I am a quart short of Margaret Juntwait. I long for a Saturday afternoon of opera on WRR 101.1.
Running low on Peter Sagal, too. My NPR station has been on a long, long pledge drive, so Saturdays at 11:00 a.m. I hear a prerecorded greatest hits broadcast of "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me: The NPR News Quiz". These particular shows are already perforated for easy tearing away to the station manager's pleas for contributions.
Jeff. The station manager always seems to be named Jeff. "Jeff" is one of my very favorite names. That's why I named my firstborn "Jeffrey". I had no idea "Jeff" would become the generic name of public radio station managers begging for money on the air.
Fall is finally arriving in North Texas. The air has a tease of crispness. Crows are mobbing redtail hawks, while tardy monarch butterflies lazy-daisy their way south to Mexico. It is perfect weather for driving my Jeff to UT in Austin down I-35, then lazy-daisying myself back up 183, 281, and 67 to Dallas listening to any public radio or classical music station my car radio picked up. That is how I discovered the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts, then hosted by Peter Allen. Alas, my Jeff received his degree from UT in 2004, and no longer needs to be transported to or from Austin with hawk-watching out the windows of the Buick.
Margaret Juntwait became "the voice" of the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts about the time Jeff graduated. Maybe that is why I've always visualized Ms. Juntwait as a very classy hawk perched on a power pole along 281 north of Lampasas. When Ms. Juntwait's voice reaches my Buick on a late fall Saturday it hints she could be an observant, soaring, upper-level food chain predator, with lovely chest plumage and vivid tail feather coloring.
I look forward to the December eighth resumption of Met radio broadcasts on 101.1 WRR fm. I'll learn much about opera from the "gracious, personable, and knowledgeable" host of the program. Even though it is not her job, I bet Ms. Juntwait will help me win Carl Kasell's voice on my home answering machine.
© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder
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