Neither a jelly donut nor a womanizer be

Beyond the steady babble  and the occasional expletives that spewed from my often-unbridled tongue as a youngster, my introduction to public speaking really didn’t occur until I was in second grade at Harwood Elementary School in Evansville, Ind. It was a time, you see, when great public orations were being made.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King had electrified many Americans with his “I Have a Dream” speech on that late August day on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Earlier, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy had delivered a moving and brief speech in West Berlin, which was surrounded by the Soviet military juggernaut, and uttered a final sentence proclaiming, “I am a Berliner!” A well-intentioned phrase and one of great meaning, but one that literally translated into the German language, “I am a jelly donut.”

Kennedy, incidentally, was no fluffy donut, though history revisionists would have you believe otherwise.

Many schools then – and I hope they continue with this tradition to this day – periodically would set aside a time in classrooms for an exercise called “Show-and-Tell.” It was an opportunity for youngsters to bring a favorite object to school, perhaps a photo, toy, family memorabilia, anything of special interest to a student of which they would give an impromptu explanation about the item. The intent, I suppose, was to help you feel more self-confident.

The original stand and deliver situation.

My teacher, Miss Harper, was a large woman in her early 60s, and she had a tightly curled mane of hair the color of a backyard, summer bonfire. But she had a gentle and encouraging nature. A real old-school teacher, so to speak, when it came to motivating our class. She endured our childish behavior; she was there to comfort us when the news of JFK’s murder was announced over the school intercom on that chilly November afternoon. And she seemed to be truly interested in what we thought and what we had to say. Thus, her passion for providing us with the opportunity to exercise our right to free speech and expression

The importance of wearing clean underwear and other motherly advice

Any of these phrases sound familiar to you?

Someday your face will freeze like that! … Just because your friends might be jumping off a cliff doesn’t mean you have to do it too…  Don't put that in your mouth, you don't know where it's been. Don’t you dare look at me like that… 

Why? Because I said so, that's why! ...  Did you flush? I was not put on this earth to be your personal slave… Always put on clean underwear in the morning, in case you're in an accident.

And my personal favorite…  I hope someday you have children just like you! The eternal “Mom Curse” which has haunted children since Eve broke up the first fistfight between Cain and Abel – before things really got serious.

Ah, Mother’s Day. This weekend,  mothers around the country will awaken to a day that honors them. They will receive crayon-colored cards made in school or day care. Some will get flowers or plants reminding, poignant reminders that most things on God’s good earth begin with a seed, take root and grow. I think an old Jewish proverb sums it well: A mother understands what a child does not say.

Via Dolorosa and the wills of many

The shadows of night slumped across the streets and walls of the City on the Hill. In an upstairs room, the teacher had knelt before each of his closest students and washed their feet. They shared the bread and wine. The celebration turned somber.

Then he walked up the familiar slopes of the Mount of Olives and into a garden. The trees were blue in the moonlight. He trembled and sweated as if he were bleeding. “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away. But not what I want – what you want.”
The will of the Father.

In the courtyard near where a crowd gathered, the fisherman-turned-follower-turned-Rock kept to his story. Three times. “I tell you I don’t know him! When he realized what he had done, he cried bitter tears and ran away.
The will of the Rock.

The men in tall hats and flowing robes questioned him harshly and judged him falsely. The guards slapped and punched him around, and they spit on him. Then they sent him to the governor, who largely view the prisoner, perhaps at worst, a misguided madman. But the governor heard what the unruly spectators were demanding.
The will of the mob.

Pilate washed his hands and walked away.
The will of the politician.

Slow ride into the City on the Hill

The traveling preacher was in the suburbs of Jerusalem, two little nondescript towns called Bethpage and Bethany. That’s when he told the so-called "Sons of Thunder" to go fetch a donkey which they would find tied up near the road. Bring it back and if anyone gives you any grief, tell them the Lord needs it. 

And so they did. Even Judas had his thoughts about what was about to happen – the teacher was going to lead his pupils and followers into Jerusalem. We’ll show those smug know-it-alls who’s the king!” he thought.

As he made his way up toward the city, folks began to line the rocky roadway. Some threw their robes and shawls down along the path. The crowds grew and the rider nodded and waved at them and continued along his way atop the little beast. He seemed happy. He looked in the direction of faraway Bethlehem, smiling and remembering the story his parents had told him about the donkey his mother rode so long ago to the place where he was born.

