at a picture of ourselves and what we see in the mirror.<\/p>\n

Delusion runs strong.<\/p>\n

In case you have been living under a rock – Les was one of the greatest sportscasters in Hawaii history.<\/p>\n

He worked national radio and TV for years and during the 1960s, he called some of the biggest fights in the history of boxing.<\/p>\n

He also did play-by-play for the football Giants, Knicks and Rangers.<\/p>\n

In 1970, Keiter and his wife moved to Hawaii.<\/p>\n

He was hired as KHON’s sports director where he stayed for over 20 years.<\/p>\n

I was lucky enough to be there at that time.<\/p>\n

\"Les_Keiter_2\"<\/a>He was famous for walking through the newsroom and saying to people, “You’re doing great job kid. Everyone’s talking about you.”<\/p>\n

When he said it to someone they just lit up.
\nMe included.<\/p>\n

For a lot of years Keiter did baseball recreations on radio.<\/p>\n

Back then, we didn’t get some baseball games live.<\/p>\n

All we got came from the AP Wire were a couple of lines about each inning as the game was played.<\/p>\n

Who was at bat, whether it was a strike or ball and if they made a hit, walked or struck out.
\nThat’s it.<\/p>\n

Les would sit in the studio with a wooden block and a drum stick to make the sound of a bat hitting a ball.<\/p>\n

The engineer controlled a tape with crowd noise.<\/p>\n

Les then filled in everything else, pulling from his many years of baseball knowledge.<\/p>\n

You’d never know he wasn’t sitting in the press box at the game.
\nIt was theater of the mind in the truest sense.<\/p>\n

One time when I was at KGU radio we had a charity softball game with another team at Aloha Stadium.
\nIt was just before a Hawaii Islanders game.<\/p>\n

After we lost we sat in the stands with Les as he held court with a million baseball stories.
\nIt was a magical time.<\/p>\n

There are some good people in the media business.<\/p>\n

The man didn’t have a grumpy bone in his body.<\/p>\n

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