Bowersisms

Uniquely Pete Bowers

Essential props: Yellow/Red cards (soccer referee), football yellow flag (football referee), lucky coin (may be specific year coin), Parker T-ball Jotter pen (which I NEVER loan to anyone), Biff logo pen (which I DO loan out and leave on teacher desks), pocket calendar in back pocket (notice curvature of bottom), handheld microphone to use in the class like Phil Donahue, antique school bell (used to get attention, class starting), Biff water bottle, rubber bracelet (for snapping on my wrist, I feel your pain), my own dry erase markers, Biff boom box, 3 X 5 cards with topics to discuss in class, air guitar (yard stick, stapler)

Other props when needed: mono-scope and safari hat (EXPLORING electronic media), swear jar, spring, pipe dream, Howard Stern Halloween mask, snare drum and cymbal, photo of Megan Fox (used to get guy’s attention),

Exploring Electronic Media!

Important PB props: Antique school bell (to start class), yellow/red cards (yellow is caution, red after two yellows issued…you’re out!), mono-scope (used for exploring electronic media), yellow flag (for penalties in class…10 yard penalty for cussing).

*Saying “Greetings” to start class, first words spoken by Jesus after he rose from the dead

*Today’s class is brought to you by…(usually a hot current event in broadcasting)

*The cut off laugh: a laugh cut off with the hand coming down across the face.

*Andover and Lahser radio students coming together under the radio tower (fingers from both hands intertwined, fore fingers up like an antenna) open the door and there they all are…happy Biffers!

*I will check with the Department of Redundancy Department

*I was talking with “no names” and I said Biff, why didn’t you do your show last night

*I’m only serious (instead of I’m just kidding)

*Taking a drink of water, saying “doctor’s orders”, making gargling sounds

* You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them hydrate

*Water bottle back flip a la soccer style into wastebasket (did that with a broken speaker once), extra points if it bounces off wall into wastebasket

*The rubber pencil trick (find pencil on floor, hey look, I found a rubber pencil)

*Station ID at top of hour (at top of hour say “you’re listening to WBFH, Bloomfield Hills” legal station ID)

*Magic finger (if chalk fell on floor, take small broken piece, put under finger and draw all over chalkboard…say MAGIC FINGER!

*Reaching down to pick up pencil on the floor and ripping a piece of paper making it sound like pants were ripping

*Pencil it in with dry erase (or pencil it in with ink)

*When dry erase marker runs dry, throw marker across the room into wastebasket…extra points if it bounces off wall into wastebasket

*Two satellite radio companies, XM and Sirius, become one (two fingers on one hand, drop first finger, leaving middle finger)

*I’ve got guns (showing bicep on right arm which for some reason is big). They want to give teachers guns…I already have them

*I have a face for radio (borrowed from whoever said that first)…not good looking, the reason I went into radio and not TV

*Pull out the V card (veteran card…student with seniority gets something over someone with less seniority)

*Dropping an F bomb (having a letter F prop and dropping it to the floor)

*Rewind tape (making sounds of tape rewinding and shaking head like it’s rewinding video)

*Mr. Bowers’ hair by Jerry’s Salon (write this on the board the day after a haircut, a haircut by Jerry who I went to for over 35 years)

*Did I get a haircut? No, I got them all cut.

*My guest speaker today is…bring out a small Bose speaker (prop) as a joke

*I live in the sticks. After I moved from Bloomfield Hills to Milford (a small town community about 20 miles from Bloomfield), I told my students that I live in the sticks. Apparently, young people had not heard that phrase before and had no idea what I meant by “living in the sticks”

*Guess Who sings American Woman? Guess Who sings American Woman? Who sings Teenage Wasteland? Who sings Teenage Wasteland?

*Dentist sounds (sounds of drill, sounds of air)

*I’m all ears said Prince Charles (or Ross Perot)

*I have no-speed internet at home

*I’d give my right arm to be ambidextrous.

*Let’s take a trip down Amnesia Lane.

*My grandfather was one of 13 children (true). He didn’t know what it was like to sleep alone until he got married.

*People don’t know this and I don’t tell anyone but I was born with two kidneys. It really hasn’t affected my life much.

