Life Behind the Camera

By Chuck Quinzio

Publishing History

Trade paperback edition/November 2013

Published in the Unites States by

Eckhartz Press

Chicago, Illinois

Cover and Interior Design by Vasil Nazar

Photos from the personal collection of Chuck Quinzio

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

eISBN: 978-0-9894029-5-8

v1.0

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CopyrightPage

Praise

Dedication

Note

Prologue

Chapter 1 - The Nuns, The Stones, The Future

Chapter 2 - Days of Radio

Chapter 3 - Suddenly a Cameraman

Chapter 4 - Time to Leave

Chapter 5 - Hello, Chi-Town

Chapter 6 - Life, Death and Swingers

Chapter 7 - A Made Man and The Big City

Chapter 8 - An Education in Life

Chapter 9 - Nasty Pictures

Chapter 10 - A Man of the Night

Chapter 11 - The Times Are A-Changing

Chapter 12 - Goodbye Frank, Hello Small Towns

Chapter 13 - The Farmer and Harold

Chapter 14 - Death and Cheating Death

Chapter 15 - Stories of Days Gone By

Chapter 16 - The End is Near, The End is Here

Chapter 17 - A New Era Begins

Chapter 18 - The King of Pop

Chapter 19 - The Clown and the Corpse

Chapter 20 - Your News Sucks

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Publisher Page

Praise for LIFE BEHIND THE CAMERA

This is a must-read for anyone interested in learning about the world of TV journalism - as seen through the eyes (and lens!) of Chuck Quinzio - one of the best in the business. Reading Chuck’s many stories - well-spiced with his terrific dry wit - is a great way to discover how television photojournalism has evolved from the 1980s to the present day. That said, Chuck’s often-hilarious tales about the foibles of the true characters he’s encountered these past three decades makes for wonderful reading.

— Bill Zwecker, Fox 32 News (WFLD-TV), Chicago Sun-Times

Anyone in broadcasting will be fascinated by Chuck Quinzio’s TV and Radio adventures. I thought I had heard Chuck’s best stories during my time working with him in the TV news business, but he saved the best for this book! His writing talent makes it a great read for everybody.

— Bob Sirott, WGN

Dedication

I’d like to dedicate this book to everyone who has carried a camera in the great city of Chicago past and present. Although we compete, we are friends.

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

Everything that happened in this book is true, but some things might not be so true. They are true to my memory. Some names and places have been changed to protect the innocent (as well as the guilty).

March 5, 1993

I can still see the young Hispanic man with the gunshot wound to his chest, and I can still hear him struggling to breathe. I can hear the faint sound of gunfire and wailing police sirens in the distance; an unwanted Fourth of July atmosphere in this extremely violent part of Chicago.

I remember every detail vividly.

The kid fought harder and harder to breathe, and the sounds he was making got louder and louder. He was heavily tattooed, wore gang colors, couldn’t have been more than a teenager, and was dying on the very streets that raised him. It struck me that there was no visible blood, just burn marks on his shirt outlining the hole in his chest cavity.

I had never experienced anything like this before, so my initial reaction was to get him some help, but as time passed, my safety– and the safety of the officers with me– became my main concern. We were in a dark alley. The shooter was still out there. The only illumination I had to videotape this kid’s last moments came from the fluorescent glow of a streetlamp. He was moving his legs side to side, slowly losing his battle to stay alive.

One of the officers took off, heading toward a pitch-black gangway in the hope of finding the shooter. I stayed behind with his partner and the victim. The gunshots, although distant, were all around us, and I could tell it was starting to unnerve the hardened street-savvy officer with me.

“Shut off the fucking camera right now! Get low–get on your knees!”

My heart was beating through my chest. I was anxious, waiting for the police backup that hadn’t yet arrived. I just stood there, documenting a struggle for survival.

“Get down, Goddamn it!” The officer snapped. “Get low! Do you want to get your head blown off?”

I fell to a knee and lowered the camera. The kid’s breathing got louder and louder. It was becoming obvious that it wouldn’t be long before we attracted unwanted company, so the officer put his hand on the boy’s throat.

“I’m not going to die because of a street piece of shit like you,” he whispered. “The shooter is still out there, and we can’t see him. Shut the fuck up. You’re giving us away.”

