Former WHAS host Doug McKelvin dropped by for a chat

Former WHAS host Doug McKelvin came by to talk about Milton Metz's Super Bowl parties, more activity in space, the possibility of a UPS strike, and more...

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
It's the Terry Minors Show. Thankyou, miss Brookster, and happy weekend.
You're on news radio eight forty WHSTerry Miners. Here, there's John
Shannon. I see Ian vertrees.What's good? Terry Minor. Miles will
be in in a minute. AndI did take another day off work because
it's summertime. That's just what youdo. It's summertime, and so the

(00:26):
getting's good. So I played golfyesterday with mister Paul Rogers. Oh very
nice. Dude, still hits thatball straight right down the fairways. Rogers
is doing fine. He's got alot more time now than he used to.
One of our great effect in thegame, wh S legends. He
is still on u of L broadcastcalling played by play for football and basketball.

(00:48):
So how did you shoot? Itwas a tea? Yeah, okay's
all that kind of stuff. Um, it's not what Paul said. I
think we all had our contributions andour failings. I'm one point at that.
And I see you're wearing a SaintLouis Cardinal's shirt today. Yeah it's
a bit old. It was thefirst one sitting in the drawer, but

(01:11):
you know, they finally got anotherwin. Yesterday, so it might as
well root for him. Right.We have a guest here in the studio
who's quite a prominent voice in thecity of Saint Louis, Missouri. He
was the morning host on KMOX forabout seventeen years. He did afternoons I
think prior to that, because itused to be on this station. Hello,
Dud mckelvin's Erry, it's good tosee you. In the rest of

(01:32):
the crew, always good you youwere here. You were the midday guy
when I got here, which bythe way, was thirty eight years ago.
Today, I can't believe they haven'tcaught under your scam yet. Right,
Today's the day I walked in andsigned my papers to go to work
here. Seriously, Yeah, PaulMiles Um, you're you're like the second
longest right behind you. Yeah.Yeah, I haven't as a sales guy.

(01:57):
I think Norman's got got a fewyears on me. Oh dozi are
you at thirty years thirty one?Okay, yeah, that's impressive. Congratulations
both. What do you think?I think it's pretty good. I remember
thinking, here's what I thought whenI signed those papers July seventh, nineteen
eighty five. I had to goto the Courier Journal buildings. I guess
you did too. No, no, they changed that by that time.

(02:20):
Eight years later, went to theCourier Journal building and I remember signing the
HR papers and they took my pictureand made a badge for me and all
that business and your official with theBingham companies. I thought, I am
going to work for the Bingham's forthe rest of my life. And then
they all got in a big contestwith each other and Daddy said, forget

(02:42):
this. What happened, Doug?Do you remember that? That was just
one of the Bingham's get upset andsay give me my money. There was
a young woman, one of theBingham ladies, and the argument was they
wanted to be on the board ofdirectors and be able to have more input
on how the companies were run.And they board of directors was quite happy
with the way things were, ifmy memory is correct. And finally mister

(03:05):
Bingham Senior said that's it. Iactually have the ap wire copy from that
day when he's it's this big,huge, you know, anything but five
bells saying it's gone. They're justgonna sell everything. And I just remember
was the only time I ever sawthe guy was when it was over in
our building. Yeah, senior,senior, I'm talking about right. I

(03:25):
already made him once. Yeah,it was at Milton Mets's house for a
super Bowl party. He and hiswife actually went to a super Bowl party
at Milton Mets's house. Milton Metssuper Bowl party. Oh yeah, he
used to all those things? Arewere there? Butlers? And was it
like I had always about the rockstars? I thought you went to Yeah,

(03:46):
I was there parking cars. Iwas allowed the house. That was
the new employee's job. I hada marvelous gentleman in the kitchen wearing a
white coat and he was dishing outall the chili and whatnot. And Milton
Miriam were there. We had allsorts of different Did Milton understand football?
I don't remember him ever talking aboutfootball. He wasn't much of a sports
guy. Was a tennis guy.Yeah, but you know he put these

(04:12):
Catholic, small sea groups of peopletogether. I mean people people who you
wouldn't even think would come to oneof these parties. And then the Binghams
would be there. I mean you'dhave that. I mean Mitch McConnell actually
showed up there. Wow. Iremember Mitch when Mitch was a county judge
or something, and he had asense of humor then too, So it
has a lot of time ago.Though I delivered my first newscast on the

(04:34):
mets Here show, Did you really? And I was scared to death?
Did he talk to you? No? He didn't. He was still.
Took a while for him to warmup to me. Then we then we
became best buds. Do you callyou Bobby? He did? You were
in? You were in? Thoughit's true, It's true. Milton was

(04:55):
great, he was matter how weactually talked a little bit about him.
This afternoon had another I said,who got his rolodex? He had a
killer Rolodex. Now it's all onyour phone, but he had a Rolodex
on his desk and he called meone time. He said, would you
do me a favor and look upa number for me? I said,
sure, you Metzela, do anything. I said, who do you need?
Walter Cronkite? Okay, so Igo under see Cronkite. There it

