Paul Stories: Macing Bob MacAnulty

(length warning) In 1969, I was visiting M at KLIQ. He served as the engineer for a talk show hosted by a venerable Portland radio tradition, former and future disc jockey, Bob MacAnulty. Bob was an asthmatic, fired from nearly every station in town at one time or another; once a big star, he was on the way down, as witness the fact that he was working for Dave Jack at KLIQ (the bottom of the barrel). A few years later, Bob died on the air, during an overnight shift, and wasn't discovered until some listener raised the alarm because the needle was skipping in the final groove of some record.

Anyway, I was in the control room, chatting with M. He explained that Mr. Jack had supplied the board operator with a can of mace, a spray human repellent, after some incidents of kids from the amusement park knocking on the door and disturbing station operations. "Let me see that," I said. "I wonder what this stuff smells like?" I popped the lid on the can of mace and aimed it at the back of my hand. I thought I aimed it at the back of my hand. It turns out Mace does not come out as a fine mist, like hairspray. It comes out in a stream, which travels some distance. The stream shot over my hand and hit the opposite wall... just over the air conditioning duct leading into the tiny on-air studio where MacAnulty was on the air. He broke out in an immediate coughing fit. I had maced the on-air talent. He moved to another studio. He hadn't seen me do it, and I don't think M ratted on me.