Sunday, April 18, 2010

Everything Is Amazing and Nobody's Happy

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Friday, April 16, 2010

Happy Ending: A Thief Does The Right Thing

Last Friday night, Dawn Marie Wilson (no relation to me) was enjoying herself at the Miranda Lambert concert at the Akron Civic Theater. Her leather Dale Earnhardt Jr jacket was draped over the back of her seat for most of the show. After the encore, she reached back to put it on, and it was gone. She was devastated.

The jacket, she told me in an email sent the following morning, was not really worth that much monetarily, but to her it had great sentimental value. Her dad had given it to her as a gift, and it represented memories of their combined love of racing.

That following Monday, I read the email on the air during the Wynn and Wilson in the Morning show on WQMX. The story was also posted on the morning show's Facebook page. Calls flooded the studio lines and tons of comments were posted on Facebook, with everyone hoping for a happy ending, similar to the ending that came with a story about a guitar theft weeks before.

Lat month, Country singer Justin Moore (famous for his hit "Small Town USA") had his guitar stolen from the stage after a performance in Michigan. He put a plea out via social networking asking for his guitar back. He explained it had sentimental value and encouraged the fan to do the right thing. Justin's guitar was returned, with a note of apology. The fan said he was drunk and over-excited and just jumped on stage and grabbed the guitar, and acted foolishly.

Alcohol sometimes makes people do dumb things, we all know that, and so when we put out the plea for the jackets return both on the air and on Facebook, we compared the two incidents and said this one was also probably alcohol-induced. We asked for the bandit to do the right thing. As Scott said; "you'll never feel good about wearing it."

This morning, Scott opened a box that arrived in the mail. In it, was the jacket with a simple note that said "Please accept my sincere apology." We announced the jacket's return on the air and on Facebook, and again, the response from listeners was overwhelming and positive, with the overall theme of renewed faith that people, if given the chance, will "do the right thing."

So. whoever you are, thanks for doing the right thing.