Curtis B on KOAL '93

It was more fun in the late 1970s.   For one thing, the music was better, way better.

It all came back to me listening to Gino Vanelli's "I just wanna stop".  I know its totally sappy, but to my 16 year old mind growing up in Gillette, Wyoming it conjures up images of what was probably my biggest influence in high school, namely Curtis B.  Curt was always more worldly than the rest of us.  When my other friends were playing Dungeons and Dragons and struggling with football and wrestling, Curt had a gig as a DJ at the local radio station: KOAL.  Yes, he was that cool as a 16 year old.   Well, sort of anyway.   I just checked it out and KOAL is still around as the leading rock station in Gillette, though they now are at the dial on 106.1  FM.   Back then, it was Curtus B on 93.   I remember that part well.

I lived at 110 East Hogeye back then.  To get to the radio station from my home, you had to walk up to the hill which was the highest point in town on the dirt trail which was bounded on one side by the town cemetery and the other by Twin Spruce Junior high.  Then you had to walk past the football practice fields to get to downtown Gillette proper.  From there it was just a hop skip and a jump to the studios at KOAL.  There were many nighttime excursions there.   One of the earliest was with Curt and a pint of Cinnamon Schnapps.   That didn't end well--at least for me.

Curt worked the midnight shift when all the good little workers at the coal mines and oil fields were asleep. Back then, at one or two in the morning, the DJ's could play whatever the fuck they wanted.  That's how I remember it anyway.  Curt liked all the classic rock tracks of the day and crap like Gino Vanelli and Boz Skaggs.  Player's "Baby Come Back."  I think he also liked all the stuff that he thought chicks would appreciate like Gordon Lightfoot and Supertramp.   Maybe even--heaven forbid--Air Supply.   He had his cool streak as well.  I remember one evening we were trying to play all the Led Zeppelin and Rush songs backward listening for demonic messages.   I can't remember if we ever found them.  Curt was also into this band called the "Hawks" which though I didn't know it at the time must have been a blatant copyright infringement of the Eagles.  I think he was the one who started me listening to "The Cars."   He didn't appreciate my Gary Numan.

Curt was always popular with the women as well.   Well, some women anyway.  He considered Polly J. his "ultimate boning idol"--whatever that meant.  He liked women with big tits.  He came up with the concept of the "mobile nightclub."  In retrospect, it was prolly not the best of ideas.  It involved drinking with women while driving around in his big ass american car.   I'm not sure where we got the liquor.  Someone must have had a fake id (It wasn't me:-).) Back then we drank imported beer. Which meant Molson and St. Pauli Girl.  And Bartles and James for the women he was with.

  I'm trying to remember what kind of car he had.  If I were more of a gear head, I would probably remember.  All I remember is that it was as big as a tank, got really crappy gas mileage, and we went all over the greater Gillette metropolitan area with it.  Back then, kids still went "cruising" on weekend nights.

I also remember Curt being involved in a funny episode involving buying condoms.   He went to buy them at the local  Buttrey/Osco grocery drug store.  Back in those days, that would have been an extremely embarrassing thing to do for a teenager.   Supposedly Curt went to the check out lane to pay for them and my mother came in line behind him and started to talk to him.  I can imagine Curt diverting my mom's attention to his purchases with small talk.   It would not be surprising.  Curt was always much better about dealing with adults at the time.   I even went with him to the local school board's meeting to present a case that the high school should get a tennis team--which it did.

I can't remember if Curt was with me and Chuck when we took all the golf carts out at night and were jumping the sand dunes with them.  He probably was.  I seem to remember the police talking to his parents about the event afterwards.   I could be wrong about that.

Curt supposedly lives in Boulder now.  He's undoubtedly still way cooler than me.