Hello friends and family,
Ahhh, dad . . . ! I wish you had written more in this story. But, I guess you had a ‘word count’ to contend with when writing for a column. I love dad’s stories about being a newspaper journalist in what he called “the good ol’ days”. The stories of deadlines, city clerks, colorful reporters, interviews gone wrong. Dad may have been one of the more colorful ones. My earliest memories of my dad are from the 1950’s and early 60’s when he would come home wearing a trench coat and a fedora with a card that said ‘Press” sticking out of the hat band like a feather in his hat.
For family photos, dad would hire a Detroit News photographer friend and show up with him after work. The photographers always had the best equipment and were interesting characters in their own right. I wonder what arrangement dad made with his photographer friends. Dinner and drinks, maybe? Extra publicity for the photographer’s personal projects, maybe? I always felt there was something more than just money involved in the photo session.
I hope you enjoy this week’s installment of “It’s a Wonderful World” by Don Tschirhart as much as I have. There’s plenty more stories and I hope more “good ol’ days” stories involving news reporters and journalism.
Love to all,
David T
“Memories Are Like Medicine”
By Don Tschirhart
Excerpted from the unpublished book “It’s a Wonderful World II: A Retired Reporter Looks At Life“
Memories Are Like Medicine
Memories are one of the bright spots for those of us who are older.
Occasionally our health fails, weather deteriorates, stocks and bonds take a nose dive or we just want to muse.
It’s then that life’s pleasure for an older person is in his or her mind’s eye. Flash backs can lift the spirit as we reacquaint with yesteryear’s adventures or acquaintances.
Even though I’m pretty healthy, rain and sun are equally enjoyed and my mutual funds are doing OK, I have no trouble falling asleep at night when I muse about my friends.
I begin with the memory of my friend and former wedding usher who was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease and two years later jumped for joy when his doc told him he had a cancer that would kill him before Lou Gehrig’s.
We mourned and yet were happy when Ray died, noting how cheerful he was and how we all knew his premature end was for the best.
Back in the “good-old days” of newspaper reporting at The Detroit News I remember an older guy we’ll call Fred who covered Detroit city council nearly every night of the week.
After the sessions, Fred would close up a bar, go to the nearest restaurant where another of my friends, Jim, would serve him two orders of bacon and eggs. Fred would get to the office at about 3 a.m., sleep on his typewriter for nearly three hours, wake up and type a column of near-perfect copy just meeting the deadline.
Then there was a rewrite man we’ll call John. One morning, I was sent out close to deadline to cover a fire that killed a Lapeer County family. I called in my notes to John who wrote it for the edition.
I arrived back at the office, read the copy in the paper and told John, “That’s not what the guy said.” His stock answer was, “That’s what he should have said.”
Another John story: Often the News’ chief assistant city editor, Carl, would arrive in the early morning hours with a migraine headache. Carl couldn’t stand anything on his desk except the telephone.
One morning he arrived, saw a pair of 18-inch-long scissors on his desk and heaved them at John sitting a few desks away writing a story for the edition. Not batting an eye or missing a typewriter key John heaved the scissors back at Carl just missing him. The older Carl learned a lesson.
One day our paper received information about a bigamist. They sent another reporter, Bill, to interview and get a photo of the first “wife” and me to the second “wife.”
The second wife gave me a picture of herself and Bill got one of his subject. Bill and I met in the company garage. I had my picture in my pocket, but Bill had his in his hand as we walked toward the office door.
I heard running behind us and then a, “What the hell?” from Bill. His subject had changed her mind about giving him the picture, raced to the office and snatched the picture from his hand. How embarrassing! Something I reminded Bill after he became my City Editor.
An assistant city editor we’ll call Art was about as absent-minded as anyone can be. On a couple of occasions Art would fill his tray at the cafeteria and while talking with someone would absent-mindedly take the tray through the busy business office into the city room before realizing he should have eaten it in the cafeteria.
I don’t think I’ve ever known a more avid Michigan football fan than Art. No matter edition-time or not if Michigan won on Saturday he’d spend a half-hour talking about the game on Monday morning. If Michigan lost, Art was unbearable all day.
At his retirement party his legion of office friends gave him an antique Michigan football and helmet.
Everyone loved the affable Armand. He told stories that were legendary, mostly about himself including the time a cat climbed into his car engine and was splattered when Armand started the car.
Once Armand was sent to Hamtramck on an edition story. He took copious notes especially being careful of the spelling of the Polish residents he had interviewed.
When it came time to call in his story to a rewrite man, Armand put his notes on a popcorn machine next to a pay telephone.
You guessed it. Armand’s notes dropped into the popcorn machine and he couldn’t retrieve them.
He missed the edition and had to retrace his steps re-interviewing the residents.
I could go on and on about the characters I’ve known. Maybe in another column.
