POETS

When I was leaving the Army in 1968, I was urged by some friends to move to Corpus Christi.  We had worked together at KQUE-fm in Houston, and while I was in the service they had bought KTOD in Corpus Christi.  They brought me in as their program director.

Shortly after I came on board, we hired a lady to sell advertising on the station.  She was from a prominent local family, didn’t need the money, but thought selling air time would be fun.  In her interview she warned us that that she would never be available after noon on Fridays because she had POETS on Friday afternoons.  In light of her other social connections – she was on the boards of several local charities – we thought this might be more of a plus than a minus, so we assured her that it would be fine.

Things went well, and she did bring in some business.  Then one Friday afternoon, Jack Schmitt (one of the owners) and I happened to spot her in a hotel bar.  By all evidence, she was well into her second (or maybe third) margarita and was feeling no pain.  We asked her about her Poet’s Club meeting, and she began to laugh.

“Poets isn’t a club.” she said, “It’s an acronym.” 

“It stands for Piss On Everybody, Tomorrow’s Saturday.”