The young man’s eyes began tearing, and it looked like he was coming to terms with his fate. He stopped blinking, and stared up to the darkened heavens. For a moment, he was quiet, but then he started breathing at a very rapid pace. The officer jumped to his feet, gun drawn, looking in different directions to make sure no one was coming our way.

Officer “Tough Guy” was scared shitless.

Reality was setting in for me too. Sirens that were once in the distance were now getting closer, but it wasn’t much of a comfort yet. There was too much potential for any one of us to fall victim to a killer we might never see.

“Rick, don’t shoot; it’s me,” cried the voice of the second officer. “I can’t find the shooter.”

My jumpy companion lowered his gun. The sirens were getting closer. The sound echoed off the garages that lined the alley. It gave us a newfound sense of hope that we would be all right, that our backup was finally arriving. The second officer made it over to us and knelt down. We both looked at the young man, who was now barely breathing at all. We watched his eyes as they danced back and forth, studying each one of us.

I looked for some sense of order in those fleeting moments. Should I put my obligation to my job first by covering the story, or should I focus on just surviving this chaotic situation? My career had always been about getting “that shot.” “That shot” makes the story. “That shot” defines one’s career.

But the dying man’s eyes paralyzed me.

I didn’t have the heart to put the camera in his face.

CHAPTER 1

THE NUNS, THE STONES, THE FUTURE

I was born in a rural Midwestern town with less than twenty thousand people. As someone blessed with nothing more than a limited amount of common sense and a healthy imagination, I took each day as it came. I armed myself with the only thing that made me acceptable to my peers and gave me comfort: the ability to laugh and to make others do the same.

Unfortunately, because I attended Catholic school, I was also taught at an early age that if you crossed paths with the unholy, you could be condemned to a life of eternal damnation. For a young boy, that was a lot to wrap your head around. If you disobeyed a rule or two or even stretched the truth, you could fry in hell. The nuns used that ticket to hell as their ace in the hole to keep me in constant check.

Their beady eyes would peer into my soul as I sat in my small wooden desk. I was steadfast in my mission to avoid eye contact with these penguin lookalikes, always wringing their hands and flashing their wedding rings, symbols displaying their marriage to God.

One day I witnessed one of them come up behind a friend of mine who was reading a book at his desk. She struck him on the side of the head with a blow so hard it knocked him out of the chair and onto the floor. My groggy and disoriented buddy took a few minutes to regain his composure and get settled back in his seat.

The class nicknamed this particular nun after the great Detroit Tigers southpaw pitcher Mickey Lolich. Sister Lolich was also a lefty with a lightning fast pick-off move. It always worked the same way. First, she would finish writing on the chalkboard. Next, she would set the chalk into the tray. She would then grab an eraser (the kind with the heavy plastic on one side), and–with a sneaky fast move any major league pitcher would envy–she would smack her target with pinpoint accuracy.

One day my friend Patrick, a previously convicted wise ass, was the intended target of the Lolich eraser of death. Sister Lolich had been monitoring his spitball-throwing antics and multiple obscene gestures all day and was just waiting for the right moment to pounce. Lolich knew the approximate distance of her intended target at all times.

But on this day and in this place she underestimated Patrick’s cat-like reflexes. He followed her hand movements and picked up the flight of the eraser as it burst like a missile from the dark background of her vestments. Summoning all the concentration of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Patrick was now one with the projectile. At the last possible second, he shifted slightly to his left and successfully avoided the missile.

But it didn’t exactly fall harmlessly to the ground. The high-speed eraser crashed into Karen Donnelly’s nose instead. The impact was so great it shattered her cat-eyeglasses, snapped her body backward, rendered her limp, and left Karen face down on her blood-soaked book report on mold spores.

It was over. Sister Lolich had missed her target for the first time in her disturbingly sadistic teaching career.

We were stunned; the greatest of all time had missed her mark. But she didn’t take defeat lightly. As she reluctantly helped Karen to the school nurse, Lolich offered nothing remotely close to an apology. Karen was openly sobbing, but not a smidgen of compassion came across Lolich’s round wrinkled, weathered face.

Within an hour, Lolich evened the score by laying a cheap shot on Patrick; showing the entire class what Christian spirit was all about.

