Interview with Rich Bradley # ISP-A-L-2011-057 Interview # 1: Dec
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Interview with Rich Bradley # ISP-A-L-2011-057 Interview # 1: Dec. 2, 2011 Interviewer: Chris Reynolds COPYRIGHT The following material can be used for educational and other non-commercial purposes without the written permission of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. “Fair use” criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. These materials are not to be deposited in other repositories, nor used for resale or commercial purposes without the authorization from the Audio-Visual Curator at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, 112 N. 6th Street, Springfield, Illinois 62701. Telephone (217) 785-7955 Note to the Reader: Readers of the oral history memoir should bear in mind that this is a transcript of the spoken word, and that the interviewer, interviewee and editor sought to preserve the informal, conversational style that is inherent in such historical sources. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library is not responsible for the factual accuracy of the memoir, nor for the views expressed therein. We leave these for the reader to judge. Reynolds: Okay, are we recording? I think we are. Bradley: Yep, I think so. Reynolds: I think we’re in good shape. This is the first interview of Rich Bradley for the Oral History Program at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, the Statecraft Program. We’re going to be talking to Rich today about his biographical information, career background, history of radio, here in Illinois and in Springfield, and then, we are going to move on to the history of SS-UIS and WSSR or, as it’s now known, WUIS, WIPA, I think is included in that, and his involvement with NPR. This is December 2, 2011. It’s about 10:00 a.m. at the [Abraham Lincoln] Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois. I am Chris Reynolds, a volunteer interviewer. So, let’s get to the first question here, in terms of biographical information. Tell me what you know about your family background, parents, siblings, grandchildren. If there’s any memorable aunts or uncles or cousins you could throw those in too. Bradley: I was born and raised on a tenant farm over in eastern Champaign County, a mile and two miles. I’d say a mile and two miles because we had two different Rich Bradley Interview # ISP-A-L-2011-057 plots of ground that my dad farmed. A mile and two miles north of Ogden, Illinois, which is in Champaign County, but right up against the county line with Vermilion. Ogden is almost exactly half way between Champaign and Danville. My dad also grew up on a farm. Then, during WWII, he was working in a steel foundry over in Indianapolis. When the war broke out, he was locked into that job, exempted from the draft as long as he continued to work there. My mother was a homemaker. That was the environment that I grew up in, with two sisters younger than me. I’m the oldest of four…two sisters and a brother, six years younger. [I] Went to Ogden Grade School and Ogden High School. When I graduated from high school, my first inclination was to go into farming because that’s all I knew at the time. My dad was a tenant farmer, though. He didn’t own his farm ground; he rented. There was just no ground available to be rented at the time I graduated. So, Ogden, being about fifteen miles from Champaign-Urbana, was right there in the shadow of the U of I [University of Illinois]. So, I — Reynolds: (interrupting) So, you seriously toyed with a profession in farming? Bradley: Yes. Reynolds: …if the conditions had been right. Bradley: If there had been hundred and twenty or a hundred and sixty acres available to rent, I really believe I would have gone that route. My dad would have assisted me. He would have allowed me to use his farm equipment. Reynolds: Right. Bradley: …to get started. There’s no doubt in my mind that that’s what would have happened if there’d been any ground at all available because my dad lived his whole life at Ogden, with the exception of the three or four years during the war, in the early ‘40s. The foundry is in Speedway, Indiana, which is right outside Indianapolis. Reynolds: Okay. Let’s go back to your growing up in central Illinois. We kind of talked about where you lived, some of the schools you attended. Are there any important memories of events that affected your early life? Bradley: Hmm, no. Reynolds: Oh, like the Kennedy assassination or the— Bradley: Well, I was working in radio by that time. Reynolds: Oh, yeah. 2 Rich Bradley Interview # ISP-A-L-2011-057 Bradley: That was in ‘63. My radio career— Reynolds: So, I’ve got to remember you’re older than me. So, I was in grade school when that happened. (laugh) So, I always think, oh, that’s always a big event. Bradley: (laugh) Really, my career in radio really started in 1960, when I transferred from the U of I, where I went to school for two years. I transferred to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale Reynolds: Well, let’s just go ahead and talk about your radio career. Did your dad’s experience in the war, or any of that kind of thing, have an impact or impression on you or— Bradley: No, because I was still pretty young. I was born in 1940. Reynolds: Right. Bradley: And my dad was working in the steel foundry at that time. Well, no, let me take that back. My next youngest sister, the sister next to me, is a year younger than me. She and I were born in Illinois. Then, my second sister, the third of four, was born in Indiana. So, by November of ‘42, we were living in Indiana. I have vague memories of living there. Weird things kind of stick out in my mind, like two draft horses in a field next to that house, snow being deeper than “ass-deep to a tall Indian,” as the saying goes. Reynolds: This is outside of Indianapolis, did you say? Bradley: Yeah, it was out on…it was about halfway between Indianapolis and Lebanon, Indiana, near Fayette, Indiana, I seem to recall. Anyway, then, by the time my brother was born in ‘46, we had moved back to Illinois. But, there’s a story in my dad moving back to Illinois, leaving the foundry there to go back to farming. He knew that, if he left the foundry, he would be immediately subjected to the draft. This opportunity came along. His dad was a farmer, my granddad. He had this opportunity, while the war was still going on. This would have been in January-February-March of ‘45. He had this opportunity to come back to Illinois, one hundred and sixty acres, right next to my granddad at the farm. But, he knew that, if he did that, as long as the war was going on, he would be subjected to the draft. People never thought about…or, at least, as far as I know…never thought about politics and the role politics played in the draft at that time in history. So, my granddad understood quite well the implications. The draft board consisted of three farmers, all laborers, friends of my granddad. Reynolds: What county was this again? Bradley: This was in Champaign County. 3 Rich Bradley Interview # ISP-A-L-2011-057 Reynolds: Champaign County? Bradley: Yeah… Reynolds: Well, that’s surprising because Champaign has some urban areas. You would’ve thought— Bradley: It was a Selective Service Board. Reynolds: Yeah. Bradley: You know, I don’t too much about the breakout. I’m just telling, relaying to you now, what my dad told me. My dad came back, went with his dad, my granddad, to visit each of these three members on the Selective Service Board, explaining to them—and they were all farmers—that there was this opportunity to rent a hundred and sixty acres from Joe Ackerman, who also owned the same ground that my granddad owned, but, that my dad faced the possibility of being drafted if he quit his job at the foundry, where he was frozen and exempted from the draft, as long as he stayed there. But, if he came back, not only, he would be subjected to being draft. Well, he went to each of the three, with my dad in tow and explained the situation to each of the three farmers, asking them for their advice and guidance. Each of them, to a person, my dad told me, they each said they understood what a great opportunity it was for a young man getting into farming. They each, to a person, told my granddad not to worry about it. And so— Reynolds: That was good enough. Bradley: Yes. Reynolds: Did you ever go to the foundry? Did you ever have a sense of what your dad did at this foundry? Or— Bradley: No. I just knew that— Reynolds: Too young? Bradley: He got on. He rode a bus. The house where I lived was right on Indiana Route 52. He would catch the bus—he worked the night shift, I remember that. He would catch the bus late at night and then, come back on the bus in the morning, around 6:30 or 7:00 or 8:00. Now, I don’t remember what this steel foundry produced— Reynolds: Did the depression in the farm economy…is that what prompted him to move to Indiana and work at the foundry, do you recall? You wouldn’t have recalled, but in their reminiscences about what…? 4 Rich Bradley Interview # ISP-A-L-2011-057 Bradley: He wanted a farm.