9/11: A Different Kind of Anniversary For Michael Rock

18 years ago today. September 11th, 1995. I wore a medium starched "big boy" shirt, Dockers, even a tie...to work that day. Inside the brand new briefcase (that my parents bought me) was nothing of any significance...a few pens and a daily planner...but no real work. I didn't have a laptop...they were still pretty rare, and considered a luxury in 1995. I didn't have a cell phone in there. I couldn't afford one. It wouldn't have fit in the briefcase anyway...cell phones were called car phones...and they came in big, bulky, black bags. Come to think of it, I really didn't need the briefcase at all. I just thought it would help me look like I knew what I was doing. I was 21 years old. I thought I knew it all. It was my very first day at Fun 107.

If you had told me that I would still be at Fun 107 in the year 2013...I would have never believed you. Growing up in Tewksbury, a northern suburb of Boston, my heart was set on cracking the mic in the big city. While I did realize that dream of working on the air in Boston...I quickly realized that it just didn't FEEL the same working there. I knew I had something special going on at Fun 107. It was the people who worked there...and the listeners who were SUCH a part of the station. Fun 107 was woven into the fabric of New Bedford and Fall River unlike any other radio station I had ever worked for.

Fun 107 has given me so much opportunity. I've been able to meet and make friends with so many local business owners, celebrities, listeners...and oh, yeah...my wife, too. I've been allowed (and expected) to express myself creatively. Most of the crazy ideas that my brain has dreamed up over the years were met with "Sure, why nots"...instead of the word "No". (The only exception being the summer I wanted to give away a live monkey.)

I feel like I've grown up here at Fun 107.  I count JR and Larry among my closest of friends.  Nothing would make me happier than to spend the next 20 years here at Fun 107. I'm sure the 2033 version of Michael Rock will laugh at how excited I was to get an iPhone 5S.

Left to right in the photo above is: Me, Kevin Matthews, the lovely and talented Christine Fox, Neal White, and J.R.