The Macon Telegraph Ed Grisamore column [The Macon Telegraph]

Oct. 28--When he wants to hold the match that started the fire, Bill Elder will reach for a transistor radio on the shelf.

It's an antique, but it still plays AM with a 9-volt battery -- even after almost 50 years.

When he was a kid growing up on Waverland Drive, it was his ear to the world. He would lie in bed at night, the transistor radio propped against the pillow. His thumb would turn the dial to WLS in Chicago, WLAC in Nashville and other faraway kingdoms in the dark.

He remembers the day when Craig Elder -- his mother with a man's name -- stopped at the Sinclair station on Gray Highway, across from Baconsfield.

Gas cost 23 cents a gallon, and filling stations offered everything from dish towels to juice glasses to S&H Green Stamps to entice customers.

At the Sinclair station, the promotional giveaway was a red, transistor radio. It was about the size of a Cracker Jack box. The real prize inside was the seed it planted.

Last weekend, the affable and laughable Bill Elder was inducted into the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame. The ceremony was held at the Wilson Convention Center, less than a mile from the parking lot where he first held that transistor radio in his hand.

He had so many people to thank in his acceptance speech. If he had tried to name all of them, he might still be talking. He stood on a lot of shoulders in a 30-year career as one of the city's all-time favorite radio personalities at four stations -- WMAZ, WNEX, WBML and WAYS.

Local radio hasn't been the same since Bill retired 12 years ago at the age of 46. He has remained busy at his home studio, dispatching voice-overs, commercials, narrations and podcasts across the heartland.

But folks still miss the quick wit and boundless energy of his radio shows. He was like a pinball machine with flashing lights and loud bells, never afraid to tilt.

They miss his morning reveille on their clock radios, waking them up like a pot of coffee to the sounds of one-hit wonders and Three Dog Night.

They miss those irreverent daily "interviews" with the president, when he would pretend to call the White House and impersonate every commander in chief from Nixon to Clinton. Jimmy Carter's mother, Miss Lillian, often listened in from Plains.

In a world where music is dispensed on iPods and smartphones, Bill looks back at his old transistor with reverence. It is shaped like a gas pump. Sinclair's famous logo was a dinosaur, so it's appropriate the technology is like fossil fuel.

It got him where he was going, though.

When he was 11 years old, he was at Bateman & Wade grocery, perhaps to pick up some of that famous pimiento cheese. Ross Bateman was a member of a local Lion's Club, whose members would sell radio ads on WBML and read them live on air.

Bateman took the young Elder with him to the station one Sunday morning. Bill's transistor radio world was suddenly opened to new boundaries.

"I walked into that control room and said: 'This is it,' " he said. "I didn't know what 'it' was, but I told myself I was going to do it someday. There were knobs and buttons, speakers and microphones."

He shook off his butterflies and read an ad for Kentucky Fried Chicken live on the air. He also got to select the next song. He chose "Act Naturally," sung by the Beatles.

He built a console and created a radio studio in his basement with his friend, Buddy Wynn. They plucked their initials to form the call letters WBBE. They strung an antenna between two pine trees and beamed their signal far enough to reach the children at the nearby Masonic home, where they figured they would have about 50 devoted listeners.

Bill wrote the letters WBBE on a rafter. When he sold his mother's house 11 years ago, it was still there. He could not bear to paint over it.

His father, William Elder, was in the insurance business. His office was on the 10th floor of the Southern Trust Building. When he was 13, Bill would often tag along on Saturday mornings and wander down to the fifth-floor studios of WMAZ. There, he was mentored by local DJs Gary Guntor and Joel Goddard. (Goddard went on to become an announcer for late-night talk show host Conan O'Brien.)

Bill was only 15 when he got his FCC broadcasting license. His sister, Joan, drove him to Atlanta to take the exam. He waited by the mailbox every day to find out if he had passed the test.

The late Bill Powell hired him as a weekend DJ at WMAZ, but he was fired after six months. He repeatedly could not pronounce some of the words and names while reading the international news. (He spouted so many strange names from the war in Southeast Asia, he said half of Macon must have thought he was ordering Chinese food.)

It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. He landed on his feet at WNEX, the fearless little station at the foot of Rogers Avenue.

"It was my generation, my music and it fed my soul," he said. "I was 16 years old, and everybody else there had the maturity of a 16-year-old. We would try different things to get noticed."

And that's the way it would always be, wherever he went.

Funny. Irreverent. Unforgettable.

Radio has changed. That's one reason why he got out when he did. Much of it is now automated, programmed and impersonal. It's not nearly as much fun.

Bill still has one of the original "On Air" studio signs in his living room.

It used to light up when he clapped his hands, but he had to unplug it.

"It would go crazy whenever I watched a game show," he said, laughing.

He was deeply honored with the hall of fame induction. To the surprise of no one, he delivered his entire acceptance speech without a single prepared note. He has always preferred the unscripted life.

He received a certificate, which he has framed, and a nice bronze medal with the word "INDUCTEE" engraved and cloaked in laurels.

He showed it to his friends and family, never at a loss for wit.

"I've never had a medallion this big," he said, "that didn't have chocolate in it."

Reach Gris at 744-4275 or [email protected].

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(c)2012 The Macon Telegraph (Macon, Ga.)

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