Talking To Terri

The setting is Sunday evening; I am in my apartment sipping a steaming mug of tea, listening to music service and writing a piece for one of my freelance jobs.

The e-mail incoming tone sounds and it’s from a friend in Rhode Island who knows my taste in music and radio stations. She is listening, the note says, to George Jonescu on AM740 from Toronto. It’s a real flamethrower of a station, heard in two Provinces and a whole pile of States. She wants me to listen to the radio or online.

“Your friend Terri Blaine is being interviewed,” she says. “It’s really good.” Well, an endorsement like that is something not to be overlooked. If it’s good enough for Ruth, then it’s worth my time. Besides, I own a whole stack of Terri’s recordings and her stuff is quite good. I might even do my music column on her this week.

I turn it on just before a break, as she says something about a person who could be listening, some “Tom in the Poconos.” Huh. There have to be a whole bunch of people named Tom who live in the Poconos. Couldn’t be me. Or could it? I’ll have to give her a call after the show and ask.

So I call and we have a delightful chat. As she was doing a phone-in interview, she had no idea how it sounded, so I assured her it was great and a wonderful job. We hadn’t talked on the phone for ages and traded news about mutual friends and stuff like that. I never did ask about this Tom in the Poconos.