My News Days #5

Sept. 20, 2019... Snyder America!

     Here I sit writing this blog, My News Days, after quitting time from our duties at The Windmill Ranch west of Snyder, Texas. It dawned on me earlier today that the memories and stories I'm posting don't just come to me when I'm seated with a keyboard at my fingertips. The recollections are more like a movie reel on a spastic loop. Sometimes, I'm focused on the task in front of me. Other times, it's like 'poof' here's another memory.
     That's probably the way it is for all of us. We go about our day to day business and then out of the clear blue sky... a memory whether good, bad or ugly pops into our heads. I guess the memories of the news days kept returning enough times that they pushed me toward putting them down in black and white.


Graduation to Ada, Oklahoma, 1987-1988

     The day I got my diploma would be considered a cold day in New Orleans. I didn't take part in a December graduation. I had my diploma mailed to me in NOLA. I remember that because I caught the mailman at my apartment. We actually went to the big box on the corner to retrieve the package holding my diploma that wouldn't squeeze into my mailbox.
     That day or maybe the next, I drove home to Baton Rouge. I was brain-tired, but still ready to get going. So, I went deer hunting with a family friend. I didn't have a gun, a license or anything that said "deer," but everyone at home was out or busy and I had time to spare.. at least an afternoon.
     The Reader's Digest version of this story is: I sat in a deer stand somewhere near Baton Rouge on a cold, Louisiana evening. I had a borrowed gun, looked through a slit in the blind and just kind of "vegged" as we'd say back in the 1980s. I had absolutely no intention nor hope nor inclination to harvest a deer. I was 25 feet above the deck just to get away from the fast(ish) pace I'd been living the last few weeks before completing school.
     I never pulled the trigger, but still saw lots of deer. The stand overlooked a big field. I remember that I was in the trees, but before me was a meadow. That's the only way to describe it. I'm what's called 'red-green' color blind. But even I could see the intense green of this field below my feet. Off in the distance was a forest of trees... too far to see details, but clear enough to see the thickness of the forage.
     "This is pretty good stuff. I've finished college," I said to myself. "I'm sittin up here just lookin around and it doesn't get much better than this."
     Then, something moved. Granted it was at least 200-300 yards away, but something definitely moved. Then, something else moved. And then, something else.
     The borrowed rifle had a scope, but even it didn't zoom in enough for a clear picture. "Man, this thing's got to have a zoom on it," I thought. "Find a zoom, maybe you'll see what's moving out there," I said in my head.
    The scope did have a zoom. I figured out how it worked and then before my eyes, although hundreds of yards across the meadow, were two, maybe three dozen deer!
     I didn't even think about pulling the trigger. I rested the barrel through the blind slit for at least 30-minutes and peacefully did absolutely nothing.

Lubbock, Texas, Today

     I hadn't thought of Ada or Oklahoma lately. But today while on a run for car repairs in Lubbock I had about three hours of driving time to remember those first news days back in 1988.
     We, Teresa and I, had to go to a real city because we bought one of those new-fangled cars with a strange name (Kia) that unbeknownst to us at purchase time came with some unexpected issues. In this case, the diversion was simply taking off the tires to check for a couple leaks.
     We left early this morning and drove to the dealership because we bought a gently used car that somehow didn't include the special key to unlock the fancy wheels on the foreign car. That's probably not a faux pas any small town dealership would make, but still... it couldn't be remedied in our town.
     We had breakfast at The Pancake House, not so good by the way. We did our usual shopping at a real city grocery and then went back and waited for the fancy car. Believe it or not, even the dealership that dropped the ball in the first place, didn't have just plain-Jane lug nuts to put on the car. So, we waited another 30-minutes or so.
     This may sound silly to anyone reading who lives in a town/city with more than 25-thousand plus people. But when you live in a small town, there are many, many things you simply can't enjoy unless you go to a real city.... like Lubbock or in our case Midland, Abilene, San Angelo, etc. For example, there were more eating options in a two block area in Lubbock than we have in all of our little slice of America. Granted a KFC next to a Wienerschnitzel isn't high dining, but that's a lot of variety from our perspective.
     Then, we were back on the road to Snyder, America... The second hour and a half of our three hour drive for me to think about my news days memories.

