Another side of covering Princess Diana’s death

dianacar

The phone rang at 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 31, 1997. I was fast asleep. On the other end of the line was Tom Watkins, an assignment editor on CNN’s national desk. “I’m sure you’ve heard by now Princess Diana is dead,” he intoned.” I actually hadn’t because I had gone to bed early. Then Watkins laid my assignment on me. It came directly from CNN’s hardnosed president, Rick Kaplan. He ordered a piece on the braking system in the Mercedes Benz Diana was riding in. Deadline, 7 a.m. Sure. I pulled on some clothes and dragged myself the 7 miles down to the CNN Detroit Bureau, which was actually located in suburban Southfield. Fat chance getting an interview in the middle of the night but maybe I could find a way to pull something together for a first run at 7.

When I got to the bureau I combed our tape (1997, remember) library and it was then any belief I had in a higher power was confirmed. Sitting on the shelf was a handout video from Mercedes Benz: “Safety systems for S-280.” Are you kidding? Like a parched pilgrim in the desert I devoured the shot list stuck inside the box and and feasted on the entry that read “Animation of S-280 braking system.” Now I had something to work with. Using the animation as the centerpiece for the package I was able to find all sorts of information about its workings on the Mercedes media website and assorted press kits we kept around the bureau. It wasn’t much, but it was something. I cobbled together a script and submitted it by about 3 a.m. Once approved, I used my sparse editing skills to produce the piece, then fed it by satellite to Atlanta for air.

The fusty Kaplan was pleased but wanted more since the network was in full wall-to-wall coverage of the tragedy. “Keep adding elements to it,” were my orders. What I needed was an interview as to how lousy the braking system actually was and whether or not it could have contributed to the crash.

I had worked with plaintiff safety advocate Ralph Hoar in the D.C. area on several stories and decided to give him a try. Ralph’s company provided information for plaintiffs involved in various lawsuits involving vehicle safety and I was sure he would have something I could use. Normally, we’d get him to go into CNN’s Washington D.C. bureau for the interview then it would be fed to Atlanta where an editor would insert whatever soundbite I chose into my piece.

Curveball. I did reach Ralph. He said he could definitely offer some thoughts but explained he was on his way to Richmond, Virginia to see his father. Oh no, not just a weekend jaunt to see the folks. He said his father was dying and he expected this would be his farewell. Of course I apologized for disturbing him as he undertook this very sad task, offered my deep sympathies, hung up then pondered my next step.

Unbelievably, a few minutes later Ralph Hoar called me back. “I know what a spot you’re in, Ed. I would be willing to go to a Richmond TV station to do the interview.” I replied that while I appreciated the gesture very much I couldn’t possibly cause him to lose even a second with his dad, but he insisted…and did the interview.

cnnhoar

With Ralph’s comments I now had a substantial package that played for the next 36 hours on all the CNN networks and was fed out to the affiliates. Kaplan and the producers were happy and I must say, I was relieved to have pulled this off..but not without the extraordinary help from Ralph Hoar. I ended up sending him a large gift basket from Harry and David and that seemed to make him very happy. “You’re a classy guy,” he said when he called me. “You have me forever.”

The epilogue to this is by September of 2001 I had left CNN and was the national auto writer for the Associated Press. I kept in touch with Ralph Hoar and knew he had been ill. I had no idea how ill. He died that month of prostate cancer. Even though I was based in Detroit, I asked for, and was granted permission to write Ralph’s obit for the wire.

And now, whenever Aug. 31st comes around and the world is thinking about the death of Princess Diana, I think of my late friend Ralph Hoar, who sacrificed precious time with his fading father to help a reporter who was in a “spot.”

Workspace-d out

cubeI don’t need much space to do my work. I’m good with enough surface space for my computer, phone, and a flat area close to me where I can place my coffee cup and maybe a pad of paper. Yeah..I like pads…with paper. I call them MYpads as I semi-conduct myself in today’s tech-obsessed world.  I’m also good with one drawer where I can keep a couple of pens and extra MYpads and my lunch bag.

Truthfully, that’s all the space most anyone needs, but they always want more. I bring this up because we recently were notified that our workspaces will be upgraded. To what? You can’t make my desk any flatter, I’ve got plenty of surface space and I already have THREE desk drawers, two of which are empty.

Everyone is entitled to a clean, comfortable, functional workspace… one suitable for the job..but the fact is, however, corporate culture can sometimes fool you into thinking the size and amenities of your workspace translates into power, self-worth and respect, resulting in misguided and honestly, idiotic aspirations.

