[1]It has been 18 years since the voice of Adrian Don Mora was first heard on the radio.
Now leave the mental calculators alone-it's not about the number of years, but what one does with them. And Don Mora has done his fair share.
"I started playing music at an early age, that is, calling myself a DJ," said Don Mora as he relaxed in his office. Lucky enough to pin down the assistant programme director of Ebony 104FM (the man is busy), I had to ask him take readers on a brief trip down memory lane.
A parish hall of a local church in Arouca, five young men-cousins, a huge box with one speaker, one of the first dances played in by "Groove Masters Incorporated" and you have Don Mora's earliest memories of being a DJ.
"That's what we called ourselves back then," said Don Mora, as he eased more comfortably into his chair. His average-size office felt more like a cramped telephone booth, filled to capacity as it was with foodstuffs for hurricane victims in Grenada.
"We started to get compliments here and compliments there. Then we started to do several gigs." Never the "ra, ra" hyper-guy type, Don Mora always affected the sexy laid back style of deejaying.
"I tried it a couple of times, and while I feel I might be able to do it and do it well, it is not in my nature. I am a very laid back person." Yet, being a DJ did not hold a position of importance in the life of a young Don Mora.
"It kind of went off the board a little while, because I went to school in Canada," said the DJ who, at the time, listened to the likes of Rennie B and Glen Antoine on the radio.
It wasn't until Don Mora returned home for the July-August vacation that he got his first taste of radio. "My sister called me and said, 'I have a surprise for you.' The surprise was me getting in the door to observe and train informally."
Courtesy Randy Harewood, his sister's friend, Don Mora learned what it took to run a radio station. "Being in the radio station fuelled that desire to be on air," said Don Mora, who worked in all the departments of Radio Trinidad, including the library, operations and production.
He even did a couple of demos, but to no avail. "I don't think it is an easy thing to do." With his dream in sight, Don Mora headed to New York for a nine-month course at the Announcer Training School (ATS).
Surprisingly, on his return, he had to re-train. "I was accepted in a group to train-again. At that time, broadcasting in Trinidad was still very British," said Don Mora, who worked with the likes of Winston Maynard and Gabriel Francis.
"My very first shift was 18 years ago," said the popular radio announcer. Leaning onto his desk, Don Mora seemed to be captured by the memories evoked by telling his life story.
He recently celebrated his 18th anniversary with a Republic weekend party at Pier 1, Chaguaramas. The smooth-talking personality we now know actually started as an early Saturday morning announcer introducing paid programming and BBC reports.
Eventually, Don Mora started to do shift work at 95.1FM holding down spots for other announcers. When his own show came on board, After Glow, he began to build his repertoire. "It was mainly pop and that was where I started to make my name."
"95.1 in those days is what we call alternative," said Don Mora. But his first real extended programme was at The Vibe 105.1FM. The Tempo, his show, was on evenings from 6 to 9 o'clock.
"I wasn't happy doing the whole Tempo thing because I wanted to play what I liked," said Don Mora. What the radio personality liked was R&B and jazz.
Don Mora stuck it out, moved back to 95.1FM, started the Sunset Strip and had the number one radio show in the country. "When I moved to 95, that was when Adrian Don Mora the personality took of."
Having turned down an offer at 106FM and the newly opened 98.9FM, it seemed that Radio Trinidad was going to be it for Don Mora. "I held off the desire then to move because Radio Trinidad was home. All that time I was a freelancer," he mused.
In 1993, Adrian Don Mora became one of the first radio announcers to be heard on air at 96.1WEFM, a career that spanned close to ten years. "The offer was too good to refuse. By that time, I had my first of three daughters."
With a thoughtful look on his face, Don Mora referred to 96.1FM station owner Anthony Chow Lin (better known as "Chinese Laundry") as an "astute businessman".
Which brings us to the present and 104FM.
"While 96.1 was good to me in terms of publicity and being out there in the parties and the youth crowd, there was a stifling in terms of the music you could play... but yet as an individual you are going down the road where some of the music you have to play was not the best music."
Being brutally honest is a privilege one earns after climbing their way to the top of an industry where voices come and voices go. "I knew so much music. So much of the music I knew back in the day, the beats, I thought I could play it and educate the youths. But we couldn't go back further than ten years."
"It caused chaos inside of me. I'm working at 96 but jumping in my car and listening to 104," said Don Mora, with a frustrated sigh.
But it's funny how things work themselves out-Don Mora was approached by the station and, well, the rest is history.
"To do that for so long and still maintain so much of the smooth, so much of yourself, it is a good thing." The future holds a great deal for Don Mora, who hopes to continue that climb up the ladder "as far as possible in terms of radio".
"I like to think that there is a generation that grew up with me," said Don Mora.
Well, actually, I think there is a generation that is still growing up with him.