I just went to the Channel 13 Facebook page and I saw the old Channel 13 building pictured on it and, of course, it brought back a memory.  Richard and Angelo Lindsey and I went to a wrestling match in that building when we were still probably somewhere around 10 to 12 years old.  All of the original cast of characters, Toejoe Yamamoto, the bag lady, Jackie Fargo and the whole cast of characters were there.  Lance Russell and Dave Brown were hosting the wrestling matches in those days.  This was sometime way before the days of Jerry the King Lawler when they had such names as Haystack Calhoun, Gorgeous George and many others. I laugh sometimes so hard I cried at the antics of the bag lady beating the wrestlers with her purse or bag.  It was good clean fun and I loved it.

It was even more thrilling when they added a broadcast of the live Saturday morning wrestling match.  It was even greater to go inside the studio and see what it took to put on this Saturday show.  I’ve been gone so long, I did not even know that the station had changed its affiliate. It just doesn’t seem right to me for it not to be ABC and it shouldn’t Fox and not to hear that famous voice sounding out the call letters of the station like bells ringing “WHBQ”.

Channel 13 did some very incredible original programming for kids back in our day.  With none of the special effects that they would have access to today they were still great programs, but I guess we just weren’t used to all the special effects that they use today at the television stations so we didn’t know any better.  Some of the special programming was done for Christmas and other shows were just put on in the mornings for kids and I remember they tried to have something special on Saturday mornings for kids, not like the other channels in Memphis.  So I really just want to take my hat off and say a warm thank you from the bottom of my heart for the memories that WHBQ Channel 13 ABC gave me when I was a young man.

I don’t want to belittle Channel 3 WREC, the CBS affiliate in Memphis because they brought us the early movie which introduced me to a wide world of the old movies, some of them classics, some of them great and some of them downright bad.  But through this small station in Memphis, Tennessee, I gained a love for movies that I still have today. Any one that comes into my house today will understand that love because in my study there are more than 150 pictures and autographs hanging on the wall of old movie stars and television stars.  I have autographs from such greats as Dale Evans, Roddy McDowell, Keye Luke, Roland Winters, Annette Funicello, Angela Lansbury, Don Knotts, Sally Field and many many others.

Last but not least Channel Five, WMC-TV Channel 5, the NBC affiliate, this is the channel that introduced me to Walt Disney.  If you said nothing else at all about Channel 5, that would be enough to this proud Memphis boy. You see, Channel Five was probably as involved in our communities as any of the television stations in Memphis. Their sports coverage of local teams in schools was as good as any and their coverage of the Memphis State Tigers was bar none the best.