Ada or Bust, Winter(ish) 1988

     Ada, Oklahoma is the county seat for Pontotoc county. That's pronounced PONT-o-TOC. It's home to the Chickasaw nation.
     I was hired as the bureau chief. Turns out, I was the bureau. We had a receptionist, Brenda. We had a master control man, Ed. And we had a commercial photographer, Jim. I was the sole reporter.
     I drove my own vehicle, a 1987 Red, Isuzu two door trooper. I was given a KTEN-TV magnet to put on the red Isuzu.
     My first day to report to work I couldn't find my keys. Turns out that I'd left them in my apartment door and my neighbor took them as a prank.
     My first story was a reader (no video) with Ada's Chamber of Commerce president. Unfortunately, I mis-quoted him, had to dig the story out from the garbage and immediately write a correction and apology.
     I screamed and cussed so much while editing my first story that Ed, the master control operator, said "My, you have quite a mouth."
     I had a date at "Bandana's," probably like an Applebees these days. Those days, you could smoke inside at your table. I was and still am a smoker. I lit my cigarette in a flashy, cool way by striking the book matches one handed, (a Camelia Grill waiter in NOLA taught me this trick) all the while keeping up my stellar conversation.

     "Bill," she said.
     "Yes."
     "You're on fire."
     "What?"
     "You're on fire. The spark off your match landed in the cuff of your shirt."

     One burnt shirt. One bruised ego. I was off to a good start.

Snyder Later Today

     Geez! As I write some of this stuff, I get that embarrassed shake that rattles my head till my jowls wiggle.
      Even though the rain's finally falling here in an overwhelmingly dry west Texas.. something we need so badly... those 'poof' memories that have no business popping up, still creep back into perfect vision.

Bill Robertson, Ada to Ardmore. Oklahoma is Ok!
     
     
   

My News Days #4

     I recently had a respected former co-worker and friend tell me that he concluded "the purpose of the blog is to clear your conscience, to flush the toilet..." He added, "Okay. Do that. But be sure and do so with a clear voice. A point of view. Disparate facts don’t make for interesting reading. Or for productive therapy."

     I admit a few things now. First, I had to look up the word disparate. Google says disparate used as an adjective means: "Essentially different in kind; not allowing comparison." So, I asked myself, 'what is my point of view.'
    Next, I had to admit that I am writing this as a therapeutic mechanism. After all, I spent 16 years  reading/reporting the news and now have absolutely nothing to show for it. But, I have had a lot of fun and sometimes not so fun memories.
     So, I thought, 'Write those stories, but keep in mind  there's no point in getting angry and bashing anyone. These are my memories and I'm 100% responsible for their ending."
      So, my friend's 'disparate facts' critique was indeed an enlightening comment and that's what I always enjoyed about this guy. But, it's my story. So, I'll tell it as I remember it, disparate or not. Follow the dots, old man.

     I ended off blog #3 with my patient instructor Mr. Cremedas and  the banana/condom story.

     The next phase of my education into the world of mass communications was the coveted internship. My internship was with WDSU-TV, channel 6 in New Orleans.

     Working in TV news isn't exactly brain surgery. And as it turns out, an internship isn't either. The job's pretty much about just showing up on time, putting in your time and getting a supervisor to sign your papers.

     I was expecting a lot more from my time at WDSU. To set the stage, WDSU or Channel 6 was in the famous New Orleans French Quarter. Just finding your way around the ancient building was a feat in itself.

     My job as a news intern boiled down to showing up for a couple hours on Saturday and Sunday for a semester. That's because WDSU was a 'Union Shop.' If you weren't union, which I wasn't, you weren't allowed to do much of anything. 

