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What's in a Number?
- spiffhappens
- Mar 9
- 2 min read
Wednesday, July 1, 1970. The day that changed the direction of my life. I graduated from high school the previous year, began my dream job at a radio station (WGSY) in Peru, Illinois, and was feeling pretty darn good about my future. Not so fast, DJ-Boy. BAM! The Vietnam draft lottery happened. I was on the air when the lottery numbers were being drawn. Our AP (Associated Press) teletype machine was spitting out the lottery numbers between the “more important” events of the day.
(Kids … this is how radio stations received the news in the dark ages. Sort of like getting a one-way text, on dirty yellow paper, from a big, old clunky typewriter.) Clank-clank-clank went the teletype. Thump-thump-thump went my heart as I anxiously waited to see what fate would have in store for me. In the studio, I introed a song (Creedence Clearwater Revival – “Fortunate Son”), quickly popped out of the room, rushed down the hall to the teletype, and began to scan several pages of the latest news to see if I could find my birthday and the corresponding draft number. As luck would have it, (or bad luck in my case) my birthday was being typed as I stood next to the AP machine. April 16 … clank-clank-clank … 3 … clank-clank-clank … 1 … clank-clank-clank-clank-clank … carriage return … April 17 … clank-clank-clank … 2 … clank-clank-clank … 6 … clank-clank-clank … 4 … clank-clank-clank-clank-clank … carriage return. WAIT A MINUTE!!!! Why did my birthday only have just TWO numbers? This can’t be right!!! Seriously, 31 is my draft number? Suddenly, nausea engulfed me. In the distance, “Fortunate Son” rocked towards its conclusion. I raced back to the studio as the fading notes of CCR vanished. Just before every DJ’s nightmare, the cursed “dead air,” ensued, I segued into Country Joe & the Fish “I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag.” (Okay, the part about playing Country Joe is not true. But that’s what I should have played.) The fact is … I can’t remember much of anything that happened that Wednesday after my draft number of 31 appeared on the teletype. However, I do vividly remember the next day.
(To be continued …)
The year before my eligibility my birthday draft number was 366! They would have taken one-legged chickens before me! Then my year hit, and I was 86 on the list! I can't wait to hear the rest. Are you on Substack? It would be a great platform for your stories!