B365V3.41 - Cardille

"My family promised dad that he could go home to pass. We are transferring dad from the hospital to home. He will be in hospice care. Everytime I tell dad how many letters he is getting he smiles. Although we are so very sad, we know what an amazing life dad had. I told him he was the best father, husband, grandpa and friend, I or anyone could have had. He smiled. I told him he was going home. He smiled. Because of all your prayers, cards, drawings and love, dad is going out with a chariot of angels taking him home. We are taking our daddy home. Love, Lori Cardille"

The above was taken from Lori Cardille's Facebook feed, because this is one of those posts I hate to write.  I never know what words to put together when dealing with a person, or in this case, a city's loss and if Bill Cardille is on what amounts to borrowed time at this point, then the city of Pittsburgh is suffering a loss.   I don't know many people in my age bracket or older who do not have fond memories of Bill Cardille, whether it be his work on studio wresting back in the day, his show "Chiller Theater" which showed a bunch of B list horror flicks that were more funny than scary (http://www.chillertheatermemories.com, his cameo in "Night of the Living Dead", his local run on the MDA telethon where he would host the local cutaways during labor Day weekend, his time doing the weather on Channel 11 or listening to his show on the radio, pretty much anyone who is anyone around these parts has at least one Bill Cardille memory to share.

My first memories of him were mostly with the Chiller Theater, trying to sneak up past my bedtime to catch a minute or three of it (Chiller Theater was popular enough to preempt Saturday Night Live in Pittsburgh back in those days) and if I was lucky enough and didn't get caught by a parental unit, I would catch at least part of the show, before my eyes would start to sag and I would fall asleep.

Funny thing though as luck would have it, my radio career would bring me into contact with Bill.  After our station was officially bought out by Renda Broadcasting, they wanted to move the studios into one location.  I say studios because along with us at 1360 AM, they alos owned at the time 1320 AM and 99.7 FM.  Who should be on the air afternoons (10am - 2pm) on 1320 AM but Bill Cardille.  From the first day I met him, Bill was nothing but gracious towards me, who cares that his experience level versus mine in media was enormous.  But back in those days it was easy to wander the halls and be in awe of the people I worked with, Bill Cardille, Jack Bogut, Lynn Cullen and Doug Hoerth, all people who I heard or listened to growing up (hope that doesn't make them feel too old).  In many ways it felt like playing with the '27 Yankees, here are these giants in media and me, who quit college to take a radio internship and I was now sharing space with them all.

I even got to work with Bill, as I was tasked with putting together his vacation shows.  He and I would record liners for days he was going to be away, in hopes in didn't sound like he was away.  It's a little magic called voice tracking kids, as long as we had the song list ahead of time, it is easy to get someone to front sell (the record coming up) or back sell (the record you just heard) or throw in a quick anecdote or two (time permitting of course, we are on a clock after all) and the finished product would sound like Bill had never left the building.  Sitting in the production studio, i got the chance to pick Bill's brain between him running back to the on air studio and out voice tracking endeavor.

A couple of times when I was producing for Doug Hoerth we would have Bill in as a guest, usually it involved one of Bill's closest friends as well, Bruno Sammartino.  Funny thing about Bruno and Bill, both men looked better than men half their age, certainly better than yours truly, but that is why I am behind a keyboard as opposed in front of a camera. 

I had seen a couple of weeks ago Bill went into the hospital, he had gotten a cancer diagnosis (liver), but through all of the medical maladies Bill went through over the years, it felt like more of a bump in the road, having lost a kidney at 18, beaten back colon cancer and surviving open heart surgery in the past.  There were requests for cards and letters, and by all means continue to send them if you can, no need for my blog to be a listening of everyone's remembrances of Bill, because I doubt he knows this page exists (or remembers me for that matter) and there are far better means to reach him, such as through his daughter on Facebook, she has already posted where cards  can be sent to though to save you the trouble here you go; Chilly Billy, c/o Century Communications 313 East Carson Street , Pgh. Pa, 15219.