Those people on the radio

When you break it down, being a radio person is a funny job.

You go into a room that’s a lot like a walk-in closet, shut the door tight, push a red button and talk into a metal tube.

So it’s funny that radio is the most intimate informational medium. Funny, but true. Print, TV and web just don’t have a similar depth or emotional resonance.

And it adds another wrinkle when you consider that most listeners don’t know what those people on the radio look like.

So, it can be a little disconcerting when I’m just out there in the world and I get recognized. It’s rare, but it happens as it did over the weekend.

I signed a DEC registry book at an Adirondack lake. I had just schlepped my kayak up the trail from the water to the parking area and saw a couple putting their boats on their car. He was tightening the straps, she walked over to the registry book to sign out.

As I walked up behind her, she mistook me for her husband and said, “Oh, Jonathan Brown’s here… from North Country Public Radio.”

There was, as you might imagine, a brief moment of confusion as we three figured out who we were to each other. The really cool part is that we had a relationship even though we never met face-to-face before.

They listen to NCPR. They paddle. They live in Saranac Lake, I live in Canton. But we’re still neighbors, of the Adirondack/North Country sort.

That shock of recognition, as Melville said it does, ran the whole circle round.

And it was just the perfect capper to a perfect day on the water. What a great way to meet your neighbors.