For example, at the very large company from which I retired last year one can walk up and down an office suite and immediately discern the pay level of an employee.  The spaces ranged from deep, narrow cubes that looked like the chutes holding a rodeo calf before it’s released, then hogtied by a cowboy. The similarity is not unintentional. The occupant of such a demeaning space is being sent the message that you are just meat on the hoof, performing some simple task with little hope of advancement.

As your pay level, or “band” increases, your cube becomes less shallow, but wider with a little more surface space, more desk drawers, even overhead bins and a little counter with enough room to entertain one lucky visitor.

But the Holy Grail is the GLASS ENCLOSED OFFICE. It takes years to land one of those and every single employee aspires to occupy one. It says, “I’m hot shit! I have power! I’m important! I know more than you!” Indeed, many of those pining to spend their days in a corporate isolation booth have no desire to attain this dubious achievement..they just want the damn office.

Indeed, when I was promoted to such a level that included the granting of a glass office I asked to remain in my current, more open workspace. I was denied this request by HR, firmly scolding me that doing so would “send the wrong message.”  I explained that I would perform to the standards that landed me the promotion and, at the same time, stay in better touch with my team by working in an open space, but again, it was explained that I would not receive the proper respect of co-workers unless I worked in a space too big, too hot and stuffy and isolated. So I moved into the cell that made me feel like a convicted felon. Suddenly, people who had sniffed at me previously came by and wanted to give me high-fives for reaching bureaucratic nirvana. At the same time, latent jealousies were exposed and one whiny co-worker who had hoped to occupy that office went crying to her supervisor that she was cheated.

When I explained this moronic culture to my Italian boss his face turned grey as he said to me, “you are lying to me. Who could come up with such a foolish system?” Heh. Tell the CEO to end it. He didn’t.

Now, in semi-retirement, I’m often able to work from home in a small office of my making. I get a lot done in that little room. The door is always open. So is the window. But when I’m asked to come to my assigned workspace at my part-time job, I’m fine with my little cube, space for my laptop, drawer with my coffee cup, two pens and some MYpads..and I feel pretty freakin’ good about myself…and get the job done.   You see, the physical space you work in isn’t nearly as important as your mental space..it’s where your talent and motivation live.

Totally Eclipsed

eclilpseAre you excited about the upcoming solar eclipse? I am, because any time it’s dark enough to take a nap during the day without closing the curtains, I’m all for it.

I understand hotels, motels and airlines are taking advantage of people who are generally in the dark by hiking rates and fares to areas where you can experience the total effect of the eclipse.  Anyone falling for that highway robbery deserves to have their lights out.  Not me. I understand that in Michigan where I live, I’ll be able to experience some degree of darkness and that’s pretty much all I need. You see, you can get the same experience of a large body blocking the light by walking behind the typical Walmart customer. Just make believe their butt crack is one of those “canals” they think are on Mars.

eclipsemapPersonally, I enjoy the talk about eclipses because I like the words “umbra” and “penumbra.” You don’t get to use them very often because we most often opt for the more common “shadow”  or “whoa! It’s freakin’ dark!”

If I still lived in NYC I might grab a spot on 8th Avenue and set up shop hawking special total eclipse “PenUmbraEllas!” After all, you don’t wanna get any of those dark shadows falling on your head before ducking into the subway, or a Shake Shack. New Yorkers love to buy crap from guys on the street with merchandise piled in large cardboard boxes, especially if you tell them it’s been “imported from Miami Beach.”

I think I’ll just sit on my deck, which faces the woods, crack open a Summer Shandy, and wait for something spooky to emerge, like a guy wearing spats, every once in awhile yelling to the moon, “down in front! Can’t see the sun!” And sure enough, it’ll take one small spin for mankind..and move its cratered ass.

August and Everything …

augustandeverythingOne of my favorite CDs is “August and Everything After” by the Counting Crows released in 1993. It’s full of angst, honesty and the kind of whining I fondly recall from my days at Hebrew school during especially difficult attempts at properly applying tefillin. Lead singer/songwriter Adam Duritz is the spitting image of other guys in my bar mitzvah prep class who had hair that would not support wearing a yarmulke forcing them to make liberal use of bobby pins, which only made them appear more goofy, yet almost pious.   adam

I bring this up because here we are in August—a month when nothing particularly momentous happens, punctuated by the NFL pre-season when success in games that don’t count are a sure harbinger of an utterly disastrous regular season, when they do.

