Memories of My Life with NBC
1942 - 1964
by Bill Roddy

Chapter One of Twelve

The First Year, 1942

 Taylor and O'Farrell, San Francisco, circa 1942
The Radio Club was a hangout for NBC people

The first job I ever had in San Francisco was as a page boy for the National Broadcasting Company at their radio station KPO. It was 1942 and I was 19 years old. 
With the exception of World War II; the Korean War, and  two years at other stations, I would work for NBC until 1965.

Page boys were considered future executive or talent material by the network and that's why applicants were interviewed by no less a person than the general manager John W. Elwood, an NBC pioneer. I was terrified to meet him, but he was very friendly to the gangly teenager in front of him and he hired me at $18 a week. 

My dream was to be an announcer, but the announcers I would meet at NBC were old... all of thirty or thirty-five and they regarded me as the kid.
There were two types of pages. In the first you wore a gray uniform and delivered mail to the offices of KPO, the Red Network and KGO, the Blue Network. NBC owned both.  
The Blue later became the American Broadcasting Company when NBC was forced to divest one network by the FCC.

Your ambition as a mail room boy was to graduate to Guest Relations. Then you wore a blue uniform with gold epaulets. Guest Relations regarded the mail room boys as peons, and I yearned to be one of them.

Chapter Two: I move up