Last of the Last

They called the Center ‘Camelot.’ That golden period between its inception in 1969 through most of the 1970s when there seemed to be no cap on money available and the innovative ideas just kept blossoming each and every day. It was the introduction of adventurous, entertaining, and informative television over the relatively new public broadcasting medium.

I was part of the adventure for roughly five years before succumbing to the siren call of the North luring me home. Back then, programming at the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting was fresh, innovative and a wonderful experience to produce. Hodge Podge Lodge and Consumer Survival Kit were just some of the many new approaches to great informational/entertaining television.

Those memories all came tumbling back when I read about the last remaining staff member from that period finally retiring. George Beneman was a director when I was there. He recently retired as Senior Vice President/Chief Technology Officer.  My, how the time has flown. That period of the Seventies was followed by forty plus decades of solid production work done at the Center.

Years after I left, I returned to my old Maryland stumping grounds to revisit some of the old familiar haunts. Davis’ pub in Eastport, Annapolis reminds me of what the Bohemian Flats must have been like on the West Bank of Minneapolis back in the ‘40s.The pub has been around since the ‘40s and their clientele hasn’t changed much since then. There are the usual neighborhood relics, a few old watermen, the hangers-on and now the ever-present tourists drawn by concierges and travel blogs.

Like the watermen of old Chesapeake, Davis’ pub remains stuck in the past. Its walls are adorned with fading photographs of tall ships, wooden boats, log canoes and skipjacks. Across the street the intoxicating smell of seaweed, salt air and brine mix with the fresh varnish on a yacht anchored there.

Our first home purchased in Reisterstown, not far from the Center, looks much the same as when we lived there. So too with the inner harbor of Baltimore before Freddy Gray’s shadow darkened its shoreline. New construction has finally painted a delightful façade over the old water place.

Many of my life/career changes started around that time. From 1972 through 1977, I sold programming during the day, wrote Westerns at night and toe-stepped the Chesapeake on weekends. Our family started there and real estate first began to pique my curiosity. It was a most audacious start to something great…the rest of my life.

Back then I had long harbored great fantasies of sailing the bay. A boat ride on our friend’s runabout brought back a rush of old mental images. The air is clearer on the water and there is a nautical language reserved for the fleet of foot and strong of stomach. My friend spoke of new moons and dark skies. He waxed on philosophically about the Orionids, the Leonids, North Taurids and Geminids; all meteor showers reserved for his patch of moonlit sky.

The houses seemed to have gotten bigger and the sea lanes more crowded since our last visit. But the inlets and bays were still nature’s nurseries. The Chesapeake Bay supports more than 2700 species of plants and animals, including 348 species of finfish and 173 species of shellfish. Approximately 284,000 acres of the Chesapeake Bay are tidal wetlands.

The Bay and its tidal tributaries have 11,684 miles of shoreline, more than the entire United States West Coast. Estuarine science and research is relatively young. Only in the last several decades has there been a good understanding of estuaries and fisheries.

My job selling programming was a precursor to my own business ventures born several years later. Our home was the first of a number of real estate investments. Two western novels were written, edited and then shelved for almost forty years before my new career as a writer took off. It was in Maryland where I attempted the JFK Fifty Mile Race but only got twenty-four miles before hypothermia brought me down. That failure propelled me to a lifetime of running.

Our General Manager was a brilliant yet incredibly personable leader. Dr. Frederick Breitenfeld had an enormous influence on my fantasies of becoming a writer. His encouragement gave me the confidence to keep typing forward. He was the best boss I ever had.

It’s come full circle now. Sailing the Chesapeake, revisiting old friends through the MCPB Facebook page and writing as my new moniker to carry. I’d like to believe it all began there when a young sprout came up from Tennessee to test the waters of this fledging television business, tip-toed the bays and inlets and let his imagination sail in the fresh ocean breezes.

It was nice to be home again…if only in my imagination.

The Early Years

Today the fancy word is ‘start up.’ It’s that crazy, chaotic period when time and talent and money are on the line to begin a new venture. Each new generation thinks it’s discovered the holy grail of venture-taking for the first time. Only later, do they discover that established companies, organizations and some individuals all went through this initial period of growth, and for some, their demise.

