“Five minutes, Mags.”

I glanced up from my typewriter and nodded at Skip. We were working the four to midnight shift at a small radio station in the Southern Tier. I was on the news team, and Skip was the DJ and sports guy.

Small town radio is a very specific lifestyle, and all of us who worked the industry in the ’80s and ’90s spoke the same language. We worked lousy hours in shabby buildings with dysfunctional equipment. We were as poor as church mice during a cheese shortage. Our social life was nonexistent as we worked nights, weekends, and holidays. But it was gloriously fun and interesting. No two days were alike. You might be interviewing a fire chief at a barn fire one day, and doing a piece on the local stock car race the next.

It was the best education I could have had about my craft. Radio was where I learned to write concisely and how to align facts to get the message across. It was also where I could screw up safely. The station were always desperate for help, so they forgave you when you goofed. And the cast of characters you encountered were legendary. Small town mayors, business owners, politicians of every shape and size. You really become a part of the fabric of life in the community.

The listeners were a category all on their own. One station I worked for always included obituaries in the noon newscast. After the broadcast one day the newsroom phone rang and an irate woman demanded to know why there were no obits at noon. For the first and last time in my life, I had to say, “I’m sorry ma’am, but no one died today.”

During a summer thunderstorm, the station tower got hit by lightning and we went off the air. The engineer was doing his best, but we were silent for nearly an hour. A listener called to ask why we weren’t broadcasting. Informed of the lightning strike she huffed, “Well, I wish you would let people know when this is going to happen!” I thought, lady, if I could predict lightning strikes I wouldn’t be pulling down $185 a week in this dump.

The night I want to reference was in the fall. I went into the news studio to do the 10 p.m. broadcast, starting with a weather teaser, just a short line about current conditions before the whole forecast at the end of the report. Like all small operations, we used a network for national and world news, followed by the local stuff. In order to hear the network report we had to use a technique called “back timing,” where you gave the station call letters and the one line weather report, and the second you finished the network voice came on. This was back in the day of the almighty sweep second hand. Hit it right, and the broadcast was seamless. Hit it wrong, and it was jumbled and unprofessional.

When Skip gave me the heads up, I glanced at the weather forecast again and memorized what I needed, “Cool tonight with a chance of low-lying ground fog.” I watched the second hand, estimated how much time I needed, and opened my microphone. “Good evening, this is WJTN, Jamestown, tonight’s weather is cool, with a chance of low-flying ground hogs. The news is next.” Triumphantly, I watched the second hand hit twelve, and the network anchor started his report. It was perfect.

Then I looked up through the glass that separated the news anchor from the disc jockey. Skip’s eyes were the size of hubcaps and his mouth hung open. I held up my hands to him in a gesture of what gives? He walked out of his studio and down the hall to mine. I turned down the network feed as he came in and said, “Do you know what you just said?” I scrunched up my face and said, “The weather teaser. So?”

Informed of what words actually came out of my mouth, I sat there stunned. Replaying the moment in my head, I was sure I had said it correctly. But the outside phone rang, and Skip answered to find a listener laughing uproariously. All I heard was Skip’s side of the conversation, including “Oh, yes, she’s very clever,” and “We are so glad we made your day!”

It wasn’t the last such call.

I had to get my wits about me and do the actual newscast, ending with the full forecast, during which I over enunciated “lying” “ground” and “fog.” I really didn’t want some little old lady deciding not to walk her terrier before bed in fear of airborne rodents.

My conversation the next day with the news director and station manager was a little more severe than the gleeful listeners. I was reminded that we do have standards to be professional despite our small size and that I should take greater care in the future. I agreed wholeheartedly.

But my colleagues were not about to let this magic moment go so easily. The next night, as I did the expanded 6 p.m. newscast, Skip ushered in a group of my teammates who got down on the floor and threw a variety of stuffed animals across my field of vision in the hallway. The new improved Maggie, with more professionalism, nearly choked trying to suppress her laughter and still get the words out.

It’s been decades since that foggy night, but it comes back to haunt me via some friends who have elephant-like memories. I can’t predict lightning strikes, and I can’t convince people to die if they don’t want to, but by God, no one is going to be surprised by aerial mammals. Not on my watch.