Long-time readers of my blog will note that I refer to “The Twelve,” a series of elementary and secondary schools I attended from kindergarten to high school graduation. Because my parents moved frequently from one location to another (and I moved away from my parents a couple of times), I never stayed in one school for more than one and a half years.
But since most of those schools were in the Capital District in one form or another, the plan of action at that time was to switch my radio from the rock and roll station – either WPTR or WTRY – and tune to WGY and wait for morning radio personality Don Weeks to announce whether my school or school district was closed or on a delay. Yep, went through all the different school districts – the Albany ones were usually the last ones to close, and the Berne-Knox-Westerlo district always seemed to be on a two-hour delay.
And then there was Ichabod Crane.
For those not familiar, the Ichabod Crane Central School District is in Kinderhook, between Columbia County in New York and Berkshire County in Massachusetts. The roads are rough even in good weather, and apparently when the snows arrive … be prepared for treacherous driving conditions.
For those of us who did NOT live in Kinderhook, and who waited for the school closings for our school districts, we always knew the Ichabod Crane Central School District would be on the list. It was a fait accompli.
Heck, references to bad weather being a wink to the Ichabod Crane school closing news found their way into the Internet Urban Dictionary. See for yourself. Here’s a screenshot from that site.
So right now, I’m looking out my window, and the roads look nasty. And I’m really not feeling the urge to “shuffleboard” my way downtown when I can take a CDTA bus and leave the driving to them.
That, and I may just “Ichabod Crane” the day away.
Nah. Can’t do that. Even with weather like this, I still need to pen a blog post.
Can’t take days off for that, now can I?
Chuck The Writer 
I’ve had one experience with Ichabod Crane. I faced their baseball team in my very first outing as a varsity pitcher for McCloskey. I lasted two innings, and they blanked us 10-0. No love lost.
And WGY? What it has become is sad: All evidence of hometown personalities (save news readers), gutted. Overdose of supplements / vitamins shows on weekends. Ditto for financial planning shows. Extended periods of dead air. Overlapping commercials.
And when you least expect or want it, hours of Syracuse football and basketball games pre-empting regular programming. Never mind that WGY’s IHeart sister station is Fox Sports 980, billed on its website as “Albany’s SPORTS Radio” (emphasis added).
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Yeah, unfortunately the station of Don Weeks and Earle Pudney and Martha Brooks did a slow, sludgy decline into the world of Rush Limbaugh and Tom Leykis and Mike Gallagher and JR Gach and Sean Hannity and Art Bell. It’s a toxic ooze from which very few people survive.
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OMG Chuck, I can’t believe you dared to blaspheme the immortal Art Bell – an everlasting hero to multitudes across the globe. And even that show has deteriorated, with a host who can’t last four hours and sounds like he’s dying on air.
But no argument with most of the rest.
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