The early years are usually meant to describe that period when ventures first begin with a clear or at least rudimentary idea of what they want to accomplish. As time passes, reality sets in and the goals and objectives may change or be adjusted or adapted to changing times. It’s during those first baby steps toward establishment that mistakes are made, failures pile up and lessons are learned. From that comes success to some and failure to many others.

This weeding out process can be applied to groups, institutions or individuals equally. If they can get past those first timid steps toward something concrete, an established entity may finally form and only then slowly begin to grow into something much bigger.

I’ve been lucky enough to have experienced two distinct early periods in the evolution of non-commercial television. Twin Cities Public Television and the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting were both evolving and morphing into something greater when I climbed onboard for that proverbial ride of a lifetime.

There are a lot of other examples of those ‘early years’ for organizations and individuals that have been of great interest to me.

Motown, from its beginning until roughly 1964, was a musical cauldron of immense talent and lyrical exploration.  As author David Maraniss wrote in his book about Detroit, ‘Once Upon a Great City.’ “Roughly 1962 to 1964 were the last days of Motown’s magical early period, before the debilitating addictions of success and envy and ambition took hold and things and people began to fall apart.”

MTV (Music Television) in its outstanding series: ‘Behind the Music’ documented many rock bands who struggled for many years, forming a cohesive sound and creating great work, before success ultimately led to their demise or breakup.

The same can be said for individuals and groups from Bob Dylan to the Beatles.

Dinky town, The Ten O’clock scholar, and Café Extempore were all local performance venues for Bob Dylan back in the early 60s. This was before he headed for New York City and his breakthrough recordings with Columbia records. By 1965, he had gone electric and his early years were truly over.

The Beatles started their climb to fame in The Cavern Club, a Liverpool cellar club then graduated to nightclubs in Hamburg, Germany before hooking up Brian Epstein as their manager. Their arrival in 1964, on that Pam Am flight, bound for the Ed Sullivan show officially ended their early years.

Twin Cities Public Television, from roughly 1966 through 1972, was evolving from an educational/instructional television station to becoming an affiliate of the Public Broadcasting System. But that was really its second phase of those ‘early years.’

There was another incubation period from its beginning in 1957 in Quonset huts on the University of Minnesota, St. Paul Campus, until its move to its own building on Como Avenue. During that time, it was almost strictly a broadcasting arm of local schools and colleges with few of their own productions.

When I joined the station as a studio volunteer in the winter of 1967, it was nearing the tail end of its life as an instructional television station. I was fortunate enough to watch and experience the evolution of its own line-up of programming outside of the realm of education and instruction. Entertainment became a seldom talked about but often whispered ingredient we wanted to put in our shows.

I’ve tried to capture that excitement and my own experiences in one of my plays entitled: PTV. It’s an honest, abet a bit exaggerated account, of the craziness of a television station filled with dope-smoking crew members, amorous young women, ambitious young men and the old guard trying hard to hold back the evolution of this new communications medium that was crying out for more… of everything.

After leaving KTCA in the spring of 1972, I went to Chattanooga, Tennessee for eleven months as Production Manager at an educational station down there. Then I was offered a brand new kind of job at a fledgling station up North in Maryland.

That new job was with the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting. Formed in 1969 in downtown Baltimore, MCPB was the state’s first venture into public television. The first fledgling station was located in an outlying suburb called Owings Mills. In its first five years, the station had begun to gain a nationwide reputation for outstanding and innovative programing on a local and national scale.

I was hired as one of the first persons to take the station in an entirely new direction; commercial sales of its television products and services. That early period, from roughly 1969 through most of the 70s, has come to be known affectionately by us old-timers as that Camelot period.

Farewell Party

It was a time of venturing out in new directions with an attitude of ‘we can’t fail.’ We had a brilliant leader by the name of Dr. Rick Breitenfeld. Through his initiative and imagination, the station branched out in dozens of new directions and areas. I found myself negotiating with HBO and other brand new cable systems for sales of our programs. Our program catalog was distributed nationwide and enjoyed sales in most of the fifty states. It was pretty heady stuff.