     I had four jobs: Get lunch, log tape, make beat calls and practice writing scripts for the news. The only reason I got that practice writing gig was because Mr. Cremedas was actually WDSU's weekend, early news producer. 

     The job of getting lunch was actually a highlight. This was New Orleans after all, arguably the greatest eating city in the world.  The 'go-to' place for the folks working the weekend was The Napoleon House. 

     I'd report for work. Mr. Cremedas would tell me "time to get lunch orders," and I'd literally go from person to person writing down their order.

     Chris Myers was WDSU's weekend sports anchor at this time. He's now a hot shot with ESPN. I don't remember what he ordered, but whatever it was I fetched it for him. 

     My clearest memory is The Napoleon House Roast Beef Po-boy. Oh my. The menu read: Roast Beef: 1/2 or full. The 1/2 or full referred to the 'loaf' size. The loaf was, and probably still is, a loaf of crusty French bread. If done properly, the sandwich maker hollowed out most of the doughy center.

         The sandwich came with paper thin roast beef kept hot and moist in a thick brown gravy. Whether you ordered the 1/2 or full po-boy, they gave you plenty. Then, you were asked possibly the most important question in NOLA.... "Dressed?" Dressed in this case meant, did you want lettuce, tomato, mayo and pickles. Without a doubt, you did. Believe me, you really did.

     The Napoleon House Roast Beef Po-boy came wrapped in white butcher paper, which was usually enough to keep your desk free from the dripping gravy and mayo, but you always needed baskets of napkins to catch the drippings before drenching your arms, your clothes or your lap. It was so, so, so good.   

     A 'real' job I had during my internship at WDSU was logging tape. A few years later, while actually getting paid, I'd come to hate this part of reporting or producing. But at this time, I was happy to be doing something that seemed TV-ish.

    Logging tape means that after the photographer films/tapes a scene, someone watches that tape and writes down what's called the 'time-code.'

     I have no idea how, but somehow the camera while recording imbeds the time of the video onto the tape and the machine reads that time and shows the viewer (the tape logger) that time.

     For example, video taken at 3:30 in the afternoon would look like 15:30:05 on the playback machine's 'time-code' light. The :15 is 3:00pm. The :30 is the 30th minute. The :05 is the fifth second.

     The whole point being anyone could log the specifics of the video as long as they noted the 'time-code.' For example if you were logging a car accident in motion, you might write "Car flips @ :03:30:45." Then, anyone charged with editing a piece could simply look at the 'time-code' log to find that specific shots to edit into the video.

     Here's where my claim to fame comes in. I was tasked with logging LOTS of video when the Pope came to NOLA and I  was determined to be extremely precise.

     This was 31-years ago. Pope John Paul II visited NOLA September 11-13, 1987. He was everywhere in the Crescent City. I was given dozens and dozens of 30-45 minute tapes to log.

     All these years later, I remember very little about all my Pope logging except one instance. Because I was bound to provide the best log, I wrote details of information. But the one instance that stands out as a perfect example of my determination looked like this on the log sheet, a simple 9x11 yellow legal pad.

     ":11:21:06... Pope Mble strts trn rt canl" by this time I'm writing shorthand.

     ":11:21:11... Pope fnish turn."

     But my favorite log looked like this:

     ":11:25:09... Pope mbl goes undr tree."

     ":11:25:12... Pope mbl comes out from undr tre."

     Like I said, I was determined to be the best tape logger at WDSU. Needless to say, I was very happy when my shift ended and the Pope left town.

     Making what are called the 'beat calls,' is about as boring as news gathering gets. This was a big city so I had lots of calls to make to police, sheriff and fire departments, etc.

     "Hi, this is Bill at Channel 6. Anything going on?"

     "Nope."

     "Thanks, bye."

     The producer and assignment editor sat with four or five scanners within their arms reach. If anything happened anywhere, they knew about it. I'm pretty sure the beat calls assignment was just to keep me busy for about 30-minutes.

