Sunday, July 23, 2017

Local News Anchor

And mega-celebrity of the 80s, if you only count the 60 mile radius, Jim Vance, has died.

A fixture of my local programming youth.  But he has ALWAYS been on TV.  For my entire life. 

Here he is entertained by a fashion model who was given poor footwear.



And a younger version from the mid 80s, with a gun control story at 2:50, where we get to buy rifles in another state. Police unions order their members to cancel their NRA memberships. Wow. Time capsule.


So why do YOU care? Jim Vance himself was a gun nut!  Not many people knew that. 

He came into my gun store to pick up two revolvers one time when I was there.  The owner said he was huge into cowboy action stuff, and they were nice single action Ruger types.

"But T-Bolt!  DC banned guns!  Did he use his local fame to be above the law?"

Naw, he prolly lived in a nice house in Potomac Maryland and commuted to the channel 4 studio.  NBC is in the north east west section of the city, near the border.  Just a guess.  But his commute might have been only 5 miles or less.

Oh wait, he lived near me!  Maybe Kensington?  Nice area.  Makes sense why he'd go to that gunstore.

Another guess, he was more of a Fudd tho.  His cowboy guns and bird hunting shotguns were fine but he wanted to release the crime scene photos of Newtown to the public expressly to whip up emotions.  Who needs an AR, anyway?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Apologies for nit picking, but WRC-TV - where Vance worked - is located on Nebraska Avenue NW, not NE, about halfway between Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues, NW.

And, IIRC, but I don't trust my memory, it's been too long, I seem to recall WRC operated (1950s) from what was then called the Wardman Park Hotel, later the Sheraton Park Hotel, now - I think - the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, located at Connecticut Avenue and Woodley Road, NW, a block above Calvert Street, before they built the new WRC studios on Nebraska Avenue ("new" is relative, IIRC they've been there since the late '60s or very early '70s). As a kid I used to ice skate at the Sheraton Park's outdoor rink, and hang out there or at the Shoreham a block away on Calvert St - both hotels were favorites for visiting baseball teams in town to play the Senators because they had more amenities than the downtown hotels, and were convenient to Griffith Stadium (7th and Florida NW, where Howard University Hospital has been for 40+ years).

BTW, at which gun shop did you work? George's place on Atlantic Ave by any chance?

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

Yes, I mispoke. I knew better. West of the park. The E was a typo.