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b'John Matthews, WMAL News Director, on the benefits - all of these years - getting up and being at work by 4:30 in the morning at the latest~\\n\\n"I don\\u2019t know what morning drive traffic is like and I don\\u2019t know what afternoon drive traffic is like and I consider that a blessing. I love the hours that I work. And that\\u2019s when decisions are made. The decisions except for breaking news, the decisions on stories that you\\u2019re hearing at 6:00 at night were made at 5:00 in the morning."\\n\\nJohn Matthews, WMAL News Director, and host Andy Ockershausen in-studio interview\\n\\nAndy Ockershausen:\\tThis is Our Town, Andy Ockershausen with a special guest who\'s really not special. He\'s a big part of the woodwork here at WMAL, he\'s a big part of the station and it\'s success, a big part of my life because I\'ve known him since he was a kid, and I hired him at WMAL, it\'s maybe one of the biggest mistakes I ever made, but I lived with it for years and all of a sudden John Matthews became a star. John, welcome to Our Town.\\nJohn Matthews:\\tOh my goodness. You are really blowing it up this morning.\\nAndy Ockershausen:\\tYour skirt, blows your skirt up. Whatever blows your- John, what a great thing though that you came here as a kid, a young man out of school. Why did you pick Syracuse to go to school?\\nEducation - Syracuse University\\nJohn Matthews:\\tWell there\'s a couple of reasons. Number one they had a great broadcast program, but number two my sister went there before I did.\\nAndy Ockershausen:\\tYour talented sister.\\nJohn Matthews:\\tMy talented sister, Julie. She was there before I went and being she\'s a couple of years older than me, I really hadn\'t toured a lot of college campuses, so when she went there, one of the only college campuses I\'d ever seen was in Syracuse, New York, Syracuse University, so I ended up going there and they had a great broadcast program too.\\nAndy Ockershausen:\\tWhere did you grow up, in Washington or Frederick?\\nOn Growing Up in Our Town\\nJohn Matthews:\\tI grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland.\\nAndy Ockershausen:\\tOh you did? Right here?\\nJohn Matthews:\\tOh yeah. Absolutely.\\nAndy Ockershausen:\\tYour dad was a builder and lived here.\\nJohn Matthews:\\tMy dad was a builder. He built the first house that he ever owned, he built in Silver Spring. And I grew up-\\nAndy Ockershausen:\\tWhat was your relationship to Frederick? Your grandma-\\nJohn Matthews:\\tMy grandparents lived in Frederick.\\nAndy Ockershausen:\\tThat\'s what I thought.\\nJohn Matthews:\\tLived in Frederick, Maryland. And my dad grew up in Gallipolis, Ohio. And-\\nAndy Ockershausen:\\tI know it well.\\nJohn Matthews:\\tYeah. He grew up in Gallipolis, Ohio, and moved his family here, moved us here.\\nAndy Ockershausen:\\tWere you born in Ohio?\\nJohn Matthews:\\tNo. I was born in Richmond, Virginia. I was born in the-\\nAndy Ockershausen:\\tThat\'s on the way to Ohio, of course.\\nJohn Matthews:\\tHe had a construction job down there. And he was a builder and he had construction work down there. He had my two sisters and I and shortly after I was born, I was less than a year old, we moved up here to the D.C. area and we lived in Langley Park and Takoma Park in apartments. We moved to a house near downtown Silver Spring and then my dad built a house in the White Oak, Hillandale area of Silver Spring and that\'s where I grew up.\\nAndy Ockershausen:\\tJohn, that\'s great to hear you, think I\'ve known your dad for 40, 50 years, I didn\'t realize all these things. I knew he was a local guy, and I consider Frederick Our Town because we had more listeners in Frederick than Frederick stations had at one time.\\nJohn Matthews:\\tSure.\\nAndy Ockershausen:\\tThere was a reason for that, our signal. But John, you\'ve had a great experience in Our Town. The moves, obviously you learn things, you knew things, and did you try any other school before Syracuse?\\nJohn Matthews\' WMAL Internship\\nJohn Matthews:\\tNot for college. I went to Springbrook High School and then I went to Syracuse and then I got my internship at WMAL.'