Those early years are gone now. Both stations have along since matured into solid reliable purveyors of outstanding television programming. I’ve also moved on, but every once in a while, I catch myself thinking back to those early years when we were all young and dumb and full of adventures. I’m very lucky. That’s a nice legacy to fall back upon.

Tides Like Titles Come and Go

Like the old watermen of Saint Mary’s Island, Davis’ pub remains stuck in the past. Its walls are adorned with fading photographs of tall ships, wooden boats, log canoes and skipjacks. Across the street the intoxicating smell of seaweed, salt air and brine mix with the fresh varnish on a yacht anchored nearby.

Davis’ pub in Eastport, Annapolis reminds me of what the Bohemian Flats must have been like on the West Bank of Minneapolis back in the 1940s.The pub has been around since the ‘40s and their clientele hasn’t changed much since then. There are the usual neighborhood relics, a few old watermen, the hangers-on, and now the ever-present tourists drawn by concierges and travel blogs.

As I sat safely ensconced in a corner booth, it was all coming back to me. The dark dank inner harbor of Baltimore before redevelopment brightened its shoreline. My job at the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting in Owings Mills, our first tiny house in Reisterstown and weekend jaunts to the Chesapeake Bay and around the state.

Many of my changes started there. From 1972 through 1977, I sold video programming during the day, wrote out my western adventures at night and toe-stepped the Chesapeake on weekends. Our family started there and real estate first began to pique my curiosity. It was a most audacious start to something great…the rest of my life.

MCPB is celebrating its fifty-year anniversary this summer. Dr. Breitenfeld, as well as so many of the founding fathers, are gone now. What remains is a small cast and crew from those Camelot years.

They’re scattered around the country now, each with their own satchel of memories of that time. Facebook is about the only link many of them have back to that period in the early to mid- 70s when everything was new and venturesome and sometimes scandalous.

Back then I had long harbored great fantasies of sailing the Chesapeake Bay. A boat ride on our friend’s runabout brought back a rush of old mental images. The air is clearer on the water and there is a nautical language reserved for the fleet of foot and strong of stomach. My friend spoke of new moons and dark skies. He waxed on philosophically about the Orionids, the Leonids, North Taurids, and Geminids; all meteor showers reserved for his patch of moonlit sky.

The houses seemed to have gotten bigger and the sea lanes more crowded since our last visit. But the inlets and bays were still nature’s nurseries. The Chesapeake Bay supports more than 2700 species of plants and animals, including 348 species of finfish and 173 species of shellfish. Approximately 284,000 acres of the Chesapeake Bay are tidal wetlands.

The Bay and its tidal tributaries have 11,684 miles of shoreline, more than the entire United States West Coast. Estuarine science and research is relatively young. Only in the last several decades has there been a good understanding of estuaries and fisheries.

Back in the seventies MCPB (Maryland Center for Public Broadcast) was one of the best public television stations in the country. It was my Camelot existence for almost five years.

My job distributing television programming was a precursor to my own business ventures born several years later. Our home was the first of a number of real estate investments. My first published article for The Library Journal kick-started a new focus on writing as a second career. Two western novels were written, edited and then shelved for almost forty years before my new career as a writer finally took off. It was in Maryland where I attempted the JFK Fifty Mile Race on the Appalachian Trail but only got twenty-four miles before hypothermia brought me to my knees. That failure propelled me to a lifetime of running.

At the Maryland Center, our General Manager, Dr. Frederick Breitenfeld was a brilliant yet incredibly personable leader. He had an enormous influence on my fantasies of becoming a writer. I’ve referenced one of his early research papers on educational television in my latest play ‘PTV.’

It’s come full circle now. Sailing the Chesapeake, revisiting old friends through the MCPB Facebook page and writing as my new water pail to carry. I’d like to believe it all began there when a young sprout came up from Tennessee to test the waters of fledging television, tiptoed the bays and inlets, and drew in the fresh ocean breezes.

It was nice to be home again…if only in my imagination.