It’s easy to understand why Duritz and the Crows chose August as part of the title of their musically brilliant but lyrically downbeat collection because August represents the transition between the joy of summer and the dread that “everything after” includes like the chill winds of fall, the tedium of raking leaves and the winter freeze. While I personally enjoy the change of seasons I would vote they be distributed thusly: Summer, 6 months; Spring, 2 months; Winter, 6 weeks; Fall, what’s left. I know, I know, some people love fall, the turning of the leaves, the golden sunrises. I’m sure if you asked the Counting Crows they’d explain in their dark logic that Fall is but the threshold into the dark, frigid tundra that is winter, when you lose your boy or girlfriend and you slip on the ice in such a way as to become permanently impotent.

I like a lot of songs on “August and Everything After,” but one that always gets to me is the fabulously pathetic “Raining in Baltimore.” Duritz whines that he “needs” the following: a raincoat, a phone call, a sunburn, a plane ride, a big love, but especially the raincoat which dominates the final lines of the whine: I need a raincoat
I really need a raincoat
I really, really need a raincoat
I really, really, really need a raincoat
I really need a raincoat

When I grew up in New York, if you needed a raincoat you had two choices: The old chain Bonds, or a guy on Broadway with cardboard boxes full of them.  Poor old Adam just has to put a little more effort into it. These days, of course, you can easily pick up a raincoat online but you don’t get the cheesy salesman to tell you “ya look like a successful bra merchant in that one!”

As for the sunburn, plane ride, phone call and big love, those are issues for his shrink, or a quick search on Amazon.

Yes, August is perhaps the most dismal month of the year. Hot, featureless, bereft of holidays and hope. The kind of emptiness that I imagine makes Adam Duritz happy and inspires him to write catchy tunes like “Mr. Jones” that belie that fact they are actually paeans to pathetic goals where “we all wanna be big stars.” But August is the perfect month to be pathetic, because honestly, there’s nothing else going on. There’s joy in that….and everything after.

 

 

Reflections on a year of retirement, unretirement, semi-retirement

retirementcakeThis week marks a year since I retired. It also marks eight months since I retired from retiring, although only partially. When I swiped my badge for the last time after 11 years at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles on July 29, 2016 I took a deep breath as I imagined a freed prisoner having done hard time would do,  inhaling fresh air and marveling in the blue sky and bright sun. My lockups had been conference rooms and stuffy offices. My shackles were a corporate culture where too many employees cared about the size of their workspaces rather than the quality of their work…with the bold exception of my amazing FCA Digital Media team…the best in the business. fcadig

Now, all I had to navigate were the aisles of the supermarket with my wife who, like a field general, marched us from meat to melons to milk plundering the shelves and making a beeline to the checkout unscathed by less focused shoppers, meandering with their carts with no purpose or strategy. cartWe emerged the victors every single time reveling in many dollars of coupon savings.  We went out to lunch and paddled the Huron River, hiked nearby trails and took roadtrips.  There was no schedule, no Outlook calendar entries, no meetings or town halls. There was only all the time in the world to do whatever, whenever. We ate dinner as a family every single night and spent every night together. It was perfect. It was retirement. It was too good to last.

It ended on October 17th. That’s the day I began a part-time job at Automotive News on their video team. ANNblogWe would say I was now, “semi-retired” which means you work a little..in my case a max of 29 hours a week, have no career aspirations other than keeping your nose clean, doing a great job and having some fun while you earn a few bucks to pay your Medicare and bourbon bills. When you show up people seem happy. When you need to take a day off for one thing or another, no one minds and when you offer some insight based on many years of experience, it’s appreciated. Sometimes I show my age with some timeworn reference and my younger colleagues give me crap, but it’s all in fun because they know I have no interest in their jobs. They work a full damned week! I have every Friday off and most any other day if I need one. Maybe the best part of it all is having a chance to continue to do the kind of work I’ve enjoyed for so many years, but in much smaller bites. Most days I’m home by 2 or 3 and rarely, if ever, miss dinner. I still play ice hockey once in awhile and mow my own lawn.

I’m no Rockefeller (timeworn reference) but we’re comfortable, so it’s not about the paycheck. The currency I crave comes in denominations of relevance, sharing, team work, curiosity, social connection and fun.

I don’t know when I’ll make the move back from “semi” to full retirement. Right now I’m having too much fun..and I’m still around enough to push the shopping cart for my wife at the supermarket, lug the heavy jugs of milk and juice, and reach some items on the top shelves..on my tippy toes.

