Billboard recently named Daniel Powter’s Bad Day as the One Hit Wonder of the Decade which got me to thinking about some of the other great one hit wonders in music history, some of which we play on the Mountain, others that I just have always liked. On the Mountain you will hear The Standells with Dirty Water, Amboy Dukes and Journey to the Center of the Mind, Thunderclap Newman and Something in the Air all from the 60’s. Jumping ahead and not necessarily on the Mountain but one’s I have always like Hot Butter with Popcorn, Mungo Jerry and In the Summertime, Billy Swan’s I Can Help, Paper Lace The Night Chicago Died and who can forget The Hustle by Van McCoy. Now that you have that song stuck in your mind….do you know who Daniel Powter is?

I know I talk a lot about this on the air, but I want to point out that in this post-holiday bleak depressive atmosphere, each day has about 2 minutes more daylight. That’s kind of the reason we celebrate Christmas when we do, because it’s only a few days after the Winter Solstice, at which time the sun appears for the least amount of time in the sky. Then, every day after that, two more minutes (or so). So that in a months’ time it’ll get dark at, like, 5:30 rather than 4:30. I know it’s not much, but it is something to hold on to.

Then, each week, there’s more light. Notice I didn’t say sunlight, because here in Northeast Pennsylvania we don’t have that kind of thing from November to March. Late March. One year I decided to go to Florida in late March…for a working vacation, for about five days. The best thing wasn’t the warm temperatures, or the fact that I was able to swim in the ocean (although that was pretty cool), it was the fact that it was sunny all the time. Really…getting off the plane, and standing in the sun, waiting for the car rental guy, I pulled up my sleeves to catch more sun on my skin. Bet they all knew I was a snowbird. Well tough.

I was once married to a first generation Amercain-Norwegian, and all his father’s siblings and relatives were still in Norway. These people have no sense of humor from November to March. Everything is gloomy, and if you make a joke they turn that gloom on you. In the summer, on the other hand, they get kind of crazy and violent. Too much sun, they say. Does this mean I’m promoting sun worship? Damn right! When it is sunny, go stand in the window and soak up as much as you can. They say it’ll improve your mood. You don’t even have to go outside, although that helps too.

I caught a promo the other night for a holiday show and yelled out to my 7 year old that Rudolph would be on Wednesday night. In a strange twist of reality it seemed I was more excited about the show than he was as he kept on playing the Xbox 360. It seems everyone has a Christmas special these days but the old ones still stand the test of time. I am sure Jim Carey was a fine Grinch but Boris Karloff will always be the best Grinch in my mind and who can forget that awful tree that Charlie Brown finds for the school play. I think people, including adults, find comfort in these old holiday shows as they reconnect us to a simpler time and place. One of my biggest childhood thrills was getting to meet Burl Ives and I remember saying to him….you made a great snowman. All together now, Silver and Gold, Silver and Gold…..

There is a liner on the Mountain that goes something like “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Funny how those things we thought were tough become the good old days with the passage of time. Case in point, the other day I had a chance to see a former co-worker, Dave Jones, who I spent 8 years with at WYOU back in the 80’s. That was when WYOU had a news department and we were fighting to crawl out of last place in the ratings. At the time we thought it was tough, doing battle with the mighty WNEP who had twice the staff, all the cool news toys and was number one in news. We tried our best, invested in expanding the news, building bureaus in Wilkes Barre and Williamsport, doing the High School Football Game of the Week, a lot of hard work that never really paid off in the ratings. At the time we all thought it was hell trying to knock WNEP off that ratings perch. But the other day, with the passage of two decades, David and I agreed they were the good old days in the news business.