Then he looked straight ahead shaking his head a bit, maybe recalling the time when he was 12 and ditched his parents in Jerusalem to discuss the ancient writings with the scholars. Kids and their parents don't always understand one another. But then again, nothing, after all, ever had been ordinary in all of his 33 years.

What dreams may come must mean something

As long as I can remember, even back to my toddling days, I have had this strange ability to have an instant and somewhat clear recall of dreams from those mystic snapshots of time. Especially those which recur in one fashion or another such as flying in planes and zeppelins and other craft and sometimes spreading my arms and zooming over landscapes on my own. Sometimes crashing horribly.

Dreams of giant, menacing creatures – one I still remember named “Big Jim” – who occasionally played cameo roles in my preadolescence. Rare misadventures where I am unexplainably walking around in my underwear and trying to hide like Adam camouflaging himself in Eden. Cecil B. DeMille Technicolor productions of biblical proportions of every ilk and kind, leaving me gasping, laughing, screaming, questioning, doubting, believing, crying and in utter awe after awakening.

I had an epic dream and it was a vivid travelogue. Some folks sail in slumber to Tahiti, claw their way to Mount Everest's summit or voyage to undiscovered and unimagined worlds. Last night I traveled throughout much of Hoosierland.

IT ALL BEGAN with anxiety at an innocuous hotel in downtown Indy. I was trying to find my current jalopy, compounded only with the angst of not even having its keys. I wandered through parking garages and worried knowing fully aware I had to make a road trip. All but ready to give up, I sauntered into a last garage and a seedy fat guy with a beard greasier than a White Castle “slider” listened to my sorrowful story.

Pass participle

There’s an ancient Jewish folktale that goes back to the reign of Solomon. It’s said that the King, feeling blue one day, asked his chief adviser to find him a ring he had seen in a dream. 

When I feel happy, I’m afraid that it won’t last, Solomon said. And when I feel sad, I am afraid my sorrow will go on forever. Find me the ring that will ease my suffering.

So the King's aide scoured the countryside searching for this ring. Every city, every tiny hamlet, every chance meeting of wandering Bedouins. It was an impossible quest but near the end of his journey he met an old jewelry maker who listened to his dilemma. The jeweler picked up a simple gold ring he had with the four-word inscription.

When Solomon later examined the ring, all of his sorrows turned to joy and his joy to sorrows.Those words contained the most fundamental truths of what it means to be human: This, too, shall pass. 

Are you standing in an unemployment line? This, too, shall pass.

Are you at peace and harmony with all of your loved ones and friends? This, too, shall pass.

Great to hear you made the honor roll again and got the lead role in the spring musical, but I have to warn you: This, too, shall pass.

When you gazed into the mirror this morning were you quite impressed with that youthful, good-looking gal or guy staring back at you? Sorry, for this, too, shall pass.

Did the guys who pick up your trash remember to thoughtfully place your cans away from the street? This, too, shall pass.

So it seems, as the cliché goes, the only permanent thing in this life is change. People, things and experiences enter and exit our world through a revolving door. But one is constant.

He shall not pass, ever.

An Auntie with wings

We slipped quietly into the room at the nursing home, purposely not wanting to make a noisy arrival. My Mom reached for her baby sister’s hand and patted and asked how she was feeling on that chilly, sunny Saturday morning.

Had your coffee and donut this morning, sis? Brought you some visitors. Ol’ Joey boy and his fiancé came down from Indianapolis, and Kris’ boy, Logan, are here today.

I moved to the side of her bed, knelt and gently entwined my fingers with hers. Hey, don’t bother to get up. Just thought since we were in town we’d stop by to say howdy,” I said. Her right upper lip lifted a bit and she squeezed my hand. She understood my weak joke.

Fine, good, she whispered.

A million-eleventy megazillion thoughts were pouring through my memories and emotions as we clasped fingers. Here reclined a tiny woman who taught me at an early age some fundamental yet effective curse words and appropriate PG-13 responses to what life throws at us. A person who has spoken her mind since her first birthing scream; who has loved her children, family, and other inner circles with unbridled passion; and one who largely has lived a life on her terms, yet acquiescing as we all must do from time to time.