 

X, Y, See!

Shortly after arriving at work the other day I began to hear murmuring around me that had me thoroughly confused. I heard snippets about a “really big cake,” then the question “are you gonna do it this morning?” followed by crinkling of aluminum foil and finally a co-worker muttering “hmm..I smell a reveal.”

Now I’m at the age where my contemporaries are long past birthin’ babies and mainly celebrate the birth of grand babies, or the arrival of a new pet teacup dog, so I didn’t pick up at all what the hell was going on around me until people started to gather, looking at the cube where the young lady who is several months along, proudly lifted the foil off the big piece of cake revealing frosting with blue trim, followed by shrieks of “oh yay! A boy!”

Being a seasoned reporter I put 2 and 2 together and deduced we were being told the gender of the child yet gestating safe and warm in the impending mom’s womb. Indeed, an ultrasound photo was passed around, apparently so we could each verify what the blue icing had already heralded..that the fetus..is a he-tus.

I was later informed by my much younger colleagues I had just been a witness to what’s known as a “gender reveal.” Doing some research I discovered this is a big deal these days with all sorts of gender reveal party supplies available including a piñata you whack to get the answer, pinata

gender-appropriate smoke bombs smokebomb

and a volcano. volcano

When my kids were born in the 1980’s this was not a “thing.” Yes, some prospective parents did choose to learn the gender of their babies in advance to assist in decorating the nursery and tossing hints to friends and family about what stuff they should buy. We opted for the mystery and hedged our bets. I painted two walls of the nursery yellow and papered the other two walls with a colorful geometric pattern in primary colors. We couldn’t lose. Our son didn’t mind a bit and four years later our daughter didn’t either.

I get the practicality of knowing and the joy of sharing but I’m totally old school where my idea of a gender reveal party is taking a look to see whether or not there’s a shmecky on the infant when he/she emerges from the tunnel of love. I don’t need cake, although it’s appreciated. Don’t need to beat the crap out of a piñata to drop colored stuff to let me know or have a bogus volcano erupt in my face with the revelation. Back in the day, once the simple fact was determined by a quick look at the kid’s loins, the proud dad handed out cigars..real or bubblegum, with a pink or blue band denoting the newborn’s gender.girlcigar DB 375-1 BOY CIGARIf your friends were too stupid to figure it out, the bands helpfully were emblazed with “It’s a Boy!” “It’s a Girl!” Simple, despite your choice of cigar contributing to the contraction of cancer or tooth decay.

Look, I know things change and that’s fine. I’m all for being thrilled by impending parenthood and wanting to share the good news in fun and creative ways. Oh no..I won’t be labeled an “old fart.” Change is good…and if it involves sharing cake..reveal all you want.

Something in the way we moved

Sorry I haven’t been here in awhile. I’ve been smothered under a pile of stuff I started gathering as far back as the ’60’s, when I was a pre-teen, and now I’m in my 60’s, pre-mortem.

The boxes and tubs and drawers and file cabinets and shelves and assorted other fossils of my life were doing just fine taking up space until my wife and I decided we needed to move to another house a couple of miles away. The premise was simple. The house we lived in for 25 years had a nice yard and plenty of room for our kids to play. But the kids are adults and not interested in frolicking on a swing set, so the yard became just something for me to mow and fertilize and water, but never enjoy. So we ditched the big lot for a bigger house on a smaller piece of land and a lot less upkeep.

That’s when we discovered we messed up by letting sleeping stuff lie. There was one tub of reporter notebooks I saved…from 1979-80 when I was a budding local TV reporter in Tucson, Arizona. Would I really need to reminisce about covering the Pima County Planning and Zoning Commission? padsThere was a tub stuffed with ball caps I had collected. My favorite? The brown and gold cap with the embroidered Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers’ Marketing Board logo. Just the color scheme is almost as hazardous as the product it represented.tobacco

yanksmetsI was pleased to find my old scorecards from Yankee and Shea Stadiums, especially the one from the Yankees-KANSAS CITY A’s twi-nighter with Phil Rizzuto’s and Joe Garagiola’s autographs along with a blade of grass from right field, which I swiped after the game on my way through the old rightfield wall to the subway.yanks

Oh, there were a dozen or more coffee mugs that were freebies at press events, political buttons,  some “very important” t-shirts I collected along the way. A couple that stand out were “I was there. 7.1” that I picked up when covering the 1989 San Francisco earthquake and one emblazoned with one of the brands involved in the “great mustard war” at the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

Something kinda cool I still have are the original watercolors our courtroom artist made of Pete Rose in Federal Court in Cincinnati during the time he was kicked out of baseball. roseThe artist was a large fellow, seated in the vacant jury box. The judge was not amused when the poor guy kicked over his water pot during the proceeding. Alas, the paintings were never completed but just fine under a withering deadline.

howdy2I have a Howdy Doody pen given to me when I interviewed Ed Kean. He was the head writer on the show and invented the Clarabell the clown character, played by Bob Keeshan before he was Captain Kangaroo. Howdy’s legs and arms are posable. The pen part sticks out of one of his legs. That’s something I’ll never part with.

