PAM’S STORY

I’m a beach person.  Ever since I was a kid growing up in New York near the Long Island Sound I’ve been a beach person.  At five years old I took swimming lessons in the Long Island Sound and by age six I was on the swimming team.

The beach kid grew up to be a beach adult.  I am always drawn to the water and don’t think I could live without a coastline nearby.

I’ve had my bad habits.  When I was a tyke my parents said I’d pick up cigarette butts on the beach and try to eat them.  With my parents’ help I kicked the habit.

I had a fixation on fire hydrants as a kid, viewing them as some sort of little pets.  My parents gave me a red plastic fire hydrant (no doubt meant for a dog) that stood about a foot or so high.   I tossed the doll out of my baby carriage and replaced it with the fire hydrant.

I kicked that habit, too.

I grew up in Westchester close to Long Island Sound, went to college in upstate New York on Lake Ontario, lived in Manhattan (which is an island) for most of my 20’s in a tiny studio apartment, moved to a log cabin on a lake in Northern New Jersey for a short time, then settled in Connecticut.  On the coast.

My first love was writing stories.  As a pre-teen I “published” a newsletter and sold it to my parents’ friends for a penny.   My printing press was carbon paper.

I chose a college with a great writing program and graduated with a BA in English/Writing Arts (with honors).  I wanted to write a novel.  I wanted to make a living writing.

But I fell into radio.

That radio became my career still amazes me, as I have never liked the sound of my own voice.  But apparently some people do, judging from the success I have enjoyed as an on-air host.   I’ve done Adult Contemporary, Jazz, Rock and Adult Alternative radio.  For 16 years I had the number one rated midday rock radio show in New Haven but when the bottom dropped out of the economy at the same time that my contract ended, I found myself on the unemployment line.

As with so many industries these days, radio stations are firing and not hiring.  I am tremendously grateful to be on the air as a part-timer at 107.1 The Peak (WXPK) in White Plains, NY.  I cherish every show that I get to do there.

And, yes, my passion is to get back on the air full-time.

In a way I have come full circle in radio, since my first on-air job was also at 107.1…same frequency, different format and it was in Pleasantville, NY.

And when I say I “fell into radio” I mean it.

Out of college, living and working in Manhattan as a word processing temp, I got an assignment at Kiss Radio (WRKS).  My first gander at the air studio was pretty much love at first sight.   I had never considered radio as a career but now I was hooked.  So I took a night course to get the radio equivalent of a portfolio that is known as an “aircheck” and started sending it out.  My first on-air show was doing Friday night into Saturday morning…also known as the overnight: midnight to 6am.

The first song I ever played on the radio was the Supremes “I Hear a Symphony”.

Yup I worked my job at Kiss (which had become full-time) Monday-Friday 9-5, looking forward all week to Friday when I’d leave work, go home and grab some dinner, fill up a shiny thermos with coffee and head for Grand Central to take the train up to Pleasantville.  I loved it.

Twenty-five years later, radio is in my blood.

And so is writing.  The creative kind and also the journalistic kind as I now write for ShorelineOutandAbout.com and the New Haven Register.

Wait…did I mention photography??

There’s that, too.

With all this “stuff” I decided that I should have a place to bring “all things Pam Landry” together.   So here it is:  my sounds (radio airchecks, voice over work), my words (articles, stories), my photographs.   My blog.   All under one roof.  I mean website.

Welcome to PamLandry.com