A memorable experience at the 1996 Republican National Convention in San Diego

Bob Dole was inspiring and Jack Kemp sure knew how to throw a football

Every once in a while an unexpected opportunity comes your way that allows you to rub elbows with the rich and famous.

My turn came in 1996 when I was serving as a nightly talk host (9 to midnight, Monday through Friday) on 50,000-watt radio station KFBK in Sacramento,.

"The Flamethrower of the Central Valley," I called it.

Because I grew up in the exceedingly liberal university town of Davis - the City of All Things Right and Relevant - ultra-conservative KFBK regarded me as a sort of token house liberal, even if some of my political opinions were actually to the right of Ronald Reagan.

KFBK, you should know, is the radio station that gave Rush Limbaugh to the world. You may have heard of him.

As such, KFBK thought it would be great fun to have me do my nightly radio show from the 1996 Republican National Convention in San Diego, which would be considerably cheaper than sending me to the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. I mean, I'd have to fly to Chicago, but I could hitchhike to San Diego.

Talk radio, of course, was all about provoking listeners to the point that they would finally call in and you could put them on the air for a heated argument and better ratings.

"Buster, from Cut Bank, Montana, you're on KFBK with Bob Dunning," I'd say cheerily. "What's on your mind tonight, Buster?"

Sometimes, if the Academy Awards or the World Series was on TV, my call line would dry up and I'd send out an emergency alert to friends and family that I was in desperation mode. I told them if I repeated the time and temperature more than 10 times in five minutes, please call me, use an alias, and violently disagree with everything I was saying on the air that night.

I had no such problems at the Republican National Convention because there was a delicious buffet of famous folks who were more than happy to get some free air time. Thus, I didn't have to rely on phone calls to get through my three-hour shift that was sometimes a slog.

The evening before the convention began, the phone rang in my San Diego hotel room and a young news reporter that KFBK had sent along to file stories from the convention floor was on the line.

"Can you meet me in the lobby?" he asked, as I detected a bit of panic in his voice.