This week we're hearing from KSKA’s long-time program director Bede Trantina. Bede is retiring today after 39 years of public radio service. Now that is a very long time to work somewhere, and Bede has enjoyed just about all of it. Unfortunately, she did have one small but disturbing surprise just before she left.
TRANTINA: Well, knowing that my last day was coming up, I realized "Jeez, I've got to clean out my desk, clean out my office. So I came in on a Saturday, and I got the vacuum cleaner, and I'm moving some stuff around. And I found some coffee beans under the heater area, some old candy behind my file cabinet.
And then I've got these cloth bags, underneath my desk with like a change of clothes, and a towel, and some soap. In case, you know, we get stuck here with an ongoing story, and I hadn't looked in those things for a long time. And there on the bottom of this cloth bag, I thought, "Oh look, there's a little fuzzy key chain. I don't remember getting that." Then I looked at it a little bit closer, and I thought, "That's not a key chain. That's a dead mouse."
It was all wrapped up, all curled up. And I looked at it and I thought, "Oh (expletive), what is that?" And I dropped it, and I took all of the stuff that I'd taken out of that bag just like it was contaminated. And I put it back in that bag and put it upstairs and dropped it in the garbage can. I don't remember anything else that I found. Certainly nothing that was that gross. But, I like to think of myself as a pretty good housekeeper. But, maybe not such a good officekeeper.
