Dateline July 25, 2012, Bath, Maine, and the Radio Guy
We left beautiful Acadia and headed south down the coast of Maine to visit one of Janice's grade school and high school classmates, Bob Bittner, in Bath. Janice had not seen Bob in person since high school. They had reconnected on Facebook a year or two before, and we arrived at the house around noon with a plan for lunch on the porch overlooking the water.
Bob and his wife Raisa moved up from Boston several years ago, bought a substantial piece of acreage right on the water, and immediately renovated the house.
Raisa is an architect, which shows. The great room is amazing, the fireplace is a real piece of work, and the ceilings are spectacular. Unbelievable, really.
Janice and Bob picked up where they had left off and started talking nonstop about old times and old friends. Bob has been in the radio business for the last twenty years and owns Bob Bittner Broadcasting, which runs two AM stations: WJTO, located right on his property here in Bath, and WJIB in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Both stations play Adult Standards from the 1930s through the 1960s, drawing from a library of more than 5,400 records and albums.
We grilled some hamburgers and hot dogs outside and enjoyed reminiscing.
After lunch, Bob took us up to the station, on the back of the property. You have never seen so many records. 78s, 33s, and 45s. (For those of you who are young, those are three different formats records used to come in.) The broadcast studio has all the equipment Bob needs to build the show, layer in the announcements and the time of day, and put it all on the air automatically. Or he can sit in the chair and run it live as the DJ.
We looked through thousands of records, oldies but goodies.
John said he would love to spend a week digitizing the music in that collection for his own listening. Many of Bob's listeners send him records to add to the library.
On the way out through the garage, Janice noticed that the walls were covered with license plates.
Bob has been collecting license plates since he was a teenager. There were plates from all over the world. The garage walls did not represent all the plates he owns. He has thousands of them, and he trades with collectors around the world.
It was time to say goodbye.
We had been on the road for the better part of two months: a wedding in Gettysburg, family graves in New Brunswick, a screech-in in St. John's, a tidal bore that did not quite arrive, a lobsterman explaining how the industry has handled itself, four Canadian provinces, and now a high school friend with a radio station in Maine. The summer had been a long, full one. We headed back to Flagler Beach.
