Lopez thought that was great. You never know who you'll touch on the radio.
So Lopez stuck with it. He read the news on a tiny AM station in Laurel for three years, making $2.25 an hour. He got noticed, and moved up to Baltimore in 1977, where he's been doing the news, and bantering, on 98 Rock (WIYY-FM) ever since. He's called a lot of snow days.
Kirk McEwen, far left, Mark Ondayko and Bob Lopez have been doing 98 Rock's morning show together for seven years. The longtime Baltimore radio newsman has encouraged McEwen and Ondayko to share in his lighthearted on-air references to his cancer, which includes making cracks about his hairless head, the result of a recent round of radiation treatment.
(Photos Marvin Joseph -- The Washington Post)
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The cancer was a shock but in some ways not a surprise. Lopez smoked for decades, starting when he was 12. It's not entirely certain that this led to his disease, but it's certainly a strong risk factor, says Robert Donegan, Lopez's doctor.
Donegan knows that Lopez's public frankness about his illness "has a tendency to make some people uneasy." But he adds: "This is in keeping with his public persona. He's all about news and information and education. Most people aren't in a position to connect with the public and play this role."
Lopez maintains a journal of sorts on the radio station's Web site (www.98online.com/lopez.html), where he periodically updates his condition. On Dec. 1, he revealed in almost dispassionate language the details of his brain-cancer diagnosis. He appended this:
" . . . Radio News is my life and I intend to be there doing it for as long as I can -- at least until my brain or lungs fail me, which could be some years ahead. I do hope it's a longer rather than a shorter time -- I have a lot of credit cards to pay off before I croak.
"Please, please, don't feel sorry for me (That is, if you feel sorry for me in the first place.). This could easily happen to you.
"Just go out in the morning, take a deep breath, be glad you don't have Cancer, and listen to the KML Show on the way to work.
"Life could be worse. Or shorter. . . . Or less pretty.
"Or worst of all: Unfunny."
Dropping His Guard
It's only off the air that you can see the cracks in Lopez's brave and breezy public persona.
"Sure, I'm afraid," he says after a morning shift, barely touching his eggs Benedict at a Bob Evans restaurant. "I'm afraid of a painful death."
Thus far, it's just been mostly extremely unpleasant. For all the radiation and chemo, there's been only one profoundly painful experience over the past year. Earlier this year, Lopez woke up too soon from anesthesia as doctors were jamming a tube into his leg to alleviate the blood clots. The memory makes him wince.
"Let's just say the experience is about what you'd expect it to be," he says. "I'm very appreciative of the fact that this could become very painful later. But I didn't hear any screaming in the cancer ward."
