Many nights when I can't sleep, I run through a mental list of all my missteps, failures, stupid things I did. I know it's not healthy and so I hope to remember some good moments--and just the other day I did. The one time in my life when I acted as a hero and got a hero's reward.
It happened while I was at Oklahoma University, in a fraternity, Sigma Chi. One night a group of us gathered around the one TV set to watch the Dave Garroway Tonight show... and it focused on Mardi Gras, which was just getting started in New Orleans. Trumpeter Al Hirt celebrated the moment and four of us got inspired. We jumped into my '56 Chevy and headed South. It was an all night drive and we arrived at the Sigma Chi house in New Orleans, where we were assigned an empty room with mattresses on the floor. We slept until noon, then headed out to see the town.
By nightime we had already drunk a Hurricane or two and were enjoying the various jazz spots. Then, ahead, I saw this: two young women were hurrying along the street being followed and harassed by young males.
Without thinking, I quickly stepped up beside one of the women and said something like, "Hi, you waiting for me?" (Exact wording lost in the mists but the impression I hoped to create for benefit of the harassers was that I was her date.)
Gratefully she eyeballed me and grabbed my arm and together we walked. My girl teamed her friend up with another one of my frat bros and we spent the evening together, having a wonderful time. I wonder if I said anything the whole time I felt so fortunate to have such a pretty girl for a date. They were schoolteachers from somewhere, thus a few years older.
I had gained the gratitude of an "older woman" and she showed it later.
Ah, for the life of a hero. Pity that the lesson didn't stick enough to fix all my future opportunities for heroism.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
The Working Life, part 2
The Columbia Journalism School was a joy in many ways. I loved the sense of professionalism, of getting assignments and jumping on the subway and interviewing people on the phone, etc. By the end of the academic year I felt like a "New Yorker" from my knowledge of the subway system.
We rode the trains with a NYTimes, folded in the correct way for reading. We were supposed to read every thing in it, but that was far too confusing, so I glanced over a lot of it. I did notice at the time that the Times definitely had a liberal slant, but that was mostly noticable in the editorials, not in the news columns. And it seemed right to have a liberal flavor, since we'd just elected JFK as President.
During the year, however, my wife and I separated. I became deeply depressed and probably my schoolwork suffered. But I was graduated with honors. Just before graduation I got a job offer, from This Week Magazine. It was a Sunday supplement that appeared in NYC as part of the Herald Tribune, which had begun a very interesting new life, trying to be interesting without being tabloidy. Intellectually interesting. Writers like Tom Wolfe and Jimmy Breslin helped make it seem so, launching a New Journalism style of more personalized stories. Our school was on the cusp of this development--still preaching the old style of reportage but allowing newer ideas to seep in.
Anyway, despite the urging of my faculty advisor, Penn Kimball, to pass on the job offer, I took it because I was underfunded and felt financially desperate.
First thing I had to do, an order from Photo Editor Roberta Ashley, was go to the top men's clothing store and get some new clothes. My Texas wardrobe looked too much hayseed for a New York publisher. So I did: got a new gray suit and wore it for years, til I lost it in a bag after a baseball game.
After I took the job, my girlfriend and I moved to an apartment far out in Brooklyn, closer to Coney Island than the City, and I had a 45-minute commute by train each morning.
And, after I took the job, the Newspaper Guild called a major strike against the newspapers, and the Herald Trib no longer appeared on newstands. I had a call about taking a position with LIFE mag, which was going to put out a substitute newspaper, but I (kick self) turned it down. I thought I was settled, comfy, nice lunches with photographers, etc. But what happened was that NYC ad agencies, not seeing This Week any more, stopped placing ads in the mag. Income suffered, and I, as last hired, was first to be fired, just before our first child was born.
(I now realize I wrote about this last year...O well...)
So, I jumped to Time-Life Books, hoping to land a writing job but got stuck as a Researcher/Reporter. At same salary I made at This Week. So...new baby, new expenses, same available funds. In the week that JFK was assassinated.
We rode the trains with a NYTimes, folded in the correct way for reading. We were supposed to read every thing in it, but that was far too confusing, so I glanced over a lot of it. I did notice at the time that the Times definitely had a liberal slant, but that was mostly noticable in the editorials, not in the news columns. And it seemed right to have a liberal flavor, since we'd just elected JFK as President.
During the year, however, my wife and I separated. I became deeply depressed and probably my schoolwork suffered. But I was graduated with honors. Just before graduation I got a job offer, from This Week Magazine. It was a Sunday supplement that appeared in NYC as part of the Herald Tribune, which had begun a very interesting new life, trying to be interesting without being tabloidy. Intellectually interesting. Writers like Tom Wolfe and Jimmy Breslin helped make it seem so, launching a New Journalism style of more personalized stories. Our school was on the cusp of this development--still preaching the old style of reportage but allowing newer ideas to seep in.
Anyway, despite the urging of my faculty advisor, Penn Kimball, to pass on the job offer, I took it because I was underfunded and felt financially desperate.
First thing I had to do, an order from Photo Editor Roberta Ashley, was go to the top men's clothing store and get some new clothes. My Texas wardrobe looked too much hayseed for a New York publisher. So I did: got a new gray suit and wore it for years, til I lost it in a bag after a baseball game.
After I took the job, my girlfriend and I moved to an apartment far out in Brooklyn, closer to Coney Island than the City, and I had a 45-minute commute by train each morning.
And, after I took the job, the Newspaper Guild called a major strike against the newspapers, and the Herald Trib no longer appeared on newstands. I had a call about taking a position with LIFE mag, which was going to put out a substitute newspaper, but I (kick self) turned it down. I thought I was settled, comfy, nice lunches with photographers, etc. But what happened was that NYC ad agencies, not seeing This Week any more, stopped placing ads in the mag. Income suffered, and I, as last hired, was first to be fired, just before our first child was born.
(I now realize I wrote about this last year...O well...)
So, I jumped to Time-Life Books, hoping to land a writing job but got stuck as a Researcher/Reporter. At same salary I made at This Week. So...new baby, new expenses, same available funds. In the week that JFK was assassinated.
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