Posted by Frank D'Elia on March 23, 2000 at 10:29:52:
In Reply to: Bill Epperhart 1948-2000 posted by Ted David on March 22, 2000 at 07:00:01:
Let me start by apologizing to Allan for the length of the following, but when I started I just couldn’t stop.
It seems like I’ve known Bill Epperhart forever, but in reality it’s only been for the last 30 years. We were part of the group along with Ted David, Bill Mozer and a handful of others who put WCWP Radio at the Post Campus back on the air after our own version of 60s campus unrest had shut the place down. Although we broadcast for only a limited time each day, we always seemed to spend all day and much of the night at the radio station. Sometimes we were making funny phone calls to unsuspecting operators or hapless radio DJs, sometimes we were cooking hot dogs by actually plugging them into the wall, but many times we were just sitting around shooting the bull.
A couple of years later, when I was working at WHN and Bill was working 2 blocks down 54th street at WABC with Bill Mozer, we’d often get together for dinner on the 4 to Midnight shift. It seemed like radio was our all-consuming passion in those days and we not only worked in it but we ate, slept, and breathed it. Bill Mozer arranged for Bill and myself to work at WCWP as contract engineers and now we even had an excuse to spend hours each week…before and after our 4-12 shifts...at the radio station. Lunches from the Fireside Deli (roast beef on white with mao, salt and a LARGE ice tea seemed to be the groups favorite order), dinners at the Roslyn Café on nights we weren’t working in the city, and “hanging out” at WCWP was our weekly routine.
After couple of years, Bill had worked out his allotment of NABET Vacation Relief time at WABC and came to work with me at WHN. A year or two later, Bill left WHN to work at NBC and then I left to come to WABC, but we always remained close friends. We always seemed to make time for a couple of dinners a month or a trip to Roosevelt Field or a movie or two. I remember going to Bill's folks’ house for diner and getting to play with his father’s musical toys and he being at my folk’s house for the annual Christmas Tree decorating party. I remember being at his wedding and when his son Danny was born.
In many ways, I owe much of my current life to Bill because it was at a 4th of July party at his house that I met my wife Susie. Susie was a nurse with Bill’s wife and I think getting us together was one of the major sub-plots of the July 3rd, 1977 party (we were in the middle of a summer long NABET strike at WABC so we all had lots of time to kill). Well we hit it off and now 20 years and 3 kids later we’re still going strong, so I guess it was a successful plot!
As the kids grew and family responsibilities became more and more of our life, we didn’t see that much of each other. I guess it was time to grow up and say goodbye to that portion of our life. Over the last 10 or 15 years we’d run into each other here of there or get regards from a mutual friend, but we never got to spend the time together we did when we were in our twenties. I guess you always figure that there’ll be time to renew those relationships sometime down the road, but that’s not always the case.
To say that knowing Bill Epperhart had a profound influence on my life would not be a miss statement. In many ways, we grew up together. We learned things from each other, compared opinions and views on many topics, and had a lot of fun together. There is a small group of us from those early days at WCWP who have managed to make a living these past 30 or so years in a business we loved. We may not see each other a lot, but in our hearts know we will always be friends. Our small group just got a little smaller, and I know that saddens us all.
Farewell Bill…thanks for the memories and the fun. Don’t let the rubes get you down!
FDIII
Frank D’Elia
WABC Radio