His voice is hoarse and not as upbeat as heard on WLW-AM, WSAI-AM and other stations here since 1968.
Jim Scott walks with a cane, and no longer runs marathons with his wife, Donna.
He's still playing golf, but swinging a club with just one hand.
That's life today for Scott, 80, who revealed Wednesday that he was diagnosed last year with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (or ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease), a disease of the nervous system that weakens muscles and impacts physical function. There currently is no cure.
"I'm still doing stuff, but I've cut back some," Scott told me Thursday morning.
"I can still play golf, I really enjoy that. You ought to see my one-armed swing! (ALS) really affected my left side, where I had polio (at age 12). But I was always able to do a lot of things, including playing two-handed golf quite well. But back in October last year, out of the blue, it just hangs there.
"So everything is one-armed now. That's a whole different ball game" says Scott, who retired as WLW-AM morning host in 2015 after 46 years on WLW-AM, WSAI-AM, YES95 and WINK94.1. Since leaving WLW-AM, he has continued to support the Salvation Army Christmas kettle campaign, WCET-TV's Action Auction, and (full disclosure) Cincinnati Public Radio's fund drives for WVXU-FM and WGUC-FM and the new Scripps Family Center for Public Media offices and studiosunder construction in Evanston.
Scott, who turns 81 in December, revealed his ALS diagnosis in a Facebook post Wednesdaythat promoted the Walk to Defeat ALS fundraiser Sunday, Sept. 17, in Winton Woods park. He had been thinking about how to tell his fans about having ALS.
"I felt the timing, with the walk coming up, was just natural. I've told a few close friends. Last week I told about 24 guys that I play golf with on Wednesday mornings," he says.
He walks with a cane. He calls it Abel.
"Trusty Abel makes it possible for me to walk without falling, though I’ve done that a few times," he wrote on Facebook. He plans to walk as far as he can Sept. 17.
"I can still walk a distance. I can walk a couple of miles," he told me.
When he does promotional appearances for Kroger, "Good Ol' Jim Scott" puts aside his cane and pushes a grocery cart and "looks like everybody else." He gives away free bags of Grippo's potato chips, another longtime sponsor, and "sparks joy" by handing out Kroger gift cards to surprised customers. "Spark joy" is a philosophy promoted by organization guru Maria Kondo in her books and Netflix series.
"Do you know the expression 'spark joy?' That's what I try to do. I have a pocketful of gift cards from Kroger that I can hand out. So I walk up to somebody — an older couple who have been married 60 years shopping together, or somebody by themselves, or a young mother with three kids — and I walk up and said, 'Hi! Here's a gift card from Kroger. It's not a lot of money but it's enough for you to buy something special for somebody you really like.' They won't expect it, and it will spark joy. That works pretty good. I like it."
Speaking by phone from his Indiana home, on a hill overlooking Perfect North Slopes, his voice lacks the powerful positivism heard on radio here for more than 50 years. I noticed it in his recent commercials on WLW-AM.
"ALS affects the voice. That's one of the things that seems to be a common issue with people with ALS. It's still, I think, recognizable, and I can talk to people, but it's hoarse. It's lost some of its range," he says. On Facebook he wrote: "That's the part that really irritates me, but you gotta keep your sense of humor."
He praises the help and support of his wife, Donna.
"We've been married 23 years now. She's the most important person to me. When you can't run up and down the stairs, it's good to have someone to help out in so many ways," he says.
When Scott came to Cincinnati for WSAI-AM in March 1968, the March of Dimes was the first organization to ask for his help.
"They sure picked the right guy, because in 1954 when I was 12 years old, I contracted polio and the March of Dimes really came through for my family. After immediate hospitalization with the infectious stage of polio, I needed intense rehab," he wrote on Facebook.
"The March of Dimes paid for me to go off and live away from my family for six months of rehabilitation in upstate New York. The polio didn’t kill me, but it knocked the heck out of my left hand and arm and my right leg. So, when the March of Dimes asked me to lead the organization's new five-mile fund-raising walk in Cincinnati, I said 'HECK YEAH!' "
The annual March of Dimes walk was lengthened to 25 miles. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised each year for at least 20 years, he said.
"Fast forward, now I'm 80 years old. About three years ago, I began to experience weaknesses in the same arm, hand and leg that were affected by polio. In the spring of 2022, I was diagnosed with ALS, often known as 'Lou Gehrig’s Disease.' ALS is similar to polio in that both are motor-neuron diseases. The big difference is that not everyone who contracted polio died from it," he wrote on Facebook.
"ALS is a fatal disease. Science found a way to prevent polio, so wouldn’t it be wonderful if doctors and scientists could find a way to defeat ALS?
"I have had a wonderful life, am still having a wonderful life, and I don't have any intention of checking out soon."
