Storyteller John McDonald Was A Very Good Man
Two years and a day ago, a legendary Maine voice died.
After my longtime friend and colleague John McDonald, the talk radio host and storyteller extraordinaire, died at age 78 on Dec. 20, 2022, I produced a half-hour “In Memoriam” about the fella for WERU 89.9 FM. I just listened to the damn thing, on this frigid Maine winter evening made cold by a blustery northerly wind gusting over 20. Gotta admit, hearing John’s golden pipes made me shed some tears. Many bits of the rembrance show made me chuckle, but especially poignent was John’s “Cat’s On the Roof” story which always makes me laugh. Below is The Crash Report podcastversion of the “In Memoriam.”
I’m pretty damn sure John would be disgusted with the way media and politics have devolved in these weird days. As he told Barak Obama — when the then-senator called into John’s show on WGAN — he’d always been a conservative Democrat until he became a talk show host. Then he “unenrolled” as a way to stave off critique in conservative talk radio circles that he was some sort wacky liberal.
John was a respectful sort of radioman. The polar opposite of a moden shock jock. Whether it was his weekend political show that ran for decades (before WGAN unceremoniously fired him in 2020) or his old “Radio Tag Sale” or his stellar marathon broadcasts during the Ice Storm of 1998, John always let callers speak their minds. And, unlike most radio personalities, he had no need for a hot take nor did he use incindiary rhetoric to get calls. Often, people called in because they just wanted to say hi. And he’d let them do it.
Miss you buddy. Big time.
https://www.crashbarry.com/p/season-3-in-memoriam-maine-storyteller-0e
Thank you for this tribute.