LIVING IN CIN BY JAY GILBERT
Radar Love Story WHEN CINCINNATI WAS THE WORLD CAPITAL OF RADAR DETECTORS, I WAS A BLIP.
I HAVE GOTTEN ONLY ONE SPEEDING TICKET IN MY LIFE. NOT THAT I HAVEN’T DESERVED A papered wall full of them, but so far there’s been just the one time. I could lie and say it was for something sexy, like the 90 mph I clocked on my mother’s Ford Falcon during my first day with a driver’s license. That one I got away with. No, my speeding ticket came decades later, absent-mindedly zooming past a hidden cop on a Norwood street. It was the last day of the month—I should have been more alert. Like you, I tell myself I’m a pretty safe driver. If I decide to break the law, it’s only after carefully looking around, assessing the moment, and quickly but scientifically reaching the conclusion, Yeah, I can beat that S.O.B. Just don’t attempt it on the last day of a month. By coincidence, my first speeding ticket in 1982 was soon followed by my first radar 2 6 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M A U G U S T 2 0 2 1
detector. I acquired an Escort Radar Receiver—universally considered the world’s best—as a gift from Mike Valentine, the guy who helped invent it. We were at Cincinnati Microwave, his factory near the Fields-Ertel exit on I-71, where Escort sales had grown quickly and Valentine wanted my help in continuing this welcome problem. I WAS HIRED TO WRITE, CAST, AND PROduce a recording for placement inside every new Escort package. It would quickly and amusingly demonstrate the device’s basic functions. The recording would also function as a commercial, accompanying fullpage ads in popular magazines. At this point, some readers may have trouble visualizing a magazine with a recording inside it. (Thank you for not having trouble visualizing a magazine.) Perhaps PH OTO G R A PH BY D E V Y N G LI S TA
