March 2012

March 24, 2012

Medicare, 2012 and Me

Well, it’s 2012, today’s my birthday and my official Medicare card arrived in the mail. You might remember me telling you this was going to be a Big Year. This was the year that they said I could retire when I went through orientation at The Palm Beach Post in 1973.

I figured that 2012 was a lot like the Second Coming: it might arrive, but I never thought I’d be around to see it. See, Dad and his brothers checked out by age 60, so I had established that as my official Sell-By Date. Here was my post from last year.

I discovered cycling

Some funny things happened along the way. I discovered cycling, which taught me that there was a life outside the office. I still worked long and hard hours, but I also looked forward hopping on the bike and feeling the stress drain away. I told folks that I could get hit by an 18-wheeler tomorrow and cycling would have added more years to my life than it could ever subtract.

The death spiral of newspapers also worked in my favor. It gave me an opportunity to take a buyout in September 2008 and early retirement. I was going to have a chance to enjoy what tomorrows I had left without the fear of being carried out of the office on a stretcher or in handcuffs.

Herding cats and blogging

My boys thought I might like to lead bike tours in retirement, so they set me up with a bike blog. I soon found out that I wasn’t made to herd cats, so leading tours morphed into writing about cycling. The next step was to start digitizing my old photos. That resulted in this blog.

Just jingle the keys

After spending the last 15 years of my newspaper career shoving electrons down phone wires (something that I actually enjoyed), I discovered the magic of journalism again. Telling stories and dredging up old memories is a blast. It’s also given me a chance to have a lot of fun with Mother, who is ready to hop in the car at the jingle of keys. She’s good company and has her own stock of stories (many of which, I’m afraid she’s going to take with her.)

I’ve been blessed with Wife Lila who has put up with my quirks and foibles for way too many years. I warn people that I’m much more personable in print than in person. Unfortunately, that’s often too true at home, too. I don’t tell her enough that I love her. More important, I like her.

Our two boys have turned out better than anybody could ever hope for. They met and married two of the best daughter-in-laws in the universe. Their marriages have produced two extraordinary grandsons for us.

It’s been a good run

So, it’s been a good run. I’ve had five years more than I ever expected. I’m beginning to get optimistic.

I had a chunk of cheek carved off, so I got the Big C ticket punched. I survived a car vs. bike crash last month with only road rash and a cracked rib, so I got that checked off the list. The exams after the crash said I was “normal,” which I thought was a let-down from Mother saying I was “above average” all these years, but still a pretty good grade.

I’ve reconnected with some old friends and made some new ones. Riding Partner Anne stood beside me, literally, as I was bleeding on the ground after the crash. She didn’t get a picture of it, but she’s a writer, not a photographer, so you have to make allowances.

Not gonna tempt fate

I don’t believe in tempting fate, so I’m not going to suggest you run out and buy me a birthday card for next year if you see one one sale, but I’m more optimistic now than I was when I turned 59.

There’s a new Tip Jar

By the way, (how’s that for a segue?) there’s a new little button at the top left of the page that says “Donate.” I have a new advertiser coming on board who wanted to be able to pay by credit card, so Kid Matt set up this link to make it possible. I’m not going to make a big deal out of it, but it can also serve as a “tip jar” for anybody who wants to help the boat stay afloat. (That’s not me above. It’s Tom Price, editor of The Ohio University Post, begging for money.)

(We used to have a coffee can labeled “TIPS” back in the telephone switchroom where we invited folks back for espresso a couple of times a week. This was a newspaper, remember, so we didn’t get much money, but we got lots of scraps of paper with stuff like, “Look both ways before crossing the street.” scrawled on them.)

This guy is still there

I wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and wonder who that old geezer is who stares back at me. It’s strange, because this is the guy who is still hiding behind that reflection.

March 23, 2012May 3, 2021

Dick Gregory for President

With all of the controversy about whether or not Cape Girardeau’s Rush Limbaugh should be in the Hall of Famous Missourians, I stumbled across a Show Me state resident who deserves a nomination – Dick Gregory. I was looking for something else the other day and stumbled across these photos of Gregory speaking at Ohio University in 1968.

I was surprised to find that (a) he was from St. Louis and went to school at Southern Illinois University and (b) he was still alive.

The Black Mort Sahl

The biography on his website says that he was African American comedian and civil rights activist whose social satire changed the way white Americans perceived African American comedians.

He was part of a new generation of black comedians that includes Nipsey Russell, Bill Cosby and Godfrey Cambridge. They broke with the minstrel tradition, which portrayed blacks as stereotypes.

Gregory, who had a dry, satirical wit, came to be known as the “Black Mort Sahl.” (Friends of Gregory would refer to Sahl as “the White Dick Gregory.” I was fortunate to cover Bill Cosby when he played Ohio University at about the same time.

