FOTR Organizer Jay Hickerson Is Injured

Jay Hickerson with one of the many
tributes he received at the October FOTR show

Word spread throughout the world of Friends of Old Time Radio Nov. 7 of the hospitalization of Jay Hickerson, the man who annually brought together in Newark an international mix of Old Time Radio buffs - and who kept those fans informed throughout the year with his Hello Again newsletter. The news of Jay's injury came from his wife, Karen, who wrote to Martin Grams: "Jay suffered an accident yesterday. We were at a performance at our local college, and, when he was coming back to his seat after the intermission, took a flying (literally) leap into the air and fell down the stairs landing on his head/face. Ambulance took him to the hospital. At first he was lucid. They took a CT scan and saw bleeding on his brain. A short while later, he began acting 'funny,' so they took another and saw more bleeding. He had a seizure when the doctors told me it would be best to stablize him by sedating him and putting him on a ventilator, which he is now still on. Jay is in the ICU unit. This morning, he did respond to some commands, so we know there is still some brain/body connection. More CT scans will be done in intervals to check the progress of the bleeding.  People have been known to fully recover from such type head injuries, and I only pray that Jay is one of them. In the meantime, I have no way of letting his newsletter subscribers know that I have no way of knowing when one will go out, or if one will go out. It will have to be a wait and see. Please let me know how I can circulate Jay's condition to anyone who would care to know."

My thoughts go back to the many wonderful years of pleasure Jay and Karen have given to so many of us - and to the sing-along with which he ended the convention this year. Thanks for the memories, Jay! I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places. We'll meet again ...

Update Nov. 8 from Charlie Summers of The Old-Time Radio Digest, part of The OldRadio.Network: "The latest news on Jay's condition is good; his ventilator has been disconnected, although he is still in the ICU. Karen requests, "Keep those prayers coming for a full and complete recovery." You bet!

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35th Friends of Old Time Radio Con: Day Two

Irwin Hasen

Leonard Starr

Little did I think when Day Two began that I'd end up hanging around in the hotel bar with Irwin Hasen (creator of DC's Golden Age Wildcat and co-creator with Gus Edson of the Dondi comic strip). It was a delightful day, in short, focusing for me on the afternoon "Funnies Friday: Old Time Radio and the Comics" panel. Panel members comprised Jim Gauthier, Anthony Tollin, Leonard Starr, Irwin Hasen - and me. Hot diggity! (If you can imagine covering the entirety of the topic in an hour and a half, of course, you don't have enough information. But the scope of the discussion meant we hit several high points, and I, at least, had a great time.) Biggest theory I came away with was one posited by Anthony, and I'd never considered it before: He suggested that the idea of long-time serialized dramas [read: radio and TV soap operas and, oh, yes, vast chunks of today's entertainments] came out of comic strips, perhaps beginning with The Gumps. This needs further mulling. Which I shall do.

By the way, if you haven't been picking up the wonderful strip compilations of Starr's On Stage and Dondi, you should start now. With Volume One of each. (And thanks to Jim for helping to bring those projects to existence.)
The afternoon was topped off for me by the fact that, as Leonard and Barbara Starr prepared to leave the hotel following the panel, Irwin Hasen reluctantly decided he wasn't up to his original plan to stay until 10 or 11 p.m. So there was an early need to contact the driver who was to take him home - but the driver was at that point at JFK, so it would take a couple of hours for the driver to get to Newark. So (oh, I'm so thoughtful!) I said Irwin and I could sit in the hotel bar until the car could get to the hotel. What a delightful couple of hours! As anyone who's been lucky enough to attend any of his convention appearances knows, his conversation is packed with wit and information. It was grand. Oh, and do let me recommend another of his projects that I only had a chance to glance through before an eager fan bought it: Loverboy - recently out from J. David Spurlock's Vanguard Productions. Note, though: It's not the suitable-for-kids project that was Dondi. I don't think you'll have seen anything quite like it.

And now I've got to get ready to head to the morning rehearsals for the Blondie performance. I'm to play Cora Dithers. Guess who's going to play Dagwood. (Yes, Will Hutchins, who played the part on the TV series broadcast in 1968-1969. Hee!)

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