     I did get to write a few scripts that actually got read on the air, thanks to Mr. Cremedas. He'd say, "here are the details, go watch the video and write."

     Sure enough, I'd get home and there might be about 35-50 percent of what I wrote actually reported on the air. No doubt that Mr. Cremedas cleaned up my novice mistakes.

     Unfortunately for me, there was one Saturday that Mr. Cremedas was not producing and I had the nerve to presume I could write a script or two without asking the producer's permission. Big mistake.

     I wrote one or two scripts, put them in the producer's basket and then probably went to the break room for a coke.

    It wasn't long before I heard.. "Who wrote this f*&k%ng s$#t! Where'd this c+!p come from?"

     Like I said, TV news isn't brain surgery. So, it didn't take a scholar to realized this 'unfamiliar producer' was barking about my writing.

    I confessed that I wrote the scripts. The producer calmed down. But later that evening when the stories aired, I'm pretty sure that even my punctuation was changed much less my words.

Bill Robertson, The diploma and Ada, Oklahoma
     

My News Days #3

     My new life at Loyola came with plenty of lessons. Some were as simple as correctly pronouncing the letter 'W.' Most others were the fundamentals I'd later use for a life in broadcast news. Still, not a single one of those Loyola lessons compared to my 'on the job' experience. Those epiphanies are paragraphs still in my knuckles, far from my fingertips.

     Once I passed English, on the first try I might add, the good Loyola Jesuits gave me the green light to proceed with the journalism courses required for major. But before the good stuff like getting on camera, we had what I considered the dull stuff.  Unbeknownst to me at that time, it was the dull stuff I'd use everyday on the job and still know by rote many years after walking away from the newsroom.

     The sole instructor charged with teaching us the fundamentals was Mr. Cremedas, arguably the most patient person on earth. Imagine if you had a classroom of students who knew absolutely nothing about their career and you had to teach them everything. That was Mr. Cremedas.  I guess he was Greek. I remember he had a raspy voice, a pretty large nose and always wore a cardigan sweater. He was a good guy. We had a phone conversation many years later while he was working at a TV station in Syracuse, NY and I was at a TV station in West Virginia. He didn't remember me at all.

     The first task Mr. Cremedas had for us was teaching us how to write. Writing for the news, especially radio and TV news, is not at all like writing this blog, a letter or a business note. J-School students and anchors/producers/reporters, at least while I was in the business, are told: "ACTIVE VOICE! ACTIVE VOICE! WRITE IN THE ACTIVE VOICE! Plus, we were taught to omit 'unnecessary words.'
     So, three times a week we'd sit in our pretend newsroom on the third floor of the Loyola Communications building. Mr. Cremedas would have each of us 'rip' copy from the A-P and UPI wires and re-write the stories in radio/TV speak.

     Here's how we were taught to write. If I chose an A-P story that originally read: "An Abilene man was killed yesterday after an attack by Africanized bees," I was taught to write: "Africanized kill an Abilene man. I'm more than 30-years removed from that pretend newsroom and that sentence still doesn't make sense to me, but that's the way were taught.
     Another technique was using gerunds to present a more present voice. For example, "Bees killing a local man..." I know that sounds so wrong, but it was so right in the old school days for radio/TV reporting.
     Later with more experience under my belt, I'd write and encourage producers to write in the past/active voice. So, the above story would read on air as: "Africanized bees killed a local man..."

     The point is, Mr. Cremedas started us all at the extreme bottom. I guess he knew, at least when it came to the active voice, that we'd stick with it long enough to find our voice. That was one of the epiphanies I learned over 16(ish) years anchoring and producing... The news should be delivered in the anchor's own voice. But if you watch the evening news, even the network anchors, they'll use present tense for an event that very likely happened days... even weeks earlier. Their point being: NOW! NOW! NOW!