Voices in the lonely desert

So there he was  in the desert on a solitary trek. The spirit – that divine wind that knows no boundaries – had led him to this lonely place. The searing daily heat, and the numbing cold of night. Nothing to eat. Hours of personal and spiritual reflection And a time to gain guidance from his father.

It’s nearing the end of forty long days and nights. Then he hears a soothing, sympathetic voice. "I know you’re starving. Look, if you’re really God’s son, why don’t your turn those rocks into bread?”

And the hungry man answers, “Don’t you know the Scripture? Man doesn’t live by bread alone but on every word that God speaks.”

Suddenly, the traveler is magically standing on top of the Temple and looking around the city on the hill. A mocking voice speaks to him: “If you’re really God’s son, I triple dog dare you to take a leap. After all, the Scripture says He will send angels to save you.” 

To which the Galilean replies: “No doubt they would, but it’s also written in the Scripture not to test God.”

When tinfoil hats produce golden proposals

For those who like to wear the tinfoil hats and conjure up wacky intrigue, it was a conspiracy of sorts beyond any doubt. There were many abettors and operatives sought for their advice and opinions well in advance of when the prime directive was decided. And thus was born a clandestine caper worthy of any Oliver Stone movie.

It was conjured early last fall as the mastermind had given the matter some serious thought, gleaned from experience and reasonable expectation. It gained steam as the autumn leaves fluttered aimlessly to the ground and another season was about to emerge. The time for action loomed.  So, others were snared into the plot and sworn to secrecy.

Most were relatives and a few well-chosen colleagues. They listened to the proposed mission outcome and offered timely and intimate tips on how to most effectively target the prime directive: Strike fast and hard with blitzkrieg brilliance. One of the main conspirators, who will only be referred to as “Big Mama,” suggested how it could best be carried out “using a soft glove,” she chuckled slyly.

And so the process began. Carefully select the necessary resource and choose the proper occasion. Move silently and swift with a sniper’s patience and cunning, fully aware the cover could be blown by an errant slip of the tongue. Consider all of the options and potential outcomes. Pick the time and place. Be prepared to adapt.

The plan was decided. The shock and awe would be delivered on Christmas Eve 2012…

Glad to say I have graduated to kindergarten

Back in 1988, Robert Fulghum came out with a slim book called All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. It was a collection of this Unitarian minister’s observations gleaned throughout his life. But the book wasn’t a heady compost of sage advice based on decades of experience; rather, approaching the world through the eyes of a child.

I sneered and chuckled the first time I read that book. The sentimentality of his words oozed slowly like warm maple syrup spreading across a stack of homemade pancakes. I was amused by his attempt to boil this complex world down into a rivulet of simplistic solutions. Sure, it made for genial suggestions and would fit nicely into Mister Rogers’ neighborhood, but not the real world.

Here’s what Fulghum wrote:

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school. These are the things I learned:

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don't hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don't take things that aren't yours.
• Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
• Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
• Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
• And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

I have since re-read Kindergarten a few times. And much, if not all of it, now kicks in as I approach nearly six decades of break-dancing across this fragile, blue orb of ours. Lessons learned as the calendar pages seem to flip more rapidly.

Friendship at first bite and the day I met Elvis

Friendships often begin in the most usual and mundane ways. Perhaps through a simple introduction from a third-party or a chance encounter in some circumstance or at an event. Sometimes, you just have to take the initiative at an opportunity to step across the room and shake a hand.

When you’re a kid, it can happen at school or being teammates in a sport or similar activity. On occasion, friendships begin in more unique ways.

Consider, if you will, how I met my best boyhood friend, circa 1961, after my family moved into a home on Kensington Avenue in the sprawling Gotham that is Evansville, Indiana. He was a year or so older than me; it was spring and I was amusing myself in our hardscrabble backyard doing nothing when I noticed him crawling across the fence and heading my way. I was faced with the spontaneous decision if he was a friend or foe. So, I ran at him took a swing that missed, then sunk my fangs into his lower left leg, through his denims.

After my long-suffering parents apologized and his widowed mama sorted it out and became acquainted, this kid and I became fast and endearing friends over many years. His name is Markle (a family choice), but his name is, and always shall be, “Mark.”

There doesn’t seem a time from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s, when our two lives weren’t entwined. He was a grade ahead of me at Harwood Elementary School and was always quick to give me the low-down on teachers’ quirks and expectations for the next school year. 

