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Last Summary Update: 10-15-2026 |
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Remote From No Man's Land
Airdate:
Tuesday - October 16, 1962
WOR Show
Original Airing
(NOTE ABOUT TIME REFERENCES: Since there are many different copies of shows out there from different sources, all time references are from the beginning of one single recorded copy, since various copies, depending on when the recordee started recording, had news at the beginning or shortened themes. The times would vary from copy to copy.)
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| First Spoken Line After Theme Ends |
| All right, get those men out of the sun. . . . |
| Show Description |
| [ Courtesy: GROK Summary - - ]
This is a rambling, observational radio monologue (classic Jean Shepherd style) that mixes social commentary, media critique, and a personal anecdote. It begins with digressions about sensitive professions (especially public relations people who react angrily to criticism), the limitations of social scientists and psychologists who only see people in artificial settings, and a humorous riff on a Dr. Crane advice column urging parents to "show children you love 'em" plus a booklet on "How to Prevent Insanity."
The core of the piece is an early-morning train ride (around 6 a.m.) from New York toward Wilmington via Philadelphia. Looking out the window, the speaker describes one continuous junkyard along the tracks - old cars (Hudsons, Packards, etc.), World War II surplus vehicles, tires, and debris - broken only by occasional dismal swamp or small factories. In the middle of one yard sits the wingless, graffiti-covered hulk of an X-15 rocket plane. This leads to the central observation that the major product of technological civilization is junk: both mechanical (outmoded gadgets and vehicles discarded because fashion has moved on) and human (people rendered obsolete by a youth-obsessed culture).
He contrasts this real, gritty landscape—crummy houses with rusty 1950s cars and oil drums in the yards, TV antennas reaching for reruns and dreams, little factories like the Friendly Chocolate Company - with the polished, idealized America of "Life" magazine (drum majorettes, springy teenagers, California sunsets). Most people's sense of time, events, and even disasters is mediated by television. A news item about a woman calmly watching Red Skelton while her husband is held up at gunpoint in the same room illustrates the point.
The monologue then shifts to a formative experience of true lawlessness. After leaving the Army, Shepherd worked a late-night remote radio broadcast from the infamous Corral Inn in a "No Man's Land" border town (a wide-open, Capone-era-adjacent industrial area with neon-lit joints, steelworkers, hillbilly music, and little effective law). With a country band (Chuck and the Colorado Cowhands), Smokey Joe the proprietor, and a tough crowd drinking white lightning, he witnessed a man walk in, stab another patron in the ribs, and leave - while the band was told to keep playing and the body was simply dragged out the back. The casual treatment of the violence became a stark lesson about human nature outside the protective bubble most people live in.
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| WOR ID |
| Time |
Station ID (All times approximate)
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| 10:53 |
This is WOR AM and FM. . .
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