Speech given after I received the YMCA award for Community Involvement.

First, my congratulations to the YMCA on its 110th. Anniversary, here in New Rochelle.  And in doing so, I hope to end the rumors that tonight is somehow a celebration of my 110th birthday, as some listeners have suggested.

Also, my congratulations to Angela Taylor, who is also being honored tonight. Angela is one of those people that you can always count on being present wherever volunteers are needed to support this city or its residents.  This…while serving as the assistant to the mayor, and living the dedicated life of a wife and mother. When I first realized this about her while I was covering one event or another early on in my work for WVOX, I was reminded of what one very successful executive I worked for once said to me:  "20 % of the people do 80% of the work." It has always been that way, I suspect. If you need to get something done, ask a busy person to do it." Angela Taylor is one of those busy people. Oh, and if you want to be entertained over a beer, or a glass of wine, you might want to ask her about her interesting life as a young single woman. But wait until the kids are asleep. Angela, knowing that you were being recognized tonight has added to the meaningfulness of the occasion.

A DREAM COME TRUE
As for me, let me begin my sharing that without any intention to be sentimental or overly dramatic, my radio life, part of which is my presence here tonight, is as a matter of hard news...a dream come true. There has yet to a moment, whether opening the microphone at 6:05, or placing a portable microphone on this very podium, or even while covering a story on location following less than ideal circumstanced such as the 2007 floods, that I was not tempted to pinch myself because I was doing what I believe I was meant to do…if indeed, that can be said of anyone.

STARTED A LONG TIME AGO
My dream started a long time ago when… and those you of a certain aged will remember this... there was only one TV in the house. I lived with three girls, my mother and my grandmother, and an older brother who was out of the house most of the time. Needless to say, there were not a lot of ballgames on TV, in the Marrone house of the late 50’s and early 60’o’s sixties. So, I listened to the Mets and Yankees on radio, up in my room. Linsey nelson, bob Murphy and Ralph Kinner were my hero’s, as was Mel Allan, Phil Rizzoto, and the best radio post game show of all time, Howard Cosell, along with big number 13 Ralph Branca, from Mount Vernon. When sports were not on, I listened to the great talk show hosts like Long John Nebel and Barry Gray, Bob Grant and Barry Farber, and the now well known Yankee radio voice John Sterling when he did sports talk with an attitude. I fell in love with radio during those nights with my 8 transistor portable next to the pillow. I was hooked on talk radio, actually radio of all kinds, but talk did it for me.  But to many parents of that time, who grew up during the depression, careers like radio, theater and the movies were to be discouraged as frivolous and lacking in responsibility. You were expected to get as much schooling as possible, and then get a good job, preferably civil service. And the schools of that era advised against broadcasting unless you had a voice like James Earl Jones. Women need not apply at all.

WALL STREET
So I went to Wall Street where my communications skills led to a fine career as a corporate educator, and later, a speech writer and corporate mouthpiece, if you will.  But you know…the bug never left.  When I started in the Merrill Lynch’s customer service department, I would  answer customer calls the way I imagined John Sterling would if he were not on WMCA. John Sterling would respond John Sterling WMCA, hello. In the ensuing years, I would tell people that when I turned 50, or when my daughter was on her own two feet, I would move to the radio, do some writing, and teach. Fortunately for me, the world had changed. The world has changed, many talk show hosts had voices thinner than mine, and got by on content and personality. So, when my Wall street life came to a close at the end of the decade, the millennium, I guess you could say, I went back to school Back to study broadcasting and Journalism.

FRIENDS
That’s where people in this room come in. You can go to school at fifty without at least some people telling you, that you are not crazy. My three best friends in the world, my daughter aside… who could not be here because of distance, and work obligations… are here tonight.  They believed during all those years that I would do this one day, one of them Vince, even worked as my sidekick for one glorious year of night shows on WVOX.  And after I got off to a rocky start on the morning show, I got nothing but encouragement and support to keep at it. These three, Vince, Linda and Ron, share this moment, whatever it means, with me.

WVOX AND NEW ROCHELLE
Now, in this short story, and in my life, this brings us to WVOX, and New Rochelle. Like most people who start in radio, I spent my first few years doing shows here and there, focusing on national issues, and whatever was on my mind. When the morning show opened up, I contacted Don Stevens, whom I had worked for by then off and on for a couple of years, and put my name in the hat. After a number of interviews with him and the man I will talk about next, he finally told me his reservations:  he had listened to my night show and knew my background, and love of politics, but he was worried that I would not take to the local issues, and that I did not seem to care enough about them. Well I didn’t. A part of me, who had worked for a thousand years, knew enough to keep my boss happy and to do what he asked. But another part of me thought that I would wow them with my global knowledge, and that I would just touch on the local issues, as needed. Well, I am extremely grateful, that that is not how it turned out. Don took a big chance on me, and has always been there when I needed a guiding hand, or for that matter, a large sign with the word local on it on those occasions when I drifted off course.  Thank you Don.  