An Army Halloween Story: A Hillbilly Werewolf in Okinawa

From the dustbins of past writings (circa 20009) ...


Recently, I was in the local Wal-Mart to pick up a few cut-rate medicine cabinet essentials and made a casual detour down an aisle stocked with your traditional Halloween stuff. Among the offerings were ghoulish, grotesque masks of every kind.

But the one that caught my eye was a fairly righteous Wolfman mask. It wasn’t the modern lycanthropic kind, slack-jawed and yawning to sink its pointy fangs into a victim. It was closer to the Lon Chaney look of the 1940s movies – a grunting, growling thing. Kind of a cross between Eminem and Mike Ditka.

And what once was stored in some distant folder of my memory banks returned momentarily.  I was back in my Army MP days in Okinawa nearly four decades ago and to a place called Torri Station. For quick perspective, the entire island was a heavily fortified conclave during the latter days of World War II, when American foot soldiers and sailors were pounding the place. In fact, my Dad had been there less than three decades ago as to witness that horrible adventure.

One of our roles on that post was to regularly patrol a jungle area. It was an eerie place to patrol during daylight; far more ominous when the sun slipped beneath the horizon of the South China Sea. For you see, that location was strategically placed and was dotted with a multitude of tall antennae that our spooks used to monitor intelligence from Vietnam, China and Russia. For all we knew, they might have been dialing in Communist porn.

It was the site where GIs launched a major invasion and where many died on the beach and in the surf. Its legacy was countless unexploded bombs and God-knows-what else stuff from that grisly campaign. And there were caves, tunnels and pits of deadly nests of Habu snakes.

And later came the The Sobe Ghost.” 

Happy birthday, Mama!

I cannot think of my good Mama withhout considering all that she has endured and accomplished. Born into a family that had a bit of money, thanks to her father’s prosperous newspaper business in Crittenden County, Kentucky. – good, proper and respectful folk, mind you – their fortunes drastically changed when the Great Depression hit. The world suddenly had plunged into a chaotic abyss at the time of her birth.

Barefoot much of the time during those long bluegrass springs and summers, she and her older brother Pat, explored and endured the hardships of those dark times in Marion. Her parents scrambled to find whatever ways they could to survive, with their younger sibs soon joining the family circle: Caroline, Walter, Jimmy and Martha. And two step sibs, Buddy and Elaine, who, although older, exacted a positive influence on so many lives.

Over early morning coffee sometimes when I visit, she recalls the good, bad and ugly of her childhood. Usually the anecdotes are punched with laughter: An African-American woman, the granddaughter of slaves, and her husband George who looked out after my Mom and her sibs when their parents had to work days on end out of town. These surrogate parents taught her, perhaps, tolerance in an age when some were cruelly labeled as “Uncle Toms and Mammies." And worse.

Dummies and bigots see the world and its issues purely as black and white. My Mom sees them as Technicolor 3-D realities.

She matured, this barefooted gal from Kentucky, and eventually moved to Evansville, Indiana. At Central High School she excelled during WW2, developed many educational and artistic talents. But as fate would have it, a grinning, gold-toothed sailor would change whatever dreams she had on an early December day in 1949.

And in the best ways, they meshed, these two unlikely souls, and made a life. For good and ill. Till death did them part.

A life that spawned three children and several grandchildren and grands. Though her husband has been gone nearly nearly 22 years, this woman is the cement, the foundation on which many lives have been built.

For you see, Norma Patricia Henry Stuteville (a.k.a. Pat, Trish, Aunt Trisha, Gramma Pat, etc) has lived a meaningful life at an altitude far beyond the summit of Mount Everest. And I am blessed to have her as a mother. 

On this 12th day October in the 2012th year of our Lord, may my Mom always know that she has been, and continues to be, much loved. What you have given is returned in great measure.

A buzzing hand and a pervert's eyeglasses

Back in the early 1960s, there was never a shortage of literature in my family’s home -- back about the time LBJ promised the nation was not about to “send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” We had publications of every genre.

The old man preferred the gut-busting tales of saloon-soaked cowboys ending their last cattle drives and the desperadoes who met their fates on the streets of Laredo. The Mom preferred True Romance, whose characters often were lusty lasses making bad choices and wives at crossroads in their marriages, and Reader’s Digest condensed volumes.

