Thread: New Old guy from Pittsburgh

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[QUOTE=Pat Monaco]
"I'll never forget that back then a scattered shield was required for NHRA. First time I ever raced I had to borrow a blanket to wrap around my tranny. Boy things have changed."

The first time we went to a race requiring a scattershield (1/8"steel) we stupidly got cute and found a piece of aluminum and formed it around a big piece of sewer pipe and bolted it in, then brushed on a few coats of thick black paint. It passed the inspector (who probably assumed that ANYBODY would be smart enough not to try that ..... WRONG!) and nobody knew the difference. I'm pretty sure that even I would have known the difference if the clutch had let go.

We made a decent part before the next race.

Here's a blast from the past for you Pittsburgh guys. How many of you grew up listening to Porky Chedwick on WAMO radio............the " Daddio on the Raddio"? In those days all the white stations were pretty tame, but WAMO was a black music station and played the good stuff.

For years I thought Porky was black, but I was in a Rock group and we did some record hops for him and I was surprised to see he was a white guy. I'll bet Porky is no longer with us, because that was in the late '50's early ''60's.

His music was stuff like the Coasters, and all that great stuff that is now mainstream. He was our Wolfman Jack.

Don

In 1969 I was stationed in Adak Alaska with a guy from Mount Lebanon Pa. He used to keep me entertained with stories about Porky Chedwick. When I went to Pittsburgh in 1970 to attend PIA to be an A&P mechanic I was eagerly looking forward to hearing the "daddio"of the radio". Sadly he was no longer on the air. WAMO was though. I did purchase a CD off of e-Bay that has recordings of his radio shows. I listen to it quite often. To the best of my knowledge the "Porkster" is still alive? Their was a website at one time that kept up on the "Porkster's" present day activities. Not sure if it's still active or not? Thanks for the memories.

runner59: Thanks for reminding me about looking him up on Google, I am not the most computer savvy person, so I rarely think about the things you can find there.

I pulled up a website about him, and it looks like he is still alive, or at least was at the beginning of this year. It said he turned 88 in Feb 06, and is still doing a show one day a week. The article was long and very detailed, but I read every word, as it brought back things I had even forgotten.

From '61 to about '64 I played sax for various local groups, and we did some of Porky's sock hops around the area. He loved to scream over our songs, especially saying "blow that horn, blow that horn" when a sax solo came up. The article brought that out, and I had forgotten about it. He was a real showman.

One other thing I remember about doing his gigs is that he always paid us at the end of the night. Some of the other DJ's would promise us a certain rate per man to show up, then try to tell us the turnout was less than expected, and pay us less. Porky never did that.

Small world, huh. There you were in Alaska listening to stories about the Bossman. Cool.


Don