    Fast forward a semester or two, we're all now taking the TV reporting classes. Mr. Cremedas, still the patient fundamental guy and still donning his cardigan, had us 'team-up' with a partner. I teamed up with Anne Fishman.
     Anne was in transition. I think she was divorced. I know she had children my age. But since I was the oldest in class second only to her, it seemed natural for Anne and me to partner-up.
     Thinking back on those days, Anne reminds me of the actor Dianne Weist in the original "Footloose." She was very buttoned up, although in her case I think her buttons came from Ann Taylor.
      Our assignment was to find a story, record a story, write a story and present a story in less than two minutes. I was Anne's photographer. She was mine.  We'd check out equipment that included a big, heavy camera, a "three-quarter inch" recorder and a super awkward tri-pod. I can't remember a single story for either of us, although I do remember a 'stand-up' that took me at least 23 takes.

     The only story I remember from those days and I'm embarrassed about it, came from another duo. One of those students was Annette. I don't remember the other. Their story was on the proper application of a condom and like all of our stories, it too was presented to the whole class.
     I remember Mr. Cremedas saying, with all of us crammed into an edit bay, "Play the tape." For the next two minutes we heard the narrated story that included a condom, a banana and step by step instructions, with close-up video. Mr. Cremedas never lost his cool, at least not in front of us. 

Bill Robertson, WDSU-TV, the Pope under a tree and roast beef po-boys from The Napoleon House 
   

My News Days #2

     The first thing I found out in my quest to become the next Peter Jennings was.... Television news wasn't as easy as it looked and going to college in New Orleans was quite the eye opener.

     Earlier, I wrote that Table #43 at Tavern on the Park nudged me into going back to college with a purpose and it was my old friend Richard Olivier who nudged me into enrolling in Loyola, New Orleans. Here's a quick sidebar about Loyola University. There are four campuses; Chicago, Baltimore, California and New Orleans. Loyola is a Jesuit college. So, if you drew a line from the Maryland campus to the California campus and then drew a line from the Chicago campus to the NOLA campus,  you've drawn a cross.

     But don't let these Catholics on steroids fool you. They may take anyone into their fold, but once you're there, you better toe the line, academically speaking, or they're happy to show you the door.

     I think I enrolled in Loyola in 1984, about the time most of my high school classmates were graduating with under-graduate degrees. I say it was 1984 because I distinctly remember The World's Fair in NOLA.
     I was still waiting tables for Mr. and Mrs. Sands at Tavern on the Park. I think Mr. Sands had had enough of Del Frisco and bought his interest in the restaurant. I remember all of us were very happy about that because while good steaks.... not such a good guy. His real name is Dale Wanstadt if you ever see him. But back to The World's Fair... Oh, what a time!

     One of my good friends at the time was Reis (pronounced Reese) Hanson from Milwaukee. He had a deviated septum that caused a consistent nasal growl, a wolf as a dog, an old M.G. that he'd hotwire to start and at one point he had a beautiful 1969 Jaguar XKE. The MG was for errands. The Jag was for going out.
      Reis was an engineering student at Tulane. I don't know if he ever did it, but he was working on a patent for a tri-folding crutch. He came up with the idea after a foot or leg injury. He got tired of trying to store his crutches. So, he developed crutches that folded into about 16-inches versus four or five feet.
      Somehow, Reis got the job as the pyro-technics man for a week at The World's Fair. His job was to set up the nightly fireworks show that fired off a barge on the Mississippi River each night of the fair. He'd set up the show during the day, then at night we'd climb aboard the barge and boat downriver to fire off the show. We'd sit on the front edge of the barge in those old school cloth, folding chairs. We'd strap on our walk-mans and listen to "Tangerine Dream". The mighty Mississippi was literally only feet beneath us and the NOLA skyline with the giant Mississippi bridge were the only things in our path. It was pure psychedelic sans the psychedelics.
      I don't know what happened to Reis. We talked many years later, but that was the last I've heard from him.

     The World's Fair was the summer of 1984. So, I must've started classes at Loyola, NOLA in the fall. My declared major was Broadcast Journalism as per the nudge from Table #43.
     I wrote earlier that the Jesuits are happy to have you, but you better perform or they're happy to show you the door. That's absolutely true. I remember my first visit with my counselor. He or she was very enthusiastic about my plans.