My library consisted mainly of Childcraft books, dog-eared back issues of Mad magazine and stacks of comics, ranging from Superman and Batman, to Archie Andrews and his classmates at Riverdale High. Virtually ever issue of any comic book worth its salt in those days reserved the inside back cover with content capable of making any pre-adolescent boy dream big. The page always kicked off with a screaming header like “Look Here Kids!!!!”

Does the image of growing your own “sea monkeys” at home ring a bell? Maybe not. But that slick page offered a world of adventure and promise. But the catch, as it always has been in advertising, is to persuade a reader to ante up with their hard-earned bucks. You could run the table on the universe, at least among your friends, for fun and your personal amusement. I often fantasized what I could do if I possessed a few measly dollars. 

Consider a few of the possibilities I once yearned for:

Joy Buzzer. This nifty little device fit in the palm of your hand attached to a fake ring on your hand. Wind it up and shake hands with another and get a laugh from giving the victim a “shocking sensation.” In truth, there was no electrical jolt; just a slight, noisy vibration. Cost: 50 cents.

A horseshoe for Danny Webber

Last week was just like any other here in Indianapolis. The predictable homicide victims, usually by gunfire. Firefighters risking their lives put out flames on abandoned homes torched by cheap-jack gangbangers or meth-heads. Undocumented Asian massage parlor gals busted while their “managers” and patrons escaped arrest. Tech geeks hanging out to get wrist bands to purchase the latest iPhone model and discovering its new mapping system might locate their home address somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean. 

The screed of political candidates waging their war of truth against their opponents. And the endless road work around town and Interstates 465, 65, 70, 74 and 69 – numerals which truly explain why our city is dubbed the “Crossroads of America.”

But near the end of the week a story appeared in the Indianapolis Star, written by sports writer Phil Wilson who covers the hoof-beats of our beloved Colts. It was a simple feature/sidebar he wrote about this fellow from Knightstown, Indiana, who has been tam fan long before the late Bob Irsay high-jacked Mayflower trucks under the cover of darkness to bring the team to our city. It would take years and a few guys named Peyton, Dungy, Pollian and Jimmy to turn things around. But those are wonderful anecdotes.

Let’s talk about Danny Webber of Knightstown. In the old days, he had attended games in the former Hoosier-then-RCA Dome, a massive structure whose top resembled a festering blister on our city’s mid-skyline. In fact, Danny’s support goes back to the Baltimore Days when QB Johnny Unitas was making his bones for the horse.

Danny has been battling cancer for a number of years and has won a few of the battles. But now he’s the underdog and freely admits that the war is all but lost.Among his final desires was to witness his first and perhaps final game in the relatively new and stately Lucas Oil Stadium.

Barn-burning birds, Dillinger and a man with ink in his blood

Media of all types is rife with images and stories of folks who like to live life on the proverbial edge. The extreme sport enthusiasts who thrust themselves from cliffs and pop their chutes moments before they touch down. Snowboarders and skateboard freaks who defy physics and all sanity with their stunts. Rednecks and dipsticks of every ilk who attempt the most incredibly stupid and dangerous stuff and YouTube for the entire world to see.

Let me tell you about another who pushed the edge. My maternal grandfather, Norman Alister 

Henry. Not long after the turn of the 20^th century, moved from St. Louis to Crittenden County, Kentucky, with the great expectation he would join the family business, the lucrative Henry and Henry Monuments. At that time the business was – and apparently continues to be – a lucrative enterprise, literally having the final word about their clients.

But names and dates carved into grave markers and monuments didn’t have much appeal to Norman. He wanted a format where words could expand into full sentences, paragraphs and stories. He further desired to learn a trade to set type by hand (a long lost art) and to combine those stories with half-truths, rumors and salacious innuendoes. All the same things that pretty well make up with what we get today from the news media.

So he went into newspapering.  And he did quite well earning stature and influence in the community and turning a profit, as did one of my favorite uncles, Buddy Walker, would do years later in central Indiana.

In his off time, he had a playful if not offbeat nature. The story goes that one occasion he and some of his friends thought it would be interesting to see how captured birds would fare in flight carrying small, fuse-lit dynamite sticks tied to them. Most would discard the cargo after takeoff and go on their way. However, there was one occasion when one sortie flew into a nearby barn, dropped the stick and soared off moments before the blast. The barn exploded and burned to the ground. And according to the story in Norman’s newspaper, police had no clues to the arsonist’s identity.