That night at the dinner table I told the story of Patrick’s misfortune to my parents. My mother, slowly chewing her dinner, paused and answered me with a serious look.

“Sounds to me he had it coming,” Mom said.

It was at that moment I realized I had no allies in the war against the nuns. Even my own parents feared these so-called messengers of God.

* * * * *

President Kennedy had just been assassinated when the Beatles invaded America with their music and sense of fashion. I was one of God’s soldiers. The Beatles or anyone like them were considered devils on earth to the nuns, yet The Ed Sullivan Show brought them into our living rooms on a Sunday night. After I witnessed their first American performance on our black and white Philco television set, I was blown away.

Evidently, the nuns watched the same thing that night in their nun lair because the next afternoon the class was ordered by our Christian overseers never to watch the Beatles again. They sent letters to all of our parents and ordered them to ban The Ed Sullivan Show from our homes. The most exciting thing I’d seen since I was old enough to realize I was condemned to this small town was being taken away!

According to the nuns, rock and roll music brought the evils of drugs and sex into the world. As I look back at it now, I find it ironic that a group of forty and fifty-year-old women preached so strongly against two things they never experienced. But then one Friday, a miracle happened. The principal, the oldest and nastiest nun of all of them, got on the school’s public address system and announced that she was sending home a letter to our parents asking them to watch The Ed Sullivan Show with us on the upcoming Sunday night.

According to her, the Beatles were making a return performance, and Sister wanted our parents to be proactive and explain first-hand how negative these young men from England were.

My classmates and I were elated. We cheered in our little Catholic hearts and minds, until she pissed on our parade with a final scary closing announcement.

“God’s judgment is swift and final on those who sin or follow those who sin,” she said.

Sunday night came, and my family and I huddled around the television as we were instructed to do. My parents looked nervous and unsure. Ed Sullivan opened the show, and you could have heard a pin drop in my house. But the head nun had gotten the wrong information. The musical guests were from England, but they weren’t the Beatles. Before we knew it, Ed introduced the Rolling Stones, and my living room quickly went from apprehension to sheer fear as Mick Jagger lunged to-ward the camera and sang an up-tempo version of “Let’s Spend The Night Together.” The Stones were thugs, and they were singing about banging chicks on national television. I kept one eye on my parents, while the other watched Jagger’s spastic movements. He was shaking his hips and strutting around the stage. The women were going wild in the audience.

I remember one shot of Ed Sullivan wringing his hands and smiling off-stage. I glanced at my mother who was sitting in a dimly lit corner. She was obviously being consumed by fear. When the Stones ended their song, it was like a tornado had blown through my house. The television was shut off and not a word was spoken.

That’s the night I realized there was an entire world out there. A world had been dropped right into my lap by television, showing me the awesome potential of the medium.

I also came to another conclusion. If the nuns were insinuating that listening to rock music would send me straight to hell, then those nuns could take their beliefs and kiss my grade school ass.

* * * * *

Catholic school was a constant struggle for me. It demanded discipline I didn’t have. As hard as I tried, I just never found my comfort zone with the system or the people who ran it. In fifth grade, the church recruited all the boys to become altar servers. This was something I had very little desire to do, but with some healthy prodding from friends and my mother, I signed up anyway.

We worked with Father Armstrong, who was an overweight, jolly kind of guy. Father was always polite around our parents, but a real prick to the altar servers. Today, if the good father was still around, he’d be the poster child for priest abuse. He even looked the part: bald up top with long hair on the sides, squinty shifty eyes, and terminal bad breath. But the thing that really shocked us about him was that Father Armstrong cursed when things didn’t go his way.

When this servant of God would say “Shit” or even worse, “Goddamn it,” it would stop me cold. I tried to subtly report this unsavory part of his personality to my mother, and again, I was greeted with a fair amount of skepticism.

“You must have misunderstood him,” she replied. “Priests don’t curse.”

My altar-serving career came damn close to a screeching halt one Sunday morning when I wore gym shoes in church. When I put on my black and white vestments, I thought I looked sharp. My shoes were black and white, too. Everything matched. I walked out onto the altar to light the candles before mass started, genuflected, made the sign of the cross, and made eye contact with a buddy of mine in the front row, who discreetly gave me the finger. I lit the candles, genuflected again, headed into the back room, and was greeted with Father Armstrong’s wrath.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” he screamed. “Willis Reed? You don’t wear gym shoes to serve mass. EVER!”

