I sat by the phone at 2:45 pm, waiting for the call from the Jack E Jett show on rationalradio.org or 1360 AM Dallas, progressive talk radio. I was going over my summary for the final time when I noticed the clock had ticked by the magic hour. Suddenly the phone rang, once, and pounce, I was on the receiver, lifting it up, putting it to my ear, saying, “Hello?”
“Are you ready to do this?” the man asked. Oh yeah, you betchya I’m ready!
I wasn’t on hold for very long since the last commercial was already wrapping up, and I could hear the intro music. They were talking politics — my favourite subject du jour — and so I shouldn’t have been surprised at Jack’s first question: “Do you think we are the most disgusting…” As he went on in that vein to describe the US, I thought hoo boy, how am I going to answer that?! But I did. And he liked it. I said some may think so, but I don’t.
After a second political question, he asked me about Judy’s story as he said he didn’t fully understand it and that’s why he asks people on to the radio — so that they can explain it to him. I started with my summary, explaining the book in a nutshell (which probably should be smaller), but then he quickly steered it into interview mode. He has a great sense of humour, a really nice way of asking questions, and he was oh so smooth in keeping the conversation moving and not letting me ramble on. The eight minutes flew by. I had a lot of fun, and I was totally stoked after I hung up. Takes awhile to come down after something like that! My favourite question was one he characterized as stupid. Uh-uh, no way stupid. A question I ought to have thought of ahead of time, but didn’t. Luckily, I knew the answer because I was so struck by it when I spoke to Dad about this very issue. Jack asked about Judy’s weight, wondering if she was underweight.
She wasn’t. Because Dad could so precisely calibrate how many calories he gave her and knew how many she was burning up, he could determine her weight. And he liked keeping her slightly overweight, much to her annoyance — she, like any typical woman, wanted to be at her right weight, sans excess fat, no matter how little. But Dad preferred that cushion: in case of sickness, her body would have reserves to draw on. Jack found that interesting, and then he had his producer give out the info on the book and my website, and the show was over, or my part of it anyway. Sniff.
