When I was in the Air Force, I was fortunate enough to host a morning radio show for a year at Lajes Field, Azores (islands 900 miles west of Portugal).
The beginning of my tenure as the radio DJ was awful. I had no good morning show material and people frequently called in to complain. So one day, while my supervisor gave my performance evaluation, she told me to get creative (because she said, “you have it in you”) and come up with some new material.
Enter my friend Robbie Arp.
Robbie was like me times 2. We used to hang out together and play makeshift disc golf games in the base housing area, play on the squadron football and basketball teams together, and watch movies at his place.
One night we decided to watch music videos on the Internet, and he found a video for Pink Floyd’s song “Pigs on the Wing.” It was old concert footage, where the pyrotechnics were amazing and they hoisted this inflatable pig up into the air and blew it up much to the delight of the crowd.
I remember thinking that was one of the coolest things I ever saw, and for some reason I wanted to adapt something like that for my morning show.
So I drew up a sketch of a paper-maiche pig that I wanted to create and rounded up a bunch of the high school kids who had been faithful to my show. I asked them if they wanted to be on the show and they ate up the opportunity. So I told them what I wanted to do as a publicity stunt.
The way I had it all planned out would have been golden. Four kids would be selected, one representing each high school class. They would each get blowguns with real darts, and we would release the paper maiche pig from high atop the hill where our station was located. Then they would all start trying to shoot at it after it floated to a good height of about 20-30 feet.
In itself, shooting a paper maiche pig was a hilarious idea but it needed something more. So I decided to try to generate some money for the high school sports programs from it. I was going to create a contest to where people could give $2 to the kid who they thought would win. If the kid who they thought would win came out on top, then the local Burger King would give them all certificates for a free Whopper.
We did a good job of keeping the idea under wraps. We had to undergo a test run to make sure nothing would happen, and we did it in the dead of night one weekend.
We all headed up the hill in my Ford Taurus wagon (that thing was my ride until the starter failed on it), and we released a huge Mylar balloon by the power station to see what would happen. The kids started blowing spitballs at it to see what distance would be too much.
I kept the balloon tied to a string, so it wouldn’t float away on us. I kept dangling it close to the power lines and the kids were laughing and shooting spitballs at it.
Someone forgot to tell me that I don’t know how to tie strings that well. The balloon floated off, up, up, up, up — and into the powerline where there was a great FZZZZZZZTTT-POP-POP-CRACK and the lights flickered on and off for a few minutes.
We all hopped into my Taurus as fast as we could and made it down the hill and passed three Security Forces vehicles on our way back into base.
Needless to say, the event was scrapped, and I continued planning my next event — me strapping myself into a disabled vehicle and rolling down the hill, and the farther I went would raise more money for a good cause. That one didn’t happen either because the cops wouldn’t let us do it.
Good Lord, I had fun though.
