"I'll bring back a green beer for you later"
I think that's what he said before he left the WMNI Radio studios for the last time in his long and storied broadcasting career, but he he never came back. Jim Eldridge lived in a suite one floor below the station in The Great Southern Hotel at the corner of S. High Street and E. Main Street in downtown Columbus. If I ever knew a downtown guy it was he.
Think about it, you are one of the city's top radio announcers in an era when the radio industry had more listeners overall than television had viewers, and your home is on the 6th floor of a famous hotel that is located at the intersection heading into a thriving downtown in one of the 20th largest cities in America. Almost everywhere you go people know who you are even if they really don't know anything else about you.
All I knew about Jim aside from his personalty persona is what I have shared here, and my radio show was bookends to his; it started an hour before he came on, and re-started 3 hours later after his program ended. Mine began as sort of a buffer between our afternoon-drive DJ and his nightly talk-show called "Columbus Feedback" and the second segment of mine which finished at midnight.
That odd sounding schedule made me the evening DJ as well as producer for his show; I know, it all sounds complicated and it was! I would just get warmed up for my show and in the same hour have to say goodbye to my listeners and welcome his and hope mine would come back for me later!
It was the wee hours of the morning after St. Patrick's Day, 1978 and Jim had wandered into a production studio where I was producing commercials that would air the next day following my live on-air program. He had been across the street celebrating in an adult-themed nightclub called "40 Carots" and from his demeanor and general attitude I could tell he had a good time.
That strip along S. High Street was normally populated by good times on any given night because of the hotel and various taverns nearby and a usually busy pornography emporium called "The Gentlemen's Bookstore" where lonely men could hang out, purchase naughty books, tapes and magazines, or just get to know one another in various ways.
Sometimes late at night when I would be walking to my car after work I would hear a cat-call from someone standing on the corner shouting "Hey Baby!" Usually it was a prostitute pretending to be attracted to me but really only wanting to earn a few bucks for special services; while other times it was strange men testing my sexual preference. None of it was anything I wasn't used to or something I worried about.
Being a local celebrity in my mid-20s and thinking I was kind of special I was rarely desperate for attention, and believing I was ten-feet tall and bullet proof not much that happened anywhere was cause for alarm unless I felt threatened in some way. The cat-calls were all about the same thing and never anything I wanted to venture into, just stuff that goes on in an environment like that.
Like I said, Jim on the other hand was a real downtown guy, he was single and he knew his way through fast and loose crowds more than I wanted to, and because he was older and had no one at home waiting for him he had more time and probably more desire for a risque atmosphere like that than I did. So the night began and ended like any other; he left the building after finishing a lively and spirited St. Patrick's Day show at 9:30 and after the bars closed he returned and stopped by the studio to say goodnight. I had no idea that it would be the last time I would ever see him. What awaited him in his suite was someone that would take his life before the sun came up.
I don't know if any of us ever got the entire story surrounding the circumstances of that murder, but the general consensus was that he had met someone (probably in the bar or on the corner) who either followed him home or was invited to join him there and something went terribly wrong. His beaten and bloody body was discovered the next day by our company president and hotel owner, William R. Mnich when attempts to call him failed and knocks on the door went unanswered. We were told that when he went inside it was like stepping into a scene in horror movie! The room had been ransacked and the walls, the ceiling and the furniture were blood spattered as he lay dead in a pool of bloody broken glass from a lamp that was used to beat him and stab him dozens of times.
(More than 60 we were told.)
Every St. Patrick's Day since then I think of that night, of him and the rest of the radio staff at WMNI, and as stoic as it may sound, I remember that time as the good old days, and of 1978 as my single best and favorite year in radio; a career that lasted until the early 90s!
From March 17th, and for weeks after it things were unsettling all through the hotel because no one knew who the murderer was and the police would need nearly a full year to finally identify a suspect and bring him to justice. But still it was a very rewarding year for me, both in my personal and professional life. Before it ended I would settle into the air-shift I wanted and a second son would be born. It was when being a radio personalty really added up to good things for those who had a passion for it and worked in good environments that were as good as ours.
It was also a turning point for the country music format; the brand was becoming enormously popular not only in Columbus, but across America, and as it stock continued to grow so did ours! Nothing I had ever accomplished in broadcasting before or since that time was more gratifying or rewarding. I had the best job in Columbus! So tonight, Erin Go Bragh, and if beer or alcohol of any color will be in your celebration between now and sunrise, please drink responsibly, and be careful!
Oh, and one more thing, it might also be a good idea to resist any temptation to pick up strangers or be picked up by one.
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
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