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THE REVELATION

    After six weeks into School News/Philadelphia I made a startling discover and it was totally serendipitous once again.  I had an elementary school teacher on the show (her name and school have long faded - but her impact on my show will always remain in my small grey brain cells as Hercule would say).  This teacher talked about helping kids learn to read and at the end of the five minute show she mentioned "mimeographed" pamphlet that she had produced that parents could use to test their kid's reading levels and it could help in deciding if they should seek assistance from their school.   She offered this to our invisible audience and I closed the show mentioning my office phone number as a way to get the give-away - "call this number and we will send you this great reading tool...etc.  I thanked my her and went to my closet/office. And then the revelation hit me like a bolt from Olympus.
    The community wall phone near to my makeshift office was ringing.  One of the TV teachers yelled out her door, "Calvin - It hasn't stopped ring for 10 minutes."   I answered and it was a parent who requested the booklet.  I took her name and address and hung up. Ring.  Another request. Ring.  Another - and this continued for over an hour.  After over 100 requests, I had to stop and go to another school.  Finally our switchboard receptionist made the line "busy".  
    I called the teacher at the end of the day and explained what happen and she volunteered to take the lists and the school office would do the mailings - this was a relief as I had no staff or stamps to fulfill these requests.  More requests came in every day for over that week.  The District's PR office got the news about this and produced a press release about this teacher's "ground breaking" work and the District took over the distribution of thousands of requests.  After this remarkable revelation - I (and my boss) realized that there were a ton of parents watching this little show and the audience was growing.
    I was revisited nervousness again on my next show.  And to my surprise  the WHYY staff at the station changed overnight - they had heard the word from the telephone operator I supposed and now all involved were much more concerned with the production values, lighting and director Tim recommended that I start wearing makeup every morning!  I bought some new sport jackets that day at Wanamaker's - they cost me a fortune but that's show business.
    And on the next show I now felt the audience as I looked into the black circle of the camera lens.  I  knew the power I had, at least for five minutes a day and it was intoxicating.  
    And this feeling lasted - for twenty years of producing that was to come for me.

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