There are a lot more stories to tell about KSND, and I’ll get to them. My Newport experience, however, also included various elements of small town coastal living. Some of those were just as entertaining as the radio station antics. For starters, there was the apartment complex where I lived.
I should never have been admitted into Pinewood Manor. It was for adults 55 years and up, which I didn’t know when I applied. It was also Section 8 housing. I did qualify for that because my salary, like most radio broadcasting compensation — especially in small markets — was paltry. For whatever reason the husband and wife management team let me in, and I secured all 482 square feet of a one-bedroom flat.
When I got the apartment, I didn’t know that the radio station was only five blocks away. Perfect! The beach was six blocks away. Even better! The city’s small sewage facility was right next door. Not so good! Pinewood Manor was centrally located in town, so despite the odor on some days, I couldn’t have asked for a better place. It was a couple miles from Yaquina Bay — home of the fishing fleet. On nights when it wasn’t windy or rainy, I could hear the foghorn in the bay and the sea lions barking faintly in the distance on Bachelor Island and Bachelor Row. (The males hang out from August to June. They swim to California in July to breed with the females, which remain south year-round.) I loved falling asleep to those comforting sounds and miss them to this day.
Living in what amounted to a retirement community had its benefits. I was treated as a grandchild and had a few meals I didn’t have to cook on my own. Perhaps my neighbors heard the smoke alarms in my apartment? The vent exhaust fan in the kitchen was terrible in that it was actually a bathroom utility fan and couldn’t clear anything that wasn’t steam. On more than one occasion I smoked out the kitchen and living room while cooking with olive oil. The unit would smell like smoky ground beef for the next several days.
I had some interesting neighbors during my time at Pinewood Manor, which my sister perpetually referred to as “Shady Pines.” There was John, who took a liking to KSND and me. He had conspiracy theories about Newport and “had to get out of town.” He sold me his coffee table before leaving. There was Jim, the Korean War veteran, who stood outside every day smoking and watching people. He started talking to me after several months. We had the same build, and he gave me a really nice topcoat that he had rarely used. There was Vikki, who saw me as her younger brother. She was one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. Juanita, downstairs, was the friendliest neighbor. She always saw me pull up in the parking lot and waved. Finally, there was Kei, the Japanese woman who was my most immediate neighbor — the one with a fiery temper.
The on-site managers who came through were also intriguing. I don’t remember their names, but the husband and wife who admitted me were an interesting pair. She was gruff. He was friendly but a little clumsy. He almost killed himself in my apartment while installing a bedroom window blind. A total John Ritter sitcom moment. He didn’t have his ladder close enough to the window. He lost his balance, but instead of falling forward he fell backward. He narrowly missed the nightstand on the way down and fell into the side of the bed, which was on castors and rolled backward as he flailed around trying to catch his balance. CRASH! The one-man wrecking crew survived without injury after making a mess of things, but he didn’t come by to do much maintenance after that. The incident was equal parts horrifying and hysterical. I was just glad to have renters insurance.
My favorite manager was Iris, who came on board after the husband and wife were transferred. She was a friendly manager and loved by the residents. She always wanted me to meet her daughter. That happens when the youngest resident in the building is 25!
After Iris, it was Gary. He kept the place running but had a bit of an edge being from New York. “Shady Pines” was his first assignment as a primary manager, and he wanted to make a good impression. He was the one who told me I should never have been able to get a rental contract there being under 55.
We were an interesting collection of residents and managers. Throw in weekly ambulance visits, Wheel of Fortune wafting down the halls, and an infamous pink paint job. (When deciding to repaint the building, the paint swatch was apparently a little different than the actual paint color. Looked like a Pepto-Bismol industrial spill. Hard to miss.) That was Pinewood Manor. The place had character…and characters! One of them was my neighbor across the hall.
More to come in Part XI…