Flying the Sky

Courtesy photobucket.com

Our local traffic reports were given by a Radio announcer as he rode the sky in a helicopter observing the flow of traffic. 

In our day that reporter was Lou Hurley, and Jim Dunbar referred to the copter as "The Hurley Bird"

TV was still fairly new but the traffic guy needed more work for KGO radio and KCBS Television. 

Lou was selected to be Master of Ceremonies for the day time movies.  The station had decided to use Lou’s home instead of a studio which freed Lou from traveling to San Francisco to host the show. 

Lou’s cute small dog Myrtle sat on the sofa with him as he introduced the next movie and Lou would give a run down about the stars and the story behind the movie.  Myrtle became almost more popular than Lou.

One day KGO cooperated in a fund raiser against cancer and it was announced on the traffic program that those who would call in and pledge a certain amount would enjoy a ride in the helicopter while Lou gave the morning traffic report.

My husband Robert thought that would be a fun thing for our daughter Becky and me, so he asked Becky to call in and pledge for us in our roofing company’s name.

Becky and I arrived on time at the heliport and the pilot instructed us how to enter and exit the plane and to keep our heads down.

Lou greeted us warmly, and shook our hands as he introduced himself and welcomed us aboard.

Everything looked so small from the air, and Lou gave a dashing traffic report and included that he had two beautiful ladies flying with him this morning who had responded to the fund raiser.  Then he gave an appeal for more pledges along with a telephone number to call.

 

We were not as high as some airplanes in the sky, but my daughter and I were flying high on that day!