*Dumb joke or bad pun…that was an attempt at humor

*Hocus Pocus Amanda Kokas (when doing magic trick like disappearing coin trick, Amanda was Biff student)

*The Sarcasm Club meets Tuesday after school and I’m the adviser. I LOVE all the students in the club. They’re my FAVORITE students of all time

*I’m the adviser for the Procrastination Club. We actually haven’t turned in the club application form yet. We were going to have a club meeting but we haven’t set a date for it yet. I was going to write up an agenda for the meeting…I’ll do it later.

*Everything remains the same until it changes

*Top 40 DJ voice: Flip an imaginary switch on my neck to go into 60’s-70’s Top 40 DJ voice…actually had a light switch prop to use, put switch on neck and flip it

* What do I smell? I smell the makings of a great promo (or some other production)

*What do I hear? Creative juices?

*Peachy! (trademarked to me…not “peachy keen” which is trademarked)

*Adios or Adios Amigo! (when saying goodbye to someone)

*Drive Safely! (also when saying goodbye to someone…means “I love you”)

*Use sunscreen! (also when saying goodbye to someone…coming from a two time skin cancer survivor)

* You’re my favorite 3rd Hour this semester. I’m your favorite 3rd Hour teacher this semester

*I’m the best radio broadcasting teacher the school district has ever had. (later, as told to me by, no names…Matthew Branicke…I’m also the WORST radio broadcasting teacher the school district has ever had)

*The future of the Biff is sitting in this room…and 4th Hour.

*Biff and when…

*My first wife Claudia…

*I worship the quicksand my mother-in-law walks on. My sons call her Gdog. We call her dog Ratdog.

*Standing on teacher desk with hole puncher on my head simulating a satellite orbiting 22,000 miles above Earth (See photo in Vintage PB as proof)

*The short end of my tie was sticking out from under long end of tie. I took scissors and literally cut the short end off so it didn’t stick out. I started wearing ties about a year into teaching when the principal told me I would look more authoritative if I wore a tie. I wore ties for 30 years after that and then noticed how few male teachers were wearing ties…so I quit wearing them.

*(to a student athlete before a game) May the best team win and that team be yours

*Don’t feel bad for the team that lost…they finished 2nd Place in the game…they got the Silver!

*I’m in the twilight of my career…

*Men in Black Memory Eraser…grab a black permanent marker and pretend to use it the erase the memory of students after saying something that would probably get me a yellow card…and yes, I have given myself a yellow card if earned.

*Is Mr. Tom Bowers your brother? Yes (wink, wink)…same last name, he looks just like me, his mother married my father, his brother and my brother are the same person

*Yellow card if someone says something inappropriate. Second yellow card in same hour gets a red card, out of classroom.

*Imitation of flamboyant referee with yellow card

*I would stand on my head for you…then actually standing on my head in the classroom (did it once when Eric was in FORB class)

*Fun With Mentals (name used for those in Fundamentals of Radio Broadcasting class)

*In Loco Parentis (Latin, meaning in place of parents, since your parents aren’t here, I’m your parents so do what I say)

*(on Fridays) You’ve worked so hard today, I’m going to give you two days off, I don’t want to see you until Monday.

*Looking for Amir (on the school PA, Sue said she wanted a student named Amir to come to main office. I grabbed a locker mirror we had at the station and went down to the main office and said “I understand you are looking for Amir”

*Horny hen joke (used one time at a Bowers School Farm remote…ask Randy how the joke goes)

*Someone comes into class after haircut…can I help you?…oh, it’s _________.

*I thought growing old would take longer

*Make “L” with hand and fingers, not for loser but for liability

*If I think someone is being bullied, address it, stop it, snap rubber bracelet and say I feel your pain

*I have my fingers on the pulse of the community

*I grabbed a hole puncher and used it as an air guitar for the Eddie Van Halen guitar solo in Michael Jackson’s song Beat It. I didn’t know it, but Zac Barnett was videotaping me…something that I hoped wouldn’t go viral. I also used a stapler once as an air harmonica during a Beatles song.

*The game was close right up to tip off (or kick off)

*What we have here is failure to communicate (from movie Cool Hand Luke)

*My Dad was a doctor. He wrote me a note, I couldn’t read it, I took it to the pharmacist to read it, he said it says “Buy milk”

*Wearing a tie everyday is a pain in the neck

*1000 comedians are out of work and you’re trying to be funny

*After having a grade conference with a Staff student, I would come out of the room saying “You can take ceramics, they throw pots” making it sound like they are being kicked off Staff and what class they might take if not on Staff.