     "Here are the courses that transferred from Stephen F. Austin (not many)," he or she explained. "Here's what you need to start with here."
     "Okay. Got it. What's this notation by English?"
     "Well, you can take as many hours as you want, but we require all incoming students to take English."
     "Sure."
     "It's pass or fail," he or she kind of whispered with their head down looking at my transcript.
     "What do you mean?" All of a sudden I'm paying attention.
     "If you pass, you can take more courses. If you fail, you either take it until you pass or you leave."
     "Seriously?"
     "Seriously."

     So, I took English and a few other pretty simple communications courses. I'd had a good high school education and been raised in a home that used proper subject-verb agreement. But now, all bets were off. I had to do it the Loyola way.
     The long story short is: I did fine. Somewhere between my first college days and my second college days, I figured out that if I actually went to class, completed the assignments and participated in class... College wasn't that hard. Who knew?!

     Folks, I feel like I've dug a hole for myself. This post is getting too long and I still have many stories to tell. But first, here's one to end on.... at least for now.

      Radio/TV college work comes with lots of "lab" time. We started with radio. We learned how to write, report, edit and finally we had our own news segment on the college radio station with the call letters WWL-Radio.
      We didn't actually go into the 'field.' Our instructor, in my case Mike Cremedas, allowed us to use the A-P and UPI wires. We'd take those stories, re-write them and then present them in an approximately three minute news segment on WWL.
      In each student's case, the news segments were during another student's music D.J. time. They'd play their music and  D.J. on the campus radio.... And thank goodness that it was aired only on campus.
      My D.J. was a young man from Somalia or somewhere else in eastern Africa. I've forgotten his name but his music was all African. It was pretty good too. Then at a precise point in the hour, he'd introduce me. But because his dialect was so thick, I missed my cue many times. I couldn't even recognize my own name.
     Once I conquered his accent hurdle, I learned that I had my own to conquer.
   
     My sign off was: "For dubya-dubya el, this is Bill Robertson."

     I didn't know until Mr. Cremedas critiqued my tape that the correct pronunciation of a W is really 'double-U,' not dub-ya.

     This is about the same time I realized our nation's capitol is Washington, D.C. not Warshington D.C.  To say I had an accent issue was an understatement.

Bill Robertson, Soon: Roast Beef po-boys from the Napoleon House & the Pope under the tree and then out from under the tree.
   
   
     

   
   

   
   
   

My News Days #1

     You don't go through seven years of college for nothing. You don't leave a career and never think of it again.
     I was a television news guy for 16 years. It was a blessing and a curse. I've thought about it many times. So many times that I've decided to write down my memories in chronological order as I'm definitely a linear thinker.... and in this case a linear writer.

Why Did You Decide on a Career in Television News?

    I was at my second college. I'd already had four majors in three years at Stephen F. Austin State University (SFA) in Nacogdoches, Texas. I failed or practically failed in all those (Forestry, Accounting, Finance & Psychology.) So, I dropped out for a girl and moved back to Baton Rouge with the intention of going to LSU in Baton Rouge.
     Well, the girl dumped me and LSU said my grades weren't good enough. So, I became a waiter. First, I bar-backed at a disco called Rascals in Baton Rouge. I knew I was in trouble when Sonny, the manager who looked a lot like Joe Pesci, insisted everyone wear designer jeans. I was a Levi 501 guy. But, I got some Calvins and went to work.
     My gig at Rascals was short lived. Soon, my best friend from high school who also went to SFA, Richard Olivier, gave me a call.
     "Hey, what are you doin?"
     "Oh, I'm bar-backing at a disco here in Baton Rouge," I said.
     "C'mon, really?"
     "Yeah."
     "Get down here to New Orleans and look at Loyola. They'll take anyone as long as you can pay the bill and read and write."
   
