News & Observer | newsobserver.com | Real men tune out hate radio

Published: Apr 23, 2008 12:30 AM
Modified: Apr 24, 2008 08:20 PM

Real men tune out hate radio

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This is a story about drive-time morning radio and the outrageous comments of one local man.

Nope, I'm not talking about "Bob and The Showgram" and its quite possibly strategic racial blunders. (I'll come back to him later.)

I'm talking about Gary Thompson, a regular guy with very good luck -- and a very big heart.

Thompson made his startling statement recently after winning something called the "Man Cave" contest, sponsored by 96 Rock radio and Fox 50 TV.

The contest worked like this: Listeners of 96 Rock's morning program were instructed to watch the sitcom "Two and a Half Men" on Fox 50 and listen for a song played during a commercial for the station. Then, the next morning, when they heard that song on 96 Rock, they had 2 1/2 minutes to call in.

That's how Thompson and about 120 other listeners qualified for a shot at the "Man Cave" ensemble -- a PlayStation, leather seats for an in-home movie theater and the coup de grace, a 52-inch TV in high def. A man's dream.

Thompson qualified on Valentine's Day. He had a feeling he would.

"It was just a lucky day," he said.

I didn't pry, but he volunteered that he'd gotten lucky -- by finding a beautiful bouquet of flowers on the street. The same day, his wife was given a pair of excellent Hurricanes tickets by a doctor she works with.

He had a gut feeling that eventually he'd win the drawing for the entire "Man Cave" package itself.

And guess what? He did.

But here's the outrageous part. Before his premonition ever came true, Thompson told his wife, and his boss, that, if he won, he planned to donate the big ticket items to North Carolina Children's Hospital.

"After he won, I thought maybe he'd change his mind," said Milton Nicholson, Thompson's boss at Kennedy Office Supply.

But Thompson stuck by his promise. He told the radio station he wanted the TV and seating to go to North Carolina Children's Hospital to help kids with cancer.

"They said, 'You what?!?!' " Thompson recalled with a chuckle.

See, Thompson, a 35-year-old delivery truck driver for Kennedy, already has a pretty big TV. He knows the scourge of cancer through his wife's work as a medical assistant in Cary.

And a little boy named Ethan Shingleton, the grandson of a friend, touched Thompson's heart last year. Ethan, 4, has inoperable brain cancer.

So, though Thompson kept the PlayStation, the rest of the $5,600 prize is going to the hospital, where the TV will be paired with a donated Wii for use in kids' physical and occupational therapy sessions.

The 96 Rock deejays gave Thompson a ribbing. What kind of man was he?

But given what we hear from another radio program in the mornings -- racially tinged remarks, slights to different cultures and insensitive references to people with handicaps -- it was a breath of fresh air.

And amid all the recent protests against "Bob and the Showgram," which only fuel interest in the show, Thompson has a simpler strategy for fighting airwave junk.

Thompson doesn't tune in because a) he doesn't care for G105's music and b) he doesn't care for all the rude blather.

His answer is: Turn. It. Off.

There are other options out there, folks. In how we spend our blessings. And how we spend our drive time.

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