. . . I was running around the house like a hairdresser this morning . . .

[Description by Uncle Ricky]

This aircheck of Fred Winston's first morning show on WCFL was originally recorded by Tim Benko of "Windy City" Airchecks, and contributed just a couple of months before Tim's untimely passing. Could it be Tim himself who calls to tell Winston that he's recording the show? Of course, it could have been anyone who wanted to catch a bit of history at 5:30 in the morning of March 13, 1981.

WCFL dumped their Top 40 format on March 15, 1976 for Beautiful Music. In 1978, they switched to a soft Adult Contemporary format, and on June 12, 1979, the Chicago Federation of Labor sold the station to the Mutual Broadcasting System. MBS initially tried a short-lived "lifestyle talk" format, and flipped again to Adult Contemporary in 1980.

Winston had been working in Chicago since 1971, at WLS, WMAQ and WFYR-FM. This appearance in mornings at WCFL followed a 90-day non-compete agreement, which explains his reference to three months of poison building up in his large mouth. By the way, after a year at WCFL, Winston returned to WLS and stayed there until 1989.

Jim Bohannan handles WCFL news, and there's a LOT of MBS, complete with the network "bee-doop" switching tones in this hour. The exhibit opens with the late commentator Jack Anderson opining that President Ronald Reagan's tax plan will primarily benefit the rich.