There was nothing I could say. He was parading around like a madman. The veins in his forehead looked like they were ready to burst. But this time was different. This outburst was in front of another altar server, who was equally stunned. This time his screaming voice was so loud that most of the people in the church heard him too.

On my walk home, I was confused. How can we put these people on a pedestal when they display behavior like that? As soon as I walked into my house, my mother greeted me. We had a few minutes of small talk, then she admitted she heard the whole thing.

“I’ll stand by you,” she said, “if you want to quit serving.”

I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I quit and surrender, or should I tough it out? I chose the latter. In a weird way, I’m glad I did, because by sticking with it, I gained exposure to some more of life’s twists and turns.

Part of our duties as altar boys was to serve at weddings and funerals. The most moving thing I witnessed in my young life was watching a man who carried the casket of his newborn son from the hearse through the crowded church, up to the front of the altar. The boy was only a week old when he died. That father’s strength and vulnerability mesmerized me. As he knelt in that church, with all eyes seemingly fixed on him, it looked as if he was watching part of himself being eulogized, as if he too was being buried. When the service was over, he thanked each one of the servers for our compassion and our time. I could barely acknowledge him. I had never before been confronted with death. It was when I began to understand how fleeting life could be.

* * * * *

I wasn’t what you’d call an academic achiever. I’m pretty sure my family’s phone number was the most frequently dialed number in the history of the school. Instead of paying attention to my instructors, I was partial to entertaining my neighbors. The nuns told my parents that they were praying for me, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

In retrospect, I think I had ADD or ADHD or another learning disability that hadn’t been discovered yet. I wasn’t a good student, and I didn’t meet their expectations. After-school detention was my second home. Thanks to my big mouth, I got a lifetime of experience washing chalkboards and emptying trashcans. One day I felt tired of spending my after-school time confined to a classroom, so I confronted the nun who was watching after our small band of after-school delinquents.

“My mother is very pregnant, and my father is working late,” I told her. “I really need to get home to be with Mom just in case the baby decides to make an early appearance.”

This got her attention.

“Hurry home,” she said, “and by all means, help your mother. Tell her my thoughts are with her. Go with God.”

I immediately realized I should have played that card years sooner. Just like that I was freed from my captivity. Of course, the only problem with this story was that my mother was not pregnant, but nevertheless, it was a great scam! I had played the concerned son and had given the false illusion of being a good Christian servant at the same time. It was perfect!

The next day every nun in the school either smiled at me or said hello. The principal even patted me on the head and told me to have a great day. In class I followed my usual routine, but this time when I was laughing and joking, nothing happened. The teacher turned a blind eye. I had beaten the system. I was invincible. The girls smiled at me. The tough guys stood aside as I passed. I had found the kryptonite to bring them all to their knees. The nuns were helpless against my powers.

On the walk home, I smelled the flowers and the fresh cut grass. The birds were chirping a peaceful song on a perfect cloudless day, and I felt like a million bucks. When I got home, I sat happy and peaceful in front of the television set. It was sheer euphoria until my mother let out a shrill scream.

“Pete! Come here quick.”

I’d never seen my father move so fast in my life. He ran into the living room.

“What does this mean?” he asked my mother. “What are they doing here?”

I peered around the corner and gingerly walked toward my parents. When I saw what they were looking at, I stopped cold.

“What have you done now?” my mother asked. “Why are they here?”

I couldn’t breathe. A carful of nuns were slowly exiting like circus clowns exiting a mini clown car. There seemed to be an endless line of them coming up our drive, penguin lookalikes armed to the teeth with cakes, pies, and cookies. I felt light-headed, and my body went limp.

My once brilliant scheme was unraveling before my eyes. I needed an exit plan. My mother was red-faced and scared to death. She demanded an answer from me, something I had no intention of delivering, so I ran and hid in my room instead.

In a trembling voice my mother asked my father to answer the door. He declined.

“You wanted to send him to that school. This is your pay off.”