(05:21):
is. I said, which neverdo you want? He said, well,
what's available? And I went.He got his New York office,
his New York secretary, his NewYork wherever he lived in New York and
Martha's vineyard? Which one do youwant? And I suggested this, so
why don't you try? It wassecretary because she probably knows where he is
today. That's a famous picture ofMilton Mets and Walter Cronkite after tennis,

(05:46):
and so I'm thinking where did theyplay tennis? And did it attract a
crowd? You have the most popular, what they called him, the most
trusted man in America, the anchorof the CBS Evening News playing tennis in
your town. I want that'd bea good little papa've been back in the
day before, you know, whenwhen people's lives like that were just treated
with respect. There used to besome a level of respect for stuff like

(06:08):
that. You know, Okay,he's obviously here, he's with a friend.
Let's not not bother him. Notbother him. Yeah that's right.
Yeah, But you know what,I know where that place was, and
it was it was a I thinkit was a club where Metz was a
member. It was a member everywhere. That's a good point for us.
It's kind of like, who canI turn around a beat feet foul?

(06:29):
Now? I don't, but Ido remember that because he had the picture
and it was in his office thereat the station. So I yeah,
i'd like to probably his son guy. You and Denny's still in Saint Louis,
where you moved to Florida. Thelong suffering missus mclvin is still in
Single Louis with me. She's anattorney, right. She just retired this
past fall. It was a matterof all kids, and more importantly are

(06:50):
now twenty three year old son Ryanis working for NASA at the Johnson Space
Center in Houston, where he ishe is actually in training to become what's
called a TOPO, a trajectory operationsofficer for the International Space Station. Oh
nice, Where do you think wherethe brains come from for that one?
Yeah, Mama, not me,that's all mama. That's great. Yeah,

(07:13):
I'm thrilled about it. So we'restill working in International Space Station program.
I don't hear as much because nowthat Musk and um who's the other
guy in the rockets, Bezos?Yeah, but they're part of the program.
They're doing program because the lift isbeing done now by uh is it
Bezos? I think it's Bezos's operation. And then there's there's a blue Origin,

(07:35):
and there's a couple of other companiesand NASA is working with all of
them. I say, because whatwe want to do we us we want
to go to the Moon, andthere basically is going to be another station
like the International Space Station that willbe built and it will orbit the Moon.
It will be the jumping off pointfor our people to go there and
then to the Moon. I thinkit's all kind of fallen under something that

(07:56):
they've got a NUMBERLLA thing. Ithink it's ULC United Launch Corporations, so
interesting. And we're gonna colonize Mars. We're not gonna colonize the Moon,
are we that? I don't know. I mean, well, we've had
people sign up for that, becauseI've interviewed them before, people who said,
yeah, I'm signing away my rightsif they if they make up a
colonization program, I've already signed away. I want to be on one of

(08:18):
those. I want to be aworker be There were a couple of years
ago that they they were doing abig push for that, and as a
matter of fact, NASA just lockedfour or six people in some kind of
a place down there in Houston.Yeah, and they're just gonna mimic simulate
the isolation or yeah, and beingon it's worse than being in that Titanic
submersible. I wouldn't want to bein a thing like that, didn't I'm

(08:41):
being like locked it. This studiois fairly decent sized, but like four
of us locked in here for ayear. Yeah, no, who would
come out of the door alive.They've done those things before, didn't They
call it like biospheres, Yeah,they did. They had peoples they sequestered
them for two years or what Iwas like, you lose your mind,
but you know that just you gotto expand and you got to keep pushing
forward. And that's what we're doingright now. So yeah, colonized mars

(09:05):
have a ball at this time.It is. Actually the interesting part is
my son, who again is muchsmarter than I am, said, well,
one of the biggest prop two ofthe biggest problems we have right now
is radiation, because it's going tokill you on the way over there and
back it. Assume there's a back, the radiation and the actual however,
they're going to get you out there, he is. The other thing is

(09:26):
communications between the two. It's fortyminutes to get to get a comment or
whatever, two mars and another fortyminutes to get it back, so you
can't really have quick communication if youneed it, which we do. Now
does he watch the movie The Martianand start laughing. He's seen all of
them, and you think some ofthem are pretty funny. It's like that
ain't happening. That's not true,that's not That is the sad part about

(09:46):
it. But you know he does. He is pretty funny because the iss
Or station, as we call itin the biz, the Russians and the
Americans basically owned the thing. Everybodyelse is just along for the ride.
But he he says, you know, the thing's up there, and his
job is to decide do we moveit up left, right, tilt it

(10:07):
one way or the other. Andthis is a this is a thing that
from the end of one solar panelportion of it to the other is longer
than a football field. The thingis pretty much good. It's really big.
You just can't turn it on adime. No, it does not
turn on a dime. And ifyou got something that is Terry's got a
little cough drop thing. You hearsomething this size that's moving, it's seventeen
thousand miles an hour. If itgoes through you, if it hits it's

(10:31):
going to go right through the thing, and so they have to keep an
eye. I've heard that's a problemwith space debris, that they get stuff
coming at it and they've got tokind of maneuver it to That's one of
the things that the topos do isto figure out how to do it.
Does he have hopes of going upthere? I think he'd like to.
I mean, he's twenty three,he's young enough. Don't you don't you
don't have to be an astronaut,or do you? I think that for

