Dear Source:
It was sad to learn of Stan Soltoski's death. It's been more years than I can remember as I think back to when I first met Stan. It had to have been in the late '60s. I used to eat dinner quite regularly at one of my all-time favorite restaurants of the period, the legendary Thatch Farm owned and operated by Joe Marona. Stan was the bartender.
Over a period of time, he seemed to know instinctively when I hit the parking lot, 'cause everytime I got to the bar, there was my Jack Daniel's on the rocks "coolin' and waiting." It was over a period of time, and a lot of JD, that I discovered his outrageous humor – more outrageous than my own.
I remember well the night he told me that he was going to try his hand at broadcasting. A new FM station (WCRN-FM 101.1, long since faded from the scene) was about to make its debut. He wanted to play classical music and the music of the '40s on the station. Somewhere along the way, WCRN moved him to mornings.
(We fast forward a few years.) Radio One had just moved down to new studios in the Franklin Building from our former location in the V.I. Hotel. Our morning man, Jody Owen, was about to depart for KMOX in St. Louis. We needed a replacement fast. As fate would have it, WCRN went off the air for an extended period. Stan was out of work.
It still was not an easy sell persuading him to come over to AM radio, especially one that played rock, etc. He gave in when I told him he would be working with me on the morning news and operating the control board for the women's show that followed. I wanted someone who could trade quips with me during the lighter side of the news. So we became a team in the morning for close to 15 years.
I am told some of our funniest moments on the air have been documented in a book on island life written some years ago by June Brown, another Radio One alumnus. June, Mary Brooks Jackson, Louise Noble and Chris O'Keefe all were at his mercy when Stan was at his funniest and on a roll. They were great days in V.I. radio.
Although I could see his health starting to deteriorate, it was a dark day when Stan came into my office to tell me, reluctantly, he could not go on. He was not up to it anymore. In the late '80s he went off to the VA Hospital in Puerto Rico, where he remained until he died recently.
Some two months ago, I lost another dear friend, Carter Hague. Now Stan. I am at that stage in life where I am losing friends faster than my ability to make new ones. If I know Stan, he has probably found Carter, and they're both up there playing "Can You Top This?" Stan was the only one that I ever saw Carter take a back seat to in the humor department. I miss them both.
Rick Ricardo
Florida