The greed and goodness of a girl

Never underestimate the depth of greed and full understanding of a person’s capacity to take advantage of a situation of their fellow human being when given the opportunity. Ethnicity, socio-economic standing, political sway, religious faith and age have nothing to do with it. It’s not wired into our unique genetic blueprints necessarily, but it is a common characteristic we all possess.

In October 1964 such a person came into my family. Nearly eight years after me and my equally quirky older brother came ranting into the world, we suddenly had a new sibling. It was a she – a nearly perfect biological and well-behaved specimen whose presence never spooked our parents with episodes of dangerous sleepwalking, accidentally busting out windows with baseballs; losing baby alligators purchased from F.W. Woolworth’s to roam the house; faking drowning at the neighborhood pool; and heartlessly turning anthills into smoldering ruins from the laser-like beams from magnifying glasses reflecting a blazing hot, Hoosier summer sun.

Her trademark was an ever-present smile or grin. In sunshine and in shadow.

May these two great forces be with us

A very dear and long-time friend of mine – a person who probably knows me better than I know myself in so many ways – called me on the phone nearly two years ago to tell me she had passed an important milestone in her life. She revealed that she had woken up that morning and, surprisingly, had miraculously shed an anger and disgust over another person who had rattled her bones and soul over the hurting of another close to her.

I woke up and felt this amazing peace and sense of forgiveness. Don’t know why and can’t exactly explain it all, but I suspect it was God’s way of just saying’ let it go’!  she said with a bit of giddiness and relief in her voice. So I have, and that’s the end of it. I just wanted to share that with you and I feel good about it!

I can misquote and misinterpret Hebrew and Greek scriptures with the best of them, but this proclamation came as close to any I ever have heard in explaining the tenets of Judeo- Christian beliefs. This declaration truly was an old and new testament of what it means to move faith forward.

Solid science teaches us there are fundamental forces guiding the universe: There are always strong and weak electromagnetic and atomic forces constantly at work which can create, alter or destroy life. Gravity always wins. And the vast expanse of time and universes, seen and unseen are far beyond our observation and our comprehension.

There are two less-scientific but more powerful forces at work which are far more difficult to grasp, at least for me. Love and forgiveness. The one I follow boiled the first one down to its purest form: Love the one who made you with all your heart and soul and mind. And by the way – love everyone else as you should love yourself.  There you go folks – Cliff Notes for understanding the literature of the Author of us all.

The shutter that still bugs me

I have been blessed throughout my many careers to have worked for a variety of bosses. Been under the tutelage of many good coaches as editors, advisors, fellow journalists and writers. More important, good leaders and cheerleaders, who have patiently suffered my myriad idiosyncrasies and encouraged me greatly. And who have taken a chance on me with the expectation that I had something to contribute.  

There  was this editor who took a chance on me long ago when I was hired a reporter the Mount Vernon Democrat, a small, aggressive daily due east of Evansville by about some 16 miles or so. He was looking for some eager would-be wordsmith willing to work for wages comparable to a salt mine worker and long, weird hours that would stagger a team of “manifest destiny” oxen. 

So, I joined a cadre of three other full-time general news reporters;  a “Family Living” editor; an intellectual well-read chap who headed up the newspaper’s Toy Department (sports); and a free-lance cartoonist.  I was thrown in head first to cover the city council, police beat and courts (we were a small river town with more violent crime than you might expect), the occasional murder, county council and commissioners, the Alcohol Beverage Commission hearings (we actually had an active Women’s Christian Temperance Union attending and opposing every liquor license application), zoning and school boards, business and so forth.

We also had community “stringers” whose homespund screed covered everything from funeral dinners, family homecomings, neighbors recovering after having gall bladders yanked, recipes and golden anniversaries. They worked for free and were rewarded by having their byline in boldface. One of the first hard lessons I learned is that you don’t edit little, old ladies’ copy; that adherence to the Associated Press Stylebook means nothing to feisty, blue-haired contributing columnists who considered their gossip sheets right up there with the Holy Scriptures and the Declaration of Independence,

Such was community journalism – sadly and sorely missed in much of today’s increasingly diminished newsprint and content. But alas, in this modern era we get our news from blogs, Twitter and and other nifty whirly-gigs zooming out there in that vast universe called cyberspace.

