Jimmie From JN's

In the dim, dark, distant past when I was working in a department store and was asked by management to do various things outside the norm of what I had ostensibly been hired to do. To explain; when I came home from the Navy, I went to work as a menswear salesman during the Christmas rush and while waiting for college to open up it helped pay some bills. Little did I know at the time that it would become my lifelong career. However, that's a story that has already been told more than once. To get back to the department store and its callings of odd requirements, one of my early jobs was to "hawk" a rather unique men's razor in a booth. In a loud voice I would be shouting the virtues of this forenamed instrument but selling very few of them. There was a time when I was to don a type of rabbit costume and go into the main street window to talk to small children in what I thought to be a rabbits voice. I am sure my very large rabbit head dulled the assumed voice but I could see the little kids smiling and waving and pointing at the Easter Bunny. So, having established myself as somewhat of a nut case, who would do anything to earn a buck, sometime later, I was asked to replace Johnny Corbett. At what, you might ask? Well that's where the title of this piece comes into play. Johnny worked for WBEN, a radio,TV station in Buffalo, N.Y. and had a weekly 15 minute television program in which he extolled the virtues of various store items. It could have been a new iron, a ladies dress the store was promoting or even, possibly, fishing equipment--it could have been anything. He went on vacation for two weeks each year and the program became Jimmie From JN's. You guessed it! I took over. Its like the old commercial "Give it to Mikey". And so for that two week period, I was the personality that became the "star" of the show. Standing there in front of the cameras, I would tout any object left at the studio for my spiel and it was somewhat of a test of my ability to attempt to put any kind of a twist on the object to produce interest. But again, trying to earn a buck and only earning $40 a week, the extra $25, per program, would come in handy. I did this for 2-3 years and never got a raise which may tell you something about my talent although I might emphasize this was only for that two week period Johnny took off. I remember, one time I was closing down the program after reading the sign stating " 3 minutes" after which additional signs would be displayed for me to gradually stop talking. As the "1 minute sign appeared, there was suddenly a flurry of excitement and some one came back with the 3 minute sign which meant, although I, in the act of saying goodbye, now had to fill 3 minutes of conversation to amuse the viewing audience. I never knew whether they did it on purpose to test my recovery capabilities or whether is was a prank but filling three minutes of empty airtime did cause some consternation. However I had done my stint for the required 10 days with a check for $25 per day, when I received a call from Louise in tears and crying. She told me she had an accident with the car and had been told it would cost $250 for the repair(Try getting work done for that these days-Hah!) However, in my best Edward G. Robinson snarl I said "That's O.K. baby, I have a check with the imprint "WBEN Radio and Television" and guess what? Its for $250." Hurrah! Another emergency covered! For maybe the two older people who might wonder who the above mentioned stranger is, he was a popular Hollywood character who made his living playing tough guys. Incidentally, that ended my career as a TV personality but, as I went around doing my regular job as a buyer for Menswear, it was always amusing that so many people recognized Jimmie from JN's.