      So, I went. I didn't immediately enroll in Loyola. Instead, I worked on renovating an old, run-down two story house my mother had bought. The big, abandoned house was a disaster at the corner of  Second and Baronne in what's called the New Orleans "Uptown Area." Richard helped me work on it.
     I don't know if we started upstairs and worked our way down or visa versa. We went through about ten of those big dumpsters you see at construction sites. Homeless had apparently been living upstairs. We found and removed just about every disgusting thing you can imagine. We found burn holes in the floors, guessing that's where small fires were set for warmth or cooking. We removed dresser drawers apparently used as commodes. We pulled off all the sheet rock to the lathe work. Downstairs was an abandoned laundromat. I don't know how many old washers and dryers we tossed into the big dumpster but it was a lot. Whatever was inside the building was gone by the time a contractor agreed to take on the project.

       I'd met with maybe a half dozen or more contractors hoping one of them would take on the big house.
      "What do you think," I asked one while we stood on the corner.
      I remember, he looked up and down to the left and to the right and stuffed his hands into  his pockets.
     "How do you feel about dynamite," he said matter of factly.

     The only contractor who didn't balk was an Englishman named Malcolm Sargent. I don't know how or why he was in New Orleans, but the prospect of taking on the old building became his challenge and his summer passion.
      The end product was better than I could have ever imagined and the stories and events leading to that end were just as surprising.

     Like I said, Malcolm was English. I'll never forget him telling me about his close encounter with Omar Sharif over dinner in London.
     He said he was on a dinner date. The actor was in the restaurant, "in fact only a few tables away," he told me.
      "He was a real jerk with a filthy mouth." I think he was telling me this story while we were driving somewhere in New Orleans or somewhere without the clanging of hammers or buzzing of saws because I remember we weren't interrupted.
     "What happened?"
     "I was on a date with my wife at the time. Omar Sharif was sitting behind her, but I could hear everything he was saying."
     "What was he saying?"
     "His mouth was just filthy. Curse word after curse word."
     "What happened?"
     "I guess you'd consider this my close call with a star. I got up, walked over to him, bent down and I said, 'Sir, you're language is very offensive. I'd appreciate it if you'd tone it down as to not offend my wife further.'"
     "What happened," that seems like all I could ask.
     "He actually apologized and we all went on with our evening."

     Then, there was the blind date I had with one of Malcolm's foremans. It wasn't a blind date with the foreman. It was a blind date with one of the foreman's cousins.
      The foreman was a big guy named Mike. I can see the contemporary actor who he looks like, I just can't think of that actor's name. Anyway, Mike had a cousin getting married. He had another cousin who didn't have a date to the wedding. So, he asked me. "Sure, why not," I said.
     Here's the scene, it's a Catholic-Italian wedding in Kenner, Louisiana. The Catholic-Italian part pretty much ramps up the symbolic, cultural and fun level but when you add Kenner, La to anything what you get is whatever you had on steroids. It's hard to explain. But if it's Italian in Kenner it;s really Italian. If it's Irish, it's really Irish. Get the picture?
     I wish I could remember my blind date's name, but I just can't. I do remember she was quiet and kind, but she was definitely part of the family and this wedding event was all about the family and the family's culture. What a night.
     The wedding was held at a church exactly across the street from the New Orleans International Airport around 5:00pm. I promise when it came to the 'I-Dos,' all anybody in attendance heard was the roar of jet engines from Pan-Am Flight 3369 to New York La Guardia. The great news is, nobody seemed to notice or care.
     From the wedding, the reception was held above a famous restaurant/bar in Kenner. The name of the place 33-years later is a blur. But imagine, white tile floors, low-white acoustic tile ceilings, tables loaded with homemade food, a well stocked bar and lots and lots of dancing! I think every aunt, cousin and mother made her specialty for this event and this is when and where my quiet, kind blind date, thanks to her family connections, got me to the front of every food line.
     But the fun didn't end at the reception, at least for my group that now included my blind date, Mike the foreman, and his wife and probably a half dozen more cousins. The night was young. Time to go out!
     What I didn't mention at the top of this tale is that for some reason I was in my older sister, Laura's, Chevrolet Cavalier hatchback. I think I drove it because at the time I remember driving a Volkswagon pickup with an air conditioning issue. The system leaked inside the cab. If I took a turn to the right, water dumped out on my feet. If I took a turn to the left, water dumped out on my passenger's feet. So, Laura loaned me her car.
     Sounds simple enough, yes? The rub is, the rear window of Laura's car was practically plastered in bumper stickers. In this case, the bumper stickers proclaimed her love and commitment to GOD. So here I am with my blind date essentially bar hopping around Kenner, LA in a car proudly proclaiming JESUS LOVES YOU and HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS and more like it. Now that I think about it, I bet that armor got me safely home that night. I've never told her this story. So, if you read this Laura... I'm sorry.

