I was sorry to learn of KMOX and KTRS personality Bill Wilkerson's passing on Thursday. I remember the easy, lighthearted banter that Wilkerson had with KMOX's former Total Information a.m. personality Bob Hardy. An example from August 5, 1985:
Wilkerson: Now, because of our hours here, I'm talking about in the morning, breakfast is pretty much a late morning affair for us, right?
Hardy: Yeah, I never have been able to crawl out of bed at a quarter to four and sit down to bacon, eggs, and hash browns. That just doesn't cut it. I don't think it does for you, either.
Wilkerson: Yeah, (KMOX co-worker) Rudy has been able to, but he's been unable to find breakfast.
Hardy: Nobody serves at that hour, right?
Wilkerson: That's right, and his wife says, "Don't be ridiculous." At any rate, what I'm getting at is there's a study in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch this morning about something that has been debated for years. Do you need breakfast? Yes or no? Now, you said, "Sure." You mean you want breakfast. We're talking about, do you need breakfast? You always want breakfast, Rudy, but because of the growing interest in the restaurant business with breakfast, you know, everybody's serving breakfast. As a matter of fact, it says, "Breakfast in restaurants is the fastest growing segment of the dining out trade, according to a 57% increase in business from 1977 to 1984."
Hardy: I'll be darned.
Wilkerson: But according to the studies here, it seems that, as one person says, "If, physiologically, you don't feel you need breakfast, then you shouldn't eat it." In other words, they can't find any really hard evidence that going without breakfast affects your performance. Now, you hear children who don't eat breakfast perform below par. Well, here it says skipping breakfast has an adverse effect on a child's late morning problem solving performance, but he says you can't extrapolate that for adults. So, apparently, it does affect children somewhat because when children eat breakfast, they perform better in problem-solving situations when attention is critical. But, other than that, as far as adults are concerned, it seems as though if you don't eat it, it's no big deal. As they say here, breakfast can either get you off on the right foot or virtually ruin your diet for the entire day, but it's entirely up to you. (It) depends on what kind of person you are. So there.
Hardy: So, (the) bottom line is, nobody still knows about anything.
Wilkerson: Nobody knows.
Hardy: OK. Well, it makes sense to me. You eat your breakfast after you've been on the air for three or four hours.
Wilkerson: Yeah, but...
Hardy: That's really a brunch for you.
Wilkerson: Right, but the longer I go, I'm becoming bored with breakfast.
Hardy: Bored with breakfast.
Wilkerson: Bored with breakfast, yeah.
Hardy: Well, how do you intend to handle that?
Wilkerson: I have no idea.
Hardy: I mean, are we to put in a little kitchen here or something? You want to do a little something on your own, just to lighten up your life?
Wilkerson: Actually, I prefer to have a grilled chop at this hour, as opposed to your normal breakfast.
Hardy: I'm sorry?
Wilkerson: A grilled chop.
Hardy: A grilled chop.
Wilkerson: Yes.
Hardy: Like a lamb chop?
Wilkerson: Yeah. Instead of your bacon, your eggs, your marmalade, that sort of thing. I'm bored with all of that stuff.
Hardy: Find me a restaurant that'll serve you a grilled chop at 10 minutes before 7:00.
I liked that Wilkerson and Hardy talked as if they were two neighbors bantering over the backyard fence about the latest news.
I also listened to Wilkerson calling the infamous Mizzou-Colorado football game, with its erroneous fifth down, on my birthday in 1990. Even a casual Mizzou football fan must have seconded Wilkerson's frustration that day when he said, "The clock stopped! Why has the clock stopped?!"
Wilkerson's easy-going demeanor on the airwaves will be missed. I hope that, if he wishes it, the sunrises in his afterlife look like "grape punch with floating cinnamon sticks."
