Since I did the TV overnight shift for one of my ebooks, I thought an archaeological reconstruction of an overnight shift on AFRTS-Radio would make a nice balance: This is a shift I would have worked at EBS (European Broadcasting Squadron) Hellenikon in 1984ish, and is part one of two.
My daughter has already been asleep for several hours. She is used to being carried downstairs, wrapped in a blanket and strapped into the car seat in the back of the orange Volvo sedan for the short ride to the sitters, over in Sourmena. Her friend Sara, whose mother is our babysitter, is already in bed. In the morning, Sara’s mother will take them both to preschool, and I will collect Blondie from school. We’ll have the afternoon and early evening for ourselves. Blondie curls up, thumb in mouth, fast asleep as soon as I have tucked her into the bed she will share with Sara. I say good night to Sara’s parents, and drive down hill towards Hellenikon. It’s 9:30 at night; by Greek standards it’s the best part of the evening, especially in summer. The shops have just closed, but the restaurants are doing a booming business, and traffic is heavy on Vouliagmeni, the main boulevard between downtown Athens, out to Glyphada and the coastal road south to the temple at Sounion.
Hellenikon Airbase is a narrow strip trickling downhill to the airport runway, a single road zigzagging from the entry gate, all the way down to the MAC terminal and weather station, at the bottom by the ramps to the flightline. A professional baseball pitcher could probably fling a baseball entirely across it at any point.
The entrance gate is on Vouligmeni, set back a little way from the traffic, and heavy concrete balks, the size of trash dumpsters force vehicle traffic to zigzag slowly, in a single lane. The base is regularly targeted by protestors, and threats of violence. Those threats are delivered upon often enough to make the Security Police, as well as the rest of us, very, very wary.
I show my ID card to the SP, and continue down the hill, past CBPO, and the short road towards the car wash and BX gas station. All the base is to the left or right of the road, which splits into a one-way loop halfway down the hill, below the Chapel and the BX complex.
Across from the chapel are the old radio station building, and the Post office; further downhill are the barracks buildings for single airmen, the hospital. The new radio station building is behind the post office and the Rec Center, backed up nearly to the perimeter fence. I swing into the parking lot and run in to see if there is mail in my box: Letters and magazines, and goodie, a pink cardboard slip, meaning there is a package for me to pick up at the window sometime the next day, but until then duty calls.
The new building replaced a tiny structure the size of a three-car garage, into which was wedged with fiendish ingenuity two studios, a radio library, a work area for the engineers, a teletype room, a small office/work area, with an even smaller one for the station manager, and a lavatory not appreciably larger than the station managers office. In the old days, there were not chairs enough to seat the entire staff at one time, or the space to put them all if there had been. For the last eight months, we have been reveling in the generous space afforded by the new building: two lavish stories, three studios, and a huge high-ceilinged work area with a curving stairway against the wall. Security lights keep the outside nearly as bright as daylight; I have never had a moment of worry, working alone at night. There is a telephone extension in a metal box by the door: I use it to call up to the studio for the swing shift guy to let me in, and wait until he comes down the stairs.
“Anything much going on?”
“Nope… the voiceline’s dropping in and out, I called Comm already. Same old, same old, trouble at Mt. Vergine, it’s fixed when it’s fixed. I’ve left you two newscasts. Can you voice a couple of lines for a spot? Just leave the tape on the desk with the script.”
“No problem. I’ll take over now, if you want to split.”
The previous operations supervisor, a man not long departed from the unit (to the profound relief of most of the junior broadcasters) had insisted that the only voices used for produced spots be those of the assigned military staff. As I am the only woman assigned to the unit, anyone wanting to use a female voice for a spot must use mine. Frankly, if I weren’t me, I’d have been sick to death of the sound of my own voice.