     Enough of the tangents, here are the seven words that got me interested in trying a career in television news. They are, "You ought to be on the radio."
    While living in that big, newly renovated house and before enrolling at Loyola, I started waiting tables at a new restaurant in New Orleans called Tavern on the Park. This was a Del Frisco project but with very kind local owners Jack and Martha Sands.
     They'd taken an old favorite local watering hole, closed it down and completely revamped it's look and menu. The floors were black and white marble tile. Each table was draped in pressed white linens. The front of the building included giant windows with lace drapes covering the lower quarter.
      We waiters wore starched white serving coats, white shirt and tie with black pants and black shoes. Our most useful tool was our table crumb-scrapper. It's a concave device about six inches long and fits into the coat's breast pocket. It's for scrapping the crumbs off the table after bread, appetizers, the meal or anything else.
        The bus-boys, one for each waiter, wore pressed white shirts, black bow-ties and black pants. The bar was  big  with many chairs and an ornate mirrored back panel. But, Mr. Jack refused to let walk-in customers just drink.  They had to be waiting on a dinner table. "We're not a bar. We're a restaurant," he'd say.
     The tables were numbered so each waiter got a window table. Tables 10, 20, 30 & 40 were a pretty good section but table 10 was by the kitchen door, which no one really wanted.
      The bus-boy, a man considering he was much older than myself, who helped me the most, was Clarence. He was indeed a professional. I remember, he was black as coal. I'd pick him up and take him home from work, but otherwise we didn't talk as much as we used eye contact and numbers to serve our guests.
      I'd say "33," and in a flash Clarence was clearing, setting-up or changing an ashtray on table 33. He might walk by me or catch my eye across the dining room and say "43." That was my cue that table "43" needed attention. We were a good team and he was a great co-worker.

     It's table "43" that said those seven words "You ought to be on the radio." We were blessed to have many regulars. And like so many waiters, I was blessed to have regulars who asked for me to serve them.
     On this evening, I was working the section that included table "43." The husband and wife came in early like they always did. Clarence and I knew their routine. They'd sit at table "43," each would order an Old Fashioned and they'd each order our Steak Salad that included a bed of lettuce, a sliced rib-eye with seriously chunky bleu cheese dressing.
     The beauty about waiting on regulars is, you get to know them as much as they'll let you and they get to know you, probably more than they need to. It was during a casual conversation while they sipped their Old Fashioned and waited on their dinner that evening when the husband said, "You ought to be on the radio."
   
     At this point in my life, I had no idea what I was going to do or where I was going to go. I think the only thing I can say that's completely true is: I was 10-feet tall, bullet-proof and absolutely full of myself.
     I remember going home after "You ought to be on the radio" and thinking to myself and I remember it quite clearly.... "Radio, hell! I want to be on TV!"
     Finally, the end to this story is: I enrolled in Loyola's broadcast journalism program with every intention of becoming the next Peter Jennings, all thanks to table "43."

Bill Robertson, Next: Loyola & fetching lunch at WDSU-TV in the French Quarter.