*I wanted the best staffer to engineer your spotlight show…but he couldn’t do it so I got ____________

*If it were me…

*I did have a talk stick once, the person with the talk stick had the floor and everyone else had to be quiet..that person would then pass the talk stick to the next person who wanted to talk.

*If the shoe fits (take off size 13 shoe) wear it

*On a reel-to-reel tape delay system, if someone swears (ie shit), shit starts to fly (around tape recorder), bleep it so it doesn’t air

*You’re just saying that because it’s true…I’m just serious

*If someone is hurt or sick, say let me help you, my Dad was a doctor and my wife is a nurse

*After someone vents, say “if you have an opinion, don’t hold it in, let it out”

*I was in a fraternity in college, I Felta Thigh

*Broadcasters do it with frequency!

*I went to a wedding of two antennas…the ceremony was just OK but the reception was great!

*I was born via Caesarian Section (true). It hasn’t affected me but when I leave my house, I don’t go out the door, I go out the window (stolen from Steven Wright. Also, “the earth is bipolar”.

* Story about how my college roommate grew marijuana in the middle of a cornfield on his property in Owosso, called it Wacky Tobacky

*When a teachable moment occurs, say it, that’s a Teachable Moment

*I’m in a union…High School Radio Station Managers Union Local 881 (the only member)

*I feel asleep while watching a documentary on the Civil War…I don’t know who won

*My first year of teaching, I was stopped in the hallway and asked for a hall pass by a Hall Monitor who didn’t know me. So I pulled out my passes and wrote me one. I used to call Hall Monitors “Hall Monsters”

*Also my first year, I got the student rate for lunch because the food service people didn’t know I was a teacher. When they found out, I had to pay the faculty rate.

*Someone turns in late paper (or staff application) take it to wastebasket and pretend to file it by saying “I’ll just file this under “name”

*Use it and abuse it

*Being the manager of a high school radio station is sort of like sticking your head in a guillotine every day, looking up at the blade and praying it doesn’t drop

*If I feel someone is stepping on me (taking advantage of me) pull out photo of me, put on ground and literally step on it

*I was the third of three boys in my family, the baby. My brother Tom, the middle child, says he is the rose between two thorns. My brother Jim and I say that Tom is the bologna between two pieces of Wonder bread.

*If someone is lefthanded, a southpaw, I say, one minute let me get you a left handed pen

*I had a car in high school, a Corvair. They wrote a book about Corvairs called Unsafe at any Speed (true).

*Radio is in competition with PMS (personal music systems)

*I’d like to thank my listeners, both of them

*”Going to get some water Boss” (stolen from movie Cool Hand Luke where prisoners tell “Boss” everything they’re doing.

*At the end-of-the-school-year banquet I call Biff Bash, I would put the spotlight (literally using a flashlight) and brag about each senior and their Biff accomplishments. I would end each senior with “I love (name) and I’ll tell you why”. Then I would talk about what I loved about that senior. After that, instead of applause for that senior which can go long, I invented the three-clap system to save time: “Three claps for (name)…clap, clap, clap!

*In 1986 when Ferris Bueller’s Day Off came out, I would imitate the Ben Stein teacher character with that monotone delivery…”Anyone? Anyone?”

*That dead air was brought to you by the Bloomfield Township Library

*12:34 I have this thing about the time 12:34…I’ll look at a clock for some reason and it’s 12:34…weird! I remember driving through a small town once and the clock on the bank read 12:34…freaks me out.

*And now the weather forecast with WBFH Meteorologist Winchell Factor

*We’ll have our station engineer, Shurewatt Ohms, fix that equipment

*The guy’s a Nimrod!

*Showing one cycle (wave) with my arm, then showing 88,100,000 cycles (88.1 MegaHertz) per second, rapid arm motion

*After returning from Chicago and listening to WLS, I invented the character Dr. Jock who did the Top 40 jock thing

*I hated it when someone would say “we have a technical difficulty”. I prefer saying “we have a TD”

*When we would drive to Chicago for Drury Awards or IBS conference, as we crossed the Illinois line, I told the students in the van that I had to make a stop at the bank and convert my Michigan money to Illinois money.

*I’m a little off…I just flew in from New York and I’m experiencing jet lag.

