It's OK to say, 'I don't know.'

A friend of ours is a retired military man. He says, “That’s above my pay grade” when asked to comment on something for which he doesn’t have an answer.  

I’m getting that way and find myself saying, “That’s above my pay grade” quite often these days. Usually when speaking with my wife.  

We were on our way home from church Sunday and she began asking me about a subject which now escapes me. That’s the nice thing about getting older — your memory grows shorter and you discover new things over and over each day.   

In the past, I would have thought about it and tried to give her an answer whether I knew what I was talking about or not. I am the man. I am supposed to know! 

More and more I know less and less and soon I will know nothing about anything! 

It’s OK to say you don’t know.  

At work, I used to think I had to know everything (or try to pretend I knew everything) in order to get ahead. Methinks it didn’t work. I doubt anyone was fooled, at least not for very long.  

It reminds me of one of my first days in college. I was crazy about broadcasting. I hadn’t discovered writing, yet. 

I visited the campus 10-watt radio station that could be heard a mile outside of town on a good day.  

Despite the limited power of the station and that the transmitter sat on a very small library table, the studios were probably as large as half the floor where our newspaper offices are located.  

It was an educational opportunity for students who would volunteer their time instead of going to parties or hanging out. It kept us off the street.  

Eventually I produced several radio series for the station and even a segment for NPR’s “All Things Considered” in 1972.  

Elroy was a year ahead of me in school and the first day I visited the station, even before classes began, Elroy showed me the ropes. He put a 5-inch tape reel on a spindle, threaded it to the take-up reel on the other spindle and played a public service announcement voiced by a man with a deep voice who sounded like the lead vocalist on the “Shaft” theme song.  

“Did you record that here?” I asked.  

“Yes,” he said.  

I was impressed.  

“How did you get a student to sound like that?” 

“Oh, we have filters,” Elroy said.  

The only filter Elroy had was to filter out the truth. I later learned that recording was made i Los Angeles or New York.  

But, he was trying to impress me, a simple freshman.  

One of the nice things about being the oldest person in the building today is that I am no longer trying to build a career.  

Now, I can just come in and do the best job I can each day and answer any questions that come my way, as long as they’re not above my pay grade.  

Frank Phillips is a reporter for The Brazil Times. 

Pretty good show - "All Things Considered"

Remember "All Things Considered"? You know, the radio show from National Public Radio that broadcasts Monday through Saturday?

Of course you do! It's still on the radio and just as good as ever.

Due to my nearly-every-day commute, I get to listen once again to the show I went to college with.

Back in the early 1970s our Christian College, preacher school college, had a radio station. WLCC-FM was an eclectic progamming melange (which is probably French for "mess") of high school basketball, UPI teletype news (from a real teletype, boys and girls) and episodes of "The Shadow" thrown in for good measure.

One day, we began carrying a new program from National Public Radio (aka "National Pubic Radio") called "All Things Considered.".

The station signed off in the afternoons so the Amateur Radio Club ("K9InGod'sBusiness") could go on the air and talk to missionaries around the world.

Then, at 4:59 p.m. Monday through Friday, the station would sign on for evening programming and the control board operator would hit the rewind button and one of the big reels of tape would rewind and be cued up so at exactly 5 p.m. the lilting notes of the ATC theme would begin playing.

In 1973, I laboriously taped an interview with a doctor who had served in a MASH unit in Vietnam. He brought back to central Illinois the methods used overseas to rescue car crash victims and other traumatized victims of accidents and violence and speed them to the nearest hospital emergency room.

I edited the tour down to about 6 minutes and we forwarded it to NPR in Washington for use on ATC.

To do so, we had to punch a paper tape and then use the tape to transmit the information via two-way teletype.

Then, we drove the tape to WILL, Urbana so it could be transmitted (by telephone, not satellite).

After all that, we learned there was an electrical hum on the tape. So, John Young, our radio station faculty sponsor and general manager, taped an interview with the doctor, at the radio station and I got to edit down the interview and we once again punched the paper tape, sent it via teletype to Washington and drove the recorded tape to WILL's studios on the University of Illinois campus.

But what a thrill I had to hear it on the air as part of "All Things Considered"!

Years later (more than 30 years later) I was being interviewed for a producer's job at a local TV station and I shared that memory.

"You know that really dates you," the news director said, teasing me.

Yes, but, I still get a kick out of listening to ATC on WILL radio on those daily commutes ... and remembering I was part of it, shortly after it all began.