From my room I heard the door open and a voice told my mother that all the nuns had baked something for her, figuring it would help her in her delicate state. When my mother opened the door further, she revealed my secret. She was not with child. Mom asked what they were talking about, and the black and white army explained. My mother screamed my name, but I was now under the bed. She yelled for me again. I tightened my grip on the shag carpet, cowering on the floor of my room. “Forget it,” I heard one of the nuns say. “He’s a lost cause.”

They took their baked goods with them, left the porch in a single file line, and wedged themselves back into their clown car.

I stayed under that bed for quite a while. I was expecting to be flushed out by my mother, but no one came for me. Eventually I decided to accept the consequences. I crawled out from under my hiding place and entered the living room. My mother and father were sitting on the couch.

My father got up and stepped toward me. Fearing a series of blows to the head and torso I froze, but the blows never came. He just passed by and gave me a half smile. My mother was ashen and lifeless. As I got closer, she turned her eyes to mine.

“You know you’re killing me, don’t you?”

“I know,” I replied.

She slowly forged a smile. She understood me. Through all the trouble I caused her, she was a true mother. No matter what hell her child repeatedly rained down upon on her, she loved me.

* * * * *

On the final day of eighth grade, the principal announced a special going-away present for the graduating class. She introduced Mike Santarea, the school janitor and a long-time suspected illegal immigrant.

“Mike is going to serenade us with some traditional Mexican folk songs.”

We were so stunned that he had more talents than cleaning up our vomit and urine that we gave him a stirring round of applause. He adjusted himself on a stool, and he let out a good size belch. Those of us lucky enough to have a front row seat on that Thursday morning were the first to notice the janitor was shit-faced. He also didn’t speak a lick of English. We knew we were in for a hell of a show.

Mike started to strum his guitar. He played for about a minute, just strumming a peaceful little melody, and he wasn’t half bad. Mike’s guitar was a soundtrack to my thoughts as I scanned the room, looking at the faces of my classmates. These were the only friends I’d ever known. My thoughts drifted to the birthday parties, the sporting events, the laughter, and the tears. I was starting to feel sad that this would be the last time I’d ever see some of these people.

But then Mike started to sing.

He had his eyes closed, and words to what I assumed was a love song of some kind started pouring out of him. His voice was way off key, his movements were roughly the same as those of someone having a grand mal seizure, and the more he got into the groove, the worse he sounded. Not one soul in that room understood Spanish.

As he reached his big finish, Mike appeared to be either losing his motor skills or possibly going headlong into stroke mode. He was strumming the guitar with a vengeance and was heading for his big finale when he suddenly lifted his left butt cheek off the stool and cut a fart. As the room became saturated with the scent of refried beans, I gave one last parting glance to each of my classmates. No one returned the look.

I thought to myself, “What a fitting way to close out my Catholic school days.”

CHAPTER 2

DAYS OF RADIO

I quickly adapted to the feeling of freedom you get in public high school. There were no nuns, no eyes following your every move. I do admit to hyperventilating in science class when they showed a documentary on penguins, but for the most part, I was over the fear. High school was the time you were supposed to get serious about your future and start laying the groundwork for college.

While most students even at that young age had some idea of what they wanted to do for a career, I spent my time fabricating a fake I.D. to buy beer for my friends and me. Class work just wasn’t my forte. Again, I felt slowed down by ADD or ADHD, but an English teacher put it all into perspective for me. One day when I screwed up one of his tests, I got his diagnosis.

“You’re mildly retarded,” he said.

Although he was joking, I do remember thinking that maybe something was actually short circuited in my brain. Why didn’t I have the drive or desire to become a doctor, lawyer, stockbroker, or banker? Hanging out was my pastime until I went with a friend to the local radio station one day. His mother sent him to give them some information about a charity event. It was a small station located above a Laundromat, and it wasn’t too impressive from the street, but to me the inside was fascinating.

There were a bunch of different studios, mountains of records, albums, and 45s stacked everywhere, and I’ll never forget that wonderful stereo-equipment smell. The sights and the smells of the place drew me in until another smell overpowered everything. That unmistakable cigar smell was coming from the back studio where the afternoon DJ was hosting his show. TC was his name, and playing Central Illinois’ favorite rock music was his game.

He had a full Afro, a handlebar mustache, a velvet shirt, cheap jeans, and a two-dollar cigar. I had witnessed the power of television and how it brought the world into your home, and now I was witnessing the inner workings of a radio station. I was intrigued.