Even though we had a full-time part time photographer, we were expected to do our own shooting. We were expected to carry our carry our cameras on every assignment. Just in case “Photo Boy” was unavailable. More often than not, we souped our own film back at the newsroom and got it ready for half-tone reproduction. The sour smell of Dektol in the cramped darkroom. Negative strips hanging from a wire like tobacco in a barn.  “Dodging” and “burning” images as they were projected onto photo paper. 

One afternoon in our tobacco-stained newsroom, the police scanner seemed to go haywire. A story in the making loomed up Ind. 69, a rolling stretch of roadway connecting Mount Vernon with historic New Harmony – site of one of America’s first experiments in search of Utopia. The squawking on the scanner intensified. An ugly multiple vehicle accident needing ambulances, more cops, fire/rescue crews. And by the way, somebody better go over to the high school and let the social studies teacher/county coroner know about it. 

I immediately followed the red-light caravan to the scene with my trusty 35 millimeter in tow. In fact, I got there before many of the responders. I loaded my Cannon and prepared to shoot the scene. I fired off many frames until I got to one of the vehicles involved in the wreck. 

I was front and center of the sedan and saw the driver, a middle-aged woman mashed face-first against the windshield. Blood streaming from her brow to the dashboard. Alive, alert, and thank God, not seriously hurt. As I raised the camera we locked eyes for only a second or two. Her look clearly pleaded:  Please don’t!

But my right index finger wasn’t listening.

Click!

The perfect moment. The perfect shot.

Then I quickly went about interviewing the cops and others at the scene, jotting that scrawl of information into my nifty reporter’s notebook. Then I hurled my beat-up jalopy back to the newsroom to deliver my film and file the story.

I briefed my editor on the basics and immediately began to write the story. Gritty yet accurate details all. Our part-time shooter pitched in by processing the Tri-X film.

The verdict was swift. My perfect shot was blurry. Not artsy “soft focus.” The image was as distorted as an interpretation of the Affordable Care Act. Obviously not Pulitzer images on that black-and-white strip. So, a less-dramatic pic was chosen.

To this day, I harbor some slight regret about squeezing off that single frame. Not because it didn’t make it into the newspaper. Not because it was poorly executed and that its quality sucked more than a Rod McKuen anthology. Rather -- because I refused an honest plea from a victim and a small, still voice to balance my personal and professional instincts.

Had I been a better photographer, I suspect my regrets would have been even deeper. Today, thank God, I have a cell phone to take and edit my photos.

The Tennessean: A place for democracy in dining

I hate hearing, much less using, that cliché “back in the day,” but I had one of those thoughts the other evening while needlessly burning $4 dollar-a-gallon fossil fuel in a long drive-though line at one of the mega fast-food chains near my home on Indianapolis’ south side. I anticipated a neatly arranged, sculpted and reasonably warm burger clone, the exact kind you can find anywhere between Bowling Green, Kentucky, and Outer Mongolia. Those guys have it down to a sad, predictable science.

I found myself drifting back to Central High School, circa 1970, in downtown Evansville, Indiana. Opened in 1854, it was and remains to this day to be the oldest continuously operating high school in the nation west of the Allegheny Mountains. I was in the last freshmen class as the school would move to a new location on the city’s north side. The school and its gym across the street were stately and reasonably maintained, but the classrooms smelled like a nursing home that has avoided inspection for years.

Then there was the cafeteria, which some dubbed the “Choke and Puke.”  It wasn’t that the food was that terribly bad – your standard, limited and bland menu – it was the setting which drove many of us to pocket our lunch money or use it to buy cigarettes. It wasn’t uncommon to have a piece of ceiling plaster plop into your plate or see something dark oozing up from between the cracks in the floor tiles.

But there were a few options available to a kid willing to sneak off campus to grab a bite. Many of us chose the Tennessean, located a few blocks away from Central. It was a squat, small facility, and frequented by an eclectic clientele.  Where else could a zit-faced “greenie” freshman sit at a counter stool with the likes of cops, clergy, rheumy-eyed winos, working stiffs, well-groomed businessmen, GIs, perfumed bouffant lady shoppers, and occasionally the mayor? If you eavesdropped, you’d hear off-color jokes, pointless and sometimes pitiful stories, rumors and outright lies. The Tennessean was a true democracy in dining.