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Chapter One: A Metaphor or My Life

Ever since I received my college degree back in the spring of 1986, my life has been a big roller-coaster ride, filled with climbs, dips, loops, curves, and high-speed free falls. I call it The Bobby Dallas Whirl.

I thought a formal education was supposed to bring a guy job security and some type of stability in life. Maybe if I had been interested in a career other than radio broadcasting, I would have been better off a lot sooner. Then again, with the money I'm making now, maybe the bumpy ride was worth it.

There hasn't been much stability in radio. A real skill like architecture or engineering would have been a more stable profession. But who am I kidding? With those careers, you would actually have to do some real work. Not to say I don't do my share of work in radio, or that I haven't paid my dues, because I have. I'm just saying that radio is a hit-or-miss game, like the lottery. You never know what to expect or if you'll even be employed the next day. You could be on top of the world one day and stuffed underneath a trash can the next. Oscar the Grouch from "Sesame Street," who lived inside a garbage pail, comes to mind as the alter ego of any happy-go-lucky radio professional. A lot of us may seem happy while on the air or out in public, but behind closed doors, we're very insecure. That's just the nature of the business we're in. Nevertheless, on good days with good pay, the bottom line is that we love what we do.

Radio is like a game of Russian roulette -- you either get a big bang or nothing. The thing is, once you've experienced that bang, no matter what other stuff you have to go through, you're always willing to keep at it. It's like a night-and-day marriage. On some days you love it like a beautiful, spirited woman, and on other days you hate it like a villain who haunts your dreams at night.

My profession is actually the perfect metaphor for my life. After I completed college, I had no idea what the hell I was getting into from one day to the next. I was like a high-caliber shotgun with no safety clip, trying desperately to find a proper target. I've always been a good man and a good person, but that didn't seem to matter. I mean, I've really been through some hectic shit during my postcollege years. I had to reevaluate my life more than a few times. I got a chance to travel and do a lot of soul-searching, though. I haven't been married yet, and I don't have any children, but I'd like to experience those things. I can't say that I didn't have enough opportunities with women either, because I did. Things just never worked out. Half the time, I was simply trying to gain control of my life.

I'm just now beginning to earn the kind of money that would make any parents proud, and beginning to live the way I always imagined living. I just can't handle the emptiness of being alone anymore. I'm thirty-one years old, for God's sake, and I'm still searching for peace of mind and a permanent woman! Honestly, though, after all I've been through in the past decade, sometimes I don't think I'll ever settle down. Maybe, though, if I looked at my love life in the same light as I look at my profession in radio, expecting everyday surprises and daily letdowns, and just learned to roll with the punches, just maybe I could make a relationship work. Maybe I could find that peace of mind in a commitment to one special woman. Or, then again...maybe not. And maybe I'll be one of those good black men who got away.

Copyright © 1997 by Omar Tyree