Radio Free Montone: Sharks!

By John Montone, 1010 WINS

On a Monday morning more miserable than most, I asked Editor Maloney what was going on.  "Sharks," he said.  Ah, yes, it's that time of year.

Except for a subway strike or a crippling blizzard or hurricane nothing makes the radio rating meter move higher than a shark sighting or better yet a shark biting.  The city that never sleeps does seem to nap during the summer.  Court cases are recessed, office hours are cut, even politicians seem to take the hint and make less noise.  With many of our loyal 1010 WINS listeners taking time off our ratings' numbers generally fall until the fall arrives.

But one big bad great white rearing its massive mouth above the surface at a local beach and bingo!  Everyone's radio is back on.

The day before a boy and a girl had been attacked within two miles of each other off the North Carolina coast.  He lost an arm and she lost part of an arm.  "That's all anyone's talking about," Maloney said, and in that instant I knew I would be driving through the rain and fog "Down the Shore."

The thick mist hung heavy over Belmar when I got there, but as the cliché goes, "it did not dampen the enthusiasm," of folks on vacation.  My job then was to scare the bejesus out of all the fine families who had laid down their hard-earned money to spend a few days with hot sand between their toes.

My promo for this story was, "The North Carolina shark attacks have sent shivers up the shoreline."  Well, one woman did tell me she was worried about her husband and son because they like to swim pretty far out and a local beach bum who's been surfing the Atlantic for a half century recalled the big fins he spotted popping out of the water one day in Bay Head.  One day he thought around…1967.  "What would you do if you saw a shark here?" I inquired.

"I'd get out of the water," he said.

The woman who worried about her husband and son did say she hoped the lifeguards would keep swimmers safe.  So I took a walk over the sand to the beach patrol command.  Taylor, the lifeguard,  told me, sure, he had seen some shark fins from time to time, "What did you do?" I asked.  Taylor twice blew his whistle. The two toots were meant to tell people to get out of the water.  Taylor did not say that he would go in the water at the shark sighting.  The whistle "gets their attention," he said.  The swimmers.  Not the sharks.  "You don't think there will be a shark attack here," I wanted to know.  A head shake was all I got.

Another head shake came from a little bouncing blonde girl who was playing on the beach.  Her father asked her if she was afraid of sharks.  "Mostly," she said, "I'm scared of crabs."

Giant man-eating crabs would be ratings' gold, but until they start crawling out of the surf we still need sharks.

But Betty a Jersey Girl of advancing years told me she would be going into the water when the sun came out because the sharks, "like the younger ones."  Her girlfriends all laughed.  Not a scaredy cat among them.

And as if to show this reporter that not even a horrific shark attack 600 miles to the south could ruin a day at the Jersey Shore, the beach badge lady shouted from her booth, "Come to Belmar!  No sharks here."

Seems as if our audience is catching on.