THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Rebuilding your life and finding a new job when you are over 50.

Alan, 53, is a natural entertainer. Fourteen years ago, he won a radio contest pretending to be a baseball announcer. The head of Chicago station WJJG 150 saw him on TV, and turned Scott Vanderstuyf, a painting business owner in Bartlett, Ill., into Scott Alan, a local radio star.

His morning show attracted between 50,000 and 100,000 listeners a day, he said, putting him in the same league as much bigger stations. With a little hustle on the side, Alan was solidly middle class. He took his wife, a part-time dietitian, and his two kids on a vacation every year, to places like Florida and the Bahamas. He saved up enough to pay for his oldest daughter’s first year of college.

Plus, his face was on a billboard. Chevrolet, one of his sponsors, would lend him cars to try out. His family once got an all-expenses-paid trip to a resort in Indiana, and a stretch limousine picked them up at their door. People asked him for his autograph.

“The salary I made on the radio wasn’t top-notch, but it was decent,” Alan said. “But the perks I got were incredible. I ate at restaurants that right now, if I walked in, I would have to be the dishwasher.”

The work was also fulfilling. He interviewed Robert Redford, the late Paul Newman and then–state Sen. Barack Obama. And Alan’s shtick was blue-collar: anti-corporate, pro-little-guy. He gave weekly spots to local struggling musicians. He helped an ex-con listener get a job. His audience peaked during the worst of the recession.

Then, in October 2011, a new manager came in, more of a “bean counter,” Alan said. After 12 years on the air, he was replaced with a nationally syndicated host’s show. He said it was clearly a money-saving move.

“It devastated me,” Alan said. “… And that’s where my depression came in. You know, I’ve been battling depression since then.”...

This year, Scott Alan was the Easter Bunny. He’s been a rodeo clown and Santa Claus. Once, when he was dressed in a giant “A+” suit, a group of college students threw a milkshake at his head. Recently, he was close to suicide.

The country’s unemployment rate has been slowly creeping downward, but those official statistics don’t say what kinds of new jobs people are getting.

“The average mascot age is between 22 and 26,” Alan told “America Tonight.” “I was in my early 50s, still wearing a costume in 100-degree weather, in 20-degree weather, still performing, trying to survive and make a living.”

When they take away what you can do, you do what you can.