*I thought I had a concussion but they X-rayed my head and found nothing.

*Also didn’t like it when a DJ would say “here’s a little bit of the Beatles”. A little bit? What, just playing a little bit of song?

*Also, enunciate the letter “W” in the call letters…don’t ever say “dub ya”

*The volume control on a console is called a potentiometer, or pot for short. Used to say DJ’s have a lot of pot in the studio

*Wearing my Andover varsity jacket at Homecoming pep assembly, “I’m representing our Andover Class of 1971”

*You take Anatomy? I took that in high school too…I would go over to my girlfriend’s house to study anatomy.

*WBFH went on the air with the minimum number of watts…10. Hence the nickname “The 10 Watt Big Shot”

*Rule 881: Go on the air under the influence of one thing…good radio!

*When we did marathon broadcast, we would do 24 hours in a row. So Steve had the morning shift, 7-9 a.m. I told him he was every Andover senior girl’s dream…to wake up with Steve in the morning!

*Catacombs/pool under Andover High School: So many memories from our Spring Celebration marathon broadcasts but the one students really enjoyed was when I took them down through the custodians room to the catacombs of the school and walk to the gym and look out through the vents. Then we would go down under the pool area and look out the windows into the pool. Another catacomb started in the boiler room area and went all the way to my office where there was an access door in the floor. One time I went under that door and pounded on it from below…I hear that those in the office were scared stiff!

*Radio is a one to one form of communication, very personal. Used to tell rookie DJ’s to put a photo of someone on the console and pretend to be talking to that one person, instead of broadcasting to mass amounts of listeners

*Inside everybody’s brain is a like/dislike area. The only song everybody likes is “Happy Birthday”. Every song you play will be liked by some, disliked by others. Try to pick songs that the majority of listeners will like since you can’t please them all.

*Radio is one dimension, audio. That’s why it’s known as Theater of the Mind. When broadcasting a sports event, pretend there is a blind person sitting next to you and you have to be their eyes, you have to describe to them what you are seeing…play by play.

*There are more women in the US than men. Guys…you are a minority group.

*There was a video I would show on the charter bus heading to Lansing for MAB awards. I also used it in class when we covered the history of radio. It was a Sponge Bob Square Pants episode entitled “Idiot Box” which some critics of television have called TVs. So SBSP takes the empty TV box and pretends he is in different situations which can be heard outside the box. So SBSP does this thing with his arms making a rainbow while saying “I don’t need TV, I just use my imagination”. Just like radio was in the Golden Age, you know, Theater of the Mind, using only one dimension, sound.

*Students would ask me if I ever lived at the Bowers Farm. I would say, tongue in cheek, sure I grew up there, it was great, we had fresh eggs from the chickens, I would milk the cows for fresh milk, fresh produce every day…it did get ugly when we wanted bacon.

*The “huddle” for the WBFH Staff class was invented by me to gather everyone in that staff hour to come together in the main room and discuss broadcasting current events, upcoming Biff events, other station topics. Like sports “huddles”, some would put their hands together in the middle and say something like “Let’s Go Biff”.

*Studies have shown that the people who have a lot of birthdays tend to live longer.

*I always tried to make it a big deal when it was someone’s birthday. I would put a Happy Birthday banner on the dry erase board and sometimes light a birthday candle. Always celebrated the Biff’s birthday October 1. Quick story: one October 1, I entered the FORB classroom and saw “Happy Birthday” on the board in front of the room. The French teacher was still there so I thanked her for wishing our station a Happy Birthday. She said she didn’t know it was the station’s birthday, she said the students wrote that because it was HER birthday. Now the freaky part. I said it was cool that she had the same birthday as Biff…I said the Biff is probably older than her. She said she was born in 1976, I said so was the Biff! So, she was born on the day WBFH went on the air! How cool is that?

My last teacher ID before I retired.

Bling I would put on my ID, couldn’t fit all of them on regular ID so they got their own ID holder.

Broadcasting Bug prop. Students who get the Broadcasting Bug at WBFH, continue to study communications in college. WBFH is a launching pad for those who get the Bug.

Hole puncher becomes satellite orbiting Earth at 22,000 miles out in space. One, I didn’t know I was being photographed, and two, I didn’t know that the students in a class across the courtyard might be watching me. There are shades on the windows but you can still see out.