MORNING RADIO AND JOHN HARPER
There is the issue of morning radio, in general.  It is like no other radio one will ever do, or any other show we have on WVOX. And when I started I was terrible…The station assigned John Harper, he is here tonight, to train me. There is no other way to go at this but directly…it’s a bit cheesy, maybe, but its true. I had lived all of my life without a father, and managed to get though my first career without a mentor. Sure I learned different things from different people, but no one ever brought me along and worked with me, or encouraged me, or beat the daylights out of me when I needed, like John. No John-no Bob. It was that simple. And it was hard sometimes, believe me. "Bob, it was awful." he would say. "Bob, you have a week to improve. Bob, I took a shower, and made coffee." There was the  ever popular, "Bob a high school student could do better." or his favorite, "Bob it was unlistenable." and those were the good reviews… and almost every day, for 18 months, I got one of those performance reviews. John, I will always be grateful for what you did. Whatever modest things I have accomplished would never have happened without you. Thank you.  

SUPPORT
And a quick thank you to some people you may not know. Howard Sturhman, who was the first person to introduce me around to the other members of the press…when I was scared out of my wits. The great defense attorney Murray Richman, who gave me confidence just by befriending me. He even introduced me to my favorite movie star, because he knew I liked her. I figured that if he could convince all those juries that someone holding a smoking gun was innocent, that he did not suffer fools very well. And in my twisted math that meant that I was no fool. And a thank you to Kevin Elliott and Sara Caldwell.

MR.O AND WVOX
Now there is not a person in this room who does not know that, at the end of the day, I work for the larger than life, Bill O’Sheaghnessy. 50 years ago, give or take a couple, he bought this beautiful radio station, and turned it into the model for all community radio stations in America. No Mr. O…again…no independently owned station, and no chance of giving a middle aged man with a love of the medium, a chance. I can tell you, as I stand here, he really cannot know how grateful I am.

THE SPOILED PEOPLE OF NEW ROCHELLE
You know, the city of New Rochelle, and the communities around it are spoiled. Because of WVOX, people get to a chance to run their own town debates about anything….whether to move the post office, save the armory, or build a new one; to argue about whether to pick up the garbage twice a week, and bag their own leaves…or just once a week, and leave the bagging to city hall.  They come from all over the sound shore to do shows: Mamaroneck, Larchmont, Yonkers, and Mount Vernon, Greenburgh, Harrison, Rye Brook and Port Chester.  What is best, though, is that this may be the last radio station on earth where the callers are the stars; There is Nudge, and Ken, and Mrs. Green.  There is Frank from Mount Vernon…Charley…and Alex from Mamaroenck.  There is Woody, and the never to be dissuaded Mr. Kamm from New Rochelle.  weve got Joanne from Mount Vernon, who moved to New Rochelle, who calls us from the hospital emergency room whenever she make her all too frequent trips there,, to tell us that she will call again as soon as she gets out.  And then there Rose Marie, who lets us know when the batteries on her radio die out so we can drop off new ones. There is Ken Kraetzer who loves veterans, but still hasn’t figured out that his questions are far longer than any answer will ever be. And Anthony Galleta, who moved away but can’t stay away, and prepares for his calls the the way airline pilots prepare for take-off.  When I meet these people it’s like meeting a celebrity. These local people, and yourselves, who love this city, and radio station, may not know what we in the business know. There is no place quite like it.  

WRAP/LOCAL VENEUS/INTEGRATED CITY
Indeed, it is the callers, and the other local parts of the job that defined how it turned out for me.  I have been shot during a simulated crime scene at police heasdquarters, soaked during the 2007 floods, in Mamaroneck, and Rye, and here in town. I've Been to dog runs, fires, daffodil festivals, debates, hospital wing openings, nature centers, and land mark dedications, building dedications, and courtrooms. I have stayed up all night interviewing runners for cancer, Run myself for diabetes, along with a rooster…really, and a micrphe.…and walked for ALS in Yonkers. Twice now I have frozen off body parts I did not know I had, during first night events in the heart of downtown on new years eve. And there are the people: Mayor Bramson, Rabbi Wohl, Benie Giles, the folks at the New Rochelle bar association. Judge Preston Shur who found out that the Bob Marrone who interviewed him on Monday was the Robert Marrone who stood before him on Friday, during one  of my regular parking ticket pleas. I don’t know where to stop. I just know that Don Stevens and John Harper were right, what is local is what is most important, and what has given me the most joy.  This city is the most inclusive place I know. I mean where else can the head Rabbi, have an Italian secretary, who invites over priests, ministers and other Rabbi’s for inter religious meetings. Or where else does Christmas not get underway, until the Rabbi sings, in this case Rosenscrantz. Thank you for sharing your city with me, and thank you for this award,  I am lucky dreams do come true, and sometimes, the dreamscape is local, indeed.