(10:54):
nassa's purpose is they're going to wantyou to be an astronaut. You do
not have to be a pilot anymore. That's one of the things. Don't
stounding, I know, But everything'sauto. Okay. We mentioned Beezos a
few minutes ago. He's got hisspace Company's got all his other pursuits,
but his prime pursuit is Amazon isups going to go on strike. I

(11:16):
took a day off to play golf. I did not take part in any
of news yesterday. So are westill do we still have this looming strike
and how that's going to impact allthe distribution of everybody. It's looking like
it because negotiations fell off to Imean, they both walked away this week,
and the Teamsters president is saying weneed a certain amount of time to

(11:39):
get a contract ratified. Regardless thatthey've said August first as the walkout date,
and they think past this week earlierthis week, they can't get it
ratified even if they did come upwith an agreement. Isn't part of this
that they want not only the frontlinepeople, which is the drivers and that

(12:00):
sort of thing, They want theback end people who you don't see in
the warehouses to be a bigger partof this and to be compensated more than
they are currently. That is correct, Okay, So they're trying to basically
broaden the width and breadth of theunion itself and the operations. They're also
trying to get some better pay forthe weekend folks, the part time folks.
That sounds good to a guy likeyou. I have to do start

(12:24):
driving us now. I had afriend of mine that was a back endloader
paid for his college law school inTexas and lost fifteen pounds at the same
time because he was in there atthree o'clock in the morning loading those brown
vans to go out. I workwith a guy who used to drive for
UPS, and he is he's stillin great sea in shape. Okay,
So as FedEx then bolstering their fleet, I mean they have to be respond

(12:46):
you think. I'm trying to rememberback in ninety seven when they went on
strike teamsters against UPS. What happenedthen? If if UPS picked up the
slack or or the postal service,I'm not sure other people have to DH
all these other companies do whatever.The postal service that struggled to make you
know, with with bleeding at thebottom line for a while, has to
be a little hopeful about this becauseit might get increased traffic to them to

(13:09):
get express delivery. They do stufffor UPS right now on Sundays they do
deliver for They deliver for Amazon onSunday. Okay. An even bigger question,
what's it going to mean to Louisville. I mean, this is the
hub. Yeah, yeah, it'stwenty five thousand even back here. Yeah,
I mean that that's going to bejust everything. Do you remember back
I mean, yeah, ninety seven, they kept working here, but they

(13:33):
brought in replacement workers scabs. Yeah, got into They get pretty contentious,
so you bet that could get ugly. Now, the pilots are separate issue,
so they're they're not you know,perched on the cusp of a strike.
But then so they can still getthe goods here. It's a matter
of who sorts them and gets thempilot. The Independent Pilots Association, the
union that represents them, are sidingwith the teamsters, so we could see

(13:58):
a sympathy. Yeah, walk outthe what's to move though? If if
they're not getting any packages picked upor delivered? What you know, if
you're a pilot, you're gonna go, well, what am I? I'm
just flying airplanes around that are emptya lot of the flying Yeah, I
think I was just sitting there andthey just got a new contract. I
believe the pilots, Yes they did. Yeah, It's interesting to see how
all this unfolds and how FedEx capitalizeson it because it's always a rivalry thing.

(14:20):
I do think it was very verycourteous of the teamsters not to go
on strike until after Prime Day,very thoughtful. Funny how that works.
The eleventh and the twelfth is Primeday this year, so they waited until
after that to go on, it'sall just a scam. They're just selling
the same stuff they get. Youknow, honestly, they get some really
good deals. My wife used towork at SDF nine over there in Shepherdsville

(14:41):
at one of the they did allthe shoes, they did all the Zappos
shoes stuff. But but you gota lot of deals. I mean,
that's when I first got my myAmazon Prime membership was on Prime Day and
it was a very very sweet discountfor it. No, the question is
did you keep it? Yes?See, I say and this, but
I get it and then do itfor whatever I need, and then I

(15:03):
drop it. And then they say, we'll give you an extra thirty days.
Okay, I could deal with that, and you know, and then
I drop it eventually and when Ineed something six months eight months down the
road, right. So a matterof fact, I think I think I'm
Amazon Prime right now. I shouldprobably order some things this afternoon. You'd
better get him in now. Yeah, before UPS goes out. Here's the
best way to save money. Don'tgo online to avoid it. Isn't that

(15:24):
the truth? Live your life.You have an ice cream cone and shut
your laptop down. Christer McKelvin.It is a pleasure spending time with you.
Thanks for sharing it with me.I appreciate it. Say hi to
everybody we know and enjoyed it veryvery much. A lot of people mention
you to me over the years,and so they're going to be happy to
hear that I didn't do it,I had nothing to do with it,
and you got a rocket scientist fora son. They'll say, didn't see

(15:46):
that coming that, brother, Thankyou, Terry, good to see it.
Doug. Doug mcclvin, longtime hosthere on WHAS Radio, now living
in Saint Louis. We're back ina few on news radio AD forty WHAS