This is real. These people are not actors.

Ever since I started compiling the Billboard Magazine OTR Review links, I have been intrigued by one program in particular: A.L. Alexander's Mediation Board.

I've been looking around for a copy of the program for a couple of weeks now and I just so happen to find one yesterday and as far as I know there's only one available.

I imagined the program to be something like tv's The People's Court. After listening to the show, that idea was pretty much dead on.

The mediators are a clergy, rabbi and some other religious guy.

The program available to me was a *humdinger* to say the least. A woman is mad at her "husband" of 24 years. He's mad as a hornet when she lets certain facts slip out and he walks out of the live mediation, only to come back into it screaming like a wild maniac. The station cuts off the microphones for 15 seconds or so until the hothead calms himself down (no doubt that in 2011, he'd been tasered or some nutjob would call Homeland Security on him.)

It's a very interesting case but it's embarrassing to me to hear such dirty laundry. There's nothing "dirty" or anything such as that but these people are real, with real emotions and for golly's sake, this was 1943. And it's very unusual radio!

The next case is about a man who can't get a job because he has a criminal record. There is obvious strain in his marriage and his wife is obviously having to carry the load. Their quandary is whether he should tell the truth when he applies for a job. He says he should, his wife says no, keep it quiet.

The mediators, of course, are quiet and respectful and dole out their advice and wisdom at the end of each segment.

I'd like to hear more of the series but it looks like there is only one available.

And now that I have ruined it for you, you can listen in to it, if you'd like:

06/28/43 A.L. Alexander's Mediation Board