The station manager introduced himself and said we could come back anytime to just hang out if we liked. My friend declined, but I jumped at the opportunity. As often as I could, I’d ride my bike to the station and just kill time. I became a fixture around there, and everyone went out of his or her way to be friendly. TC let me run the soundboard for him while he took phone calls from some of his small town groupies.

Horny housewives and strippers from a nearby men’s club were frequent visitors to the station, and TC used me as his buffer. I’d greet them in the reception area whenever a new one stopped by. I would entertain them while TC snuck a peek from another room. If they met his expectations, they got the studio tour, which usually ended with some form of sex act in the restroom. If they didn’t pass the first glance test, I was the bearer of bad news, and they were asked to leave.

As time went on my duties increased. I was a gopher for the DJs. My primary functions were making coffee runs and answering mail. I wasn’t paid in money. I was paid in music. When new albums from record companies were sent to the station they often sent duplicates, and I got the extras. I had the most extensive album collection in the whole town.

One day the owner was there, and he was in an extremely agitated mood. The guy who did play-by-play for the little league playoff broadcast had quit without any notice, leaving the station in the lurch. Now the owner was going to have to announce the games himself, and he asked me if I’d like to come along and be his color man. I didn’t have a lick of experience, but I was excited at the prospect of being on the air. I jumped at the chance. Besides, I figured if I screwed up, who the hell was listening to little league playoffs anyway?

When the game started, I quickly realized my broadcast partner didn’t know shit about baseball. When a kid hit a sacrifice fly, the owner didn’t know how to describe what transpired. I took over. After a while, I was doing the play-by-play and he was doing the color. Eventually, he let me carry the whole broadcast while he just read commercials. On the ride home he thanked me for a job well done. He handed me forty dollars, then, out of the blue, made an announcement.

“I’m going to shut down the radio station, and sell the rights to the transmitter so someone else can use it,” he said. “I’m tired of radio.”

Of all the luck! My broadcasting career started and ended on the same day!

The next couple of months were bad. The lucky DJs got other radio jobs. The not-as-lucky took civilian gigs. TC’s stable of women vanished overnight. It seemed even the strippers and wayward housewives wanted a guy with some kind of future. After the last broadcast, we stole as much stuff as we could carry. They locked the door behind us, and that was it.

The next week the station was a State Farm Insurance office.

* * * * *

In college, I took basic classes. I quickly got used to the freedom of being away. I was most comfortable partying and doing late night barhopping. I declared psychology as my major. That was laughable because most of it went right over my head. Looking back now, had I followed through with that major, I’m sure I would have been my own best patient.

Communications seemed the easy choice for a rebound major, so I gravitated to something familiar, the school radio station. I took some writing classes and studied to get my first class FCC license. Doing afternoon drive radio was very comfortable for me. I never ran out of things to say, and I always played good music. Even though having a small following was kind of exciting, I kept remembering the jocks in my hometown like TC and how they didn’t make shit. One in ten million seemed to get any notoriety, and the idea of hopping from town to town, station to station really didn’t settle too well with me. But radio made me happy, and it gave me one hell of a record collection.

I graduated in May of 1981 with really only one option; to set the world of radio on its ear. I was going to be the next Howard Stern, before there was a Howard Stern. The cassette tape of my finest moments as a FM drive time DJ from the school station was sure to do that.

My tape consisted of brilliantly crafted intros and outs, commercial spots that were read with energy and exuberance, and that famous witty banter that once cultivated quite a following amongst my fellow students. Radio seemed a natural fit. All I had to do was just be me, charming with the right amount of bullshit.

The first opening I applied for was in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, a small resort town between Chicago and Milwaukee. Lake Geneva was a place where wealthy Chicagoans had summer homes, perfect for a guy who didn’t have two nickels to rub together. The trade magazine ad was for a DJ, afternoon drive, Monday through Friday. I had an unjustified confidence in my heart of hearts that the phone would ring, and off I’d go. I wasn’t surprised at all when the station manager called.

I pulled into town on a warm summer morning. I scanned the radio dial, found my future station, and I cranked it. “Sweet Emotion” by Aerosmith blasted from the speakers of my 1974 Chevy Impala. It wasn’t long before I came upon a huge antenna that loomed over a little brick building.