Retired probate judge
My South floor mates included Gary Abramson, Joel Blumenthal, and Paul (Zorba the Greek) Constantine who were quickly augmented by Pete Tierney. All four gravitated towards WRUC and I joined them. I had no music credentials to become a disc jockey but decided that its somewhat underactive news department could fill my journalistic pretensions. That made all the difference!
By my second year, I was the news director, sold time, and enjoyed an extended circle of friends including Dick Reingold, Charles Cusimano, Paul Jacobson, Tom Seem, Phil Robinson and others. We all became disciples of the Ferguson/Hedquist team.
In 1968, when President Johnson announced his intention to withdraw from the presidential race, Phil Robinson came in and we went to a WRUC Instant News Special. We interviewed Prof. Jim Underwood, student “radicals” and Congressman Sam Stratton (a former Union professor and Schenectady mayor) to discuss the implications.
With a grant from the Ivy Network, we covered the Indiana primary—the first where Bobby Kennedy joined the fray with McCarthy and Humphrey. Then Phil and I, with credentials through the Ivy Network, sold our services to nine stations in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey for localized coverage from the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention.
In between my work at WRUC, I worked as a news room assistant for WRGB-TV; night newsman at WTRY and management trainee at WCBS Radio.
I was admitted to Georgetown Law and but took a 25-hour per week job with the Washington bureau of WTIC AM-FM-TV 3.
In 1972, law degree in hand, I joined Senator Abe Ribicoff (D-Conn) as press secretary/speech writer. I retired from the Ribicoff staff to return to Connecticut and help my father in his Democratic primary for governor. I practiced law in Connecticut from 1984 to 2015 as the probate judge for the District of Hartford. Since my mandatory retirement, I have been working as a mediator at my old law firm.
Because of WRUC, I’ve been places I never would have been; made friends I treasure to this day and enjoy a great life.