On the other hand, I have two big boxes with hundreds of press passes. Some are keepers like the one I got covering the very first Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. I also have a few White House pool tags and a laminated one from the Secret Service when covering a campaign swing through Arizona by then First Lady Rosalynn Carter.  But I also have scores more from every assortment of automotive events, especially auto shows, conferences and drive programs.

All this stuff takes room. What else do you do with it all besides leave it in repose in whatever repository it happens to be laying in? It’s not like I’m gonna sneak in the basement in the middle of the night to grab a quick peek at that six-foot tall plastic faux pencil I have courtesy of Kmart, which sent it to our bureau to promote its back-to-school campaign of 1990. Yes, I have it. Can’t part with it. Moved twice with it. Need it? Nope. Want it? Yes. Insanity? Could it be anything else?pencil

My wife implores me to “weed out” anything considered a dust or space collector, but reporters don’t do that. We keep thinking we’ll need to refer back to some specimen of detritus to write a book, or something. “Oh no! I need those notes from my feature on dwarf tossing in Grand Rapids!” I actually was assigned that story by CNN in 1989. Not proud. Not proud at all.

See? I already got some use from some of those, um, artifacts, lurking in dark spaces by writing this blog post. Does that mean I’m done with them? Are you crazy? I’m certain follow-ups will be necessary, in fact, demanded, by my two or seven readers. Don’t worry. I know where everything is and where it will always be. Indeed, I don’t know how many more moves I have left in my life…but I know what will be moving with me.

Taking care of a drive-by, drive-in friend

commercemarquisBarely a day has gone by in the past 25 years that I haven’t driven by this sign. From 1957-1990 it let families, young lovers, teens giving their new drivers licenses a workout and anyone with a set of wheels entertainment under the southeastern Michigan sky or maybe something a little extra in the backseat.

We moved to the Detroit area in the spring of 1989 but didn’t discover the Commerce Drive-in sign until it was too late. Like so many drive-in movies around the nation, it lost out to mulitplexes, home video options and home computers. The internet hadn’t yet become a factor.

Over the years the Commerce Drive-in sign stood sentry over an intersection that morphed from a quiet suburban corner to almost gridlock today as urban sprawl lured families northwest of Detroit to Commerce Township. We had always hoped the fact that the sign continued to hang in there while discount stores and subdivisions and brewpubs and carwashes were built around it that someone would re-open the drive-in. Of course, that made no business sense, although the Ford-Wyoming Drive-in in Dearborn continues to thrive.

The Commerce Drive-in sign grew forlorn but defiant as time moved along, fighting a losing battle against the elements and neglect. Motorists making a left or right at the T-intersection of Union Lake and Richardson Roads would give it a reverent glance as they went on their ways, many, I guess, wondering why it would still remain long after the last picture show. Still, not a word was heard asking to have it torn down. It’s just a constant you expect to be there, even though it serves no purpose other than, perhaps, reminding those who were there, of good and simple times, when one could enjoy a double-feature with friends and family on a giant screen with bags of hot buttered popcorn and ice cream and Milk Duds under the stars not in the solitude of a hand-held smartphone.

Last New Year’s Day the sign fell victim to vandals who sprayed graffiti on the landmark. That’s not something the community would stand for. A local resident and real estate agent, appalled by the insult to our beloved sign got to work lining up help with powerwashing and cleaning the sign. commercesignsign

A GoFundMe campaign was started but community businesses were so generous in donating their services to renovate the sign, there was no need to raise the initial goal of $50,000.  The long-vacant lot where the actual drive-in stood may also be turned  into a park aimed at activities for children with special needs.

It would cost about a quarter-million dollars to get the Commerce Drive-in sign fully functional again…a little too rich right now for cleanup organizers  But even if its neon never glows again, the effort to rehabilitate the sign sheds a bright light on a community coming together to take care of a beloved roadside companion.