“We were positive that we were going to change the world,” the 84-year-old said of the “hippie dippy glory days” when he ruled Boston’s morning airwaves. “Unfortunately, the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”
Born in 1938 in Milford, Laquidara hosted the morning drive-time staple “The Big Mattress” on WBCN, 104.1 FM, from 1972 to 1995 (minus a two-year hiatus from the station), beginning in an era when terrestrial “underground radio” was as ubiquitous as Spotify and earbuds today.
“At the time, you could go from Boston to Cambridge and you wouldn’t need [your own] radio because every school, every dormitory, every factory, every store, every retail store, every car driving by, every kid holding a portable radio had BCN on,” Laquidara says.
I was working nights. Dinah Vaprin was working mornings. At that time, nights were when people listened to underground radio. So Dinah Vaprin asked at a meeting: “Why do women always get the morning shift? The [expletive] shift.” I yelled out, “There’s no such thing as a bad shift, Dinah, you should be happy with what you got!” And she said, “Well then you take morning . . .” I said, “I will!” And I did.
After the meeting was over, I said to the program director, “What did I just do?”