“Nigger” was best-seller

I bought his autobiography, Nigger, when it was published in 1963 (when it was on its way to becoming the number one best-seller in the country), but I never felt comfortable walking around with the cover showing, even though he explained in his forward that he had written a note to his mother saying, “Whenever you hear the word ‘Nigger,’ you’ll know they’re advertising my book.”

Routine impressed Hugh Hefner

He got one his earliest breaks when Hugh Hefner heard him perform this routine in front of a mostly white audience when he had been brought in as a last-minute replacement:

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I understand there are a good many Southerners in the room tonight. I know the South very well. I spent twenty years there one night.

Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant and this white waitress came up to me and said, “We don’t serve colored people here.” I said, “That’s all right. I don’t eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken.”

Then these three white boys came up to me and said, “Boy, we’re giving you fair warning. Anything you do to that chicken, we’re gonna do to you”. So I put down my knife and fork, I picked up that chicken and I kissed it. Then I said, “Line up, boys!”

His temporary gig at the Chicago Playboy Club lasted three years.

Gregory changed my career

I was covering the event for The Ohio University Post. Much to my surprise, I got a call from The Athens Messenger, the local paper, asking if they could run my photo taken of Gregory while he waiting to go on. It was a surprise because I had seen photographer Bob Rogers at the press conference earlier that day, and I assumed that he must have covered the speech as well.

See, newspapers HATE to pick up something from a competitor. Now, The Post was the university student newspaper and The Messenger was the “real” paper, so we weren’t exactly competitors, but I always looked to see how I had stacked up against Bob or Jon Webb when we had been at the same event.

I was flattered that they wanted the art, so I offered it up quickly. I think that’s probably what led to them offering me an internship that summer. When they couldn’t find anyone who would work as long, hard (and cheap) as I would, it turned into a full-time job. When Bob moved on, I became chief photographer.

Write-in Candidate for President

Gregory ran for president in 1968 as a candidate of the Freedom and Peace Party, a splinter group of the Peace and Freedom Party. His button reads, “Write in Dick Gregory President for Peace in ’68.”

I guess I can add him to the list of presidents and presidential candidates I’ve covered.

Standing ovation

Gregory’s speech was well-received by the mostly white audience. Even though I was busy shooting the event from a multitude of positions, I heard enough to be impressed by the way he managed to get his point across without stabbing anyone with it.

I think he opened some eyes that evening. Most of us hadn’t heard that perspective before.

This site has an interesting collection of Dick Gregory quotes. In some he’s funny; in others he’s ironically angry; in others, he’s thought-provoking.

Interesting body language

I didn’t notice it when I edited the film in 1968, but take a look at the photo gallery. There’s an interesting contrast in body language between the white students and the black students at the afternoon press conference.

I see a lot of crossed arms and furrowed brows. I’m not sure the black students were as receptive to Gregory’s message as the white students.

Dick Gregory Photo gallery

I included a bunch of press conference photos in the gallery to show some of the folks I worked with in those days: Bob Rogers, Tom Price, Ed Pieratt and some radio and TV guys who look familiar (but we print guys didn’t bother pay much attention to them). Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.

March 22, 2012

“Avoid Cliche Shot”

I worked with a sports editor once that would type up an assignment to shoot the most hackneyed, dull, uninteresting, contrived situation in the world, then, invariably, he would add the line that drove my photographers nuts: “Avoid Cliche Shot.”

The guy must have played football before they invented helmets because no matter how much I talked to him, he couldn’t grasp the concept that a cliched situation is going to produce, at best, a technically proficient cliche shot. GRRRRRRRR!!!!

Grip ‘n’ grins taboo

At The Palm Beach Post, we managed to all but kill the “three-men-and-a-piece-of paper-grip-and-grin” shots, check-passings and ribbon cuttings by convincing organizations that photos of stuff REALLY happening would be more interesting. If the check was going to be used to feed kids at a day care center, we would go cover that instead of lining up some suits holding a fake big check and mugging the camera..

Since I was paid by the picture at The Missourian, my standards were a lot lower, but I still tried to get something not too embarrassing out of the obligatory school opening promo. At least I managed to drag Mayor J. Hugh Logan and Police Chief Irvin E. Beard outside to actually put up one of the 14,000 posters that were going to be plastered all over town as part of the 35th annual school safety drive.

As I read that, I have a hard time believing that there were 14,000 utility poles in Cape. I mean, the population of Cape was only about 25,000 on April 30, 1967, when this photo ran. Not only did they have 14,000 posters, but the photo caption said you could go by the police department to pick up a bumper sticker if you were so inclined.

Police Safety Review

I thought this publication was really cool. Follow the link to see a summary, then click on the links on THAT page to see some cool, gory drawings. We kids of the 60s were taught there were serious consequences to not following the rules, not just including having it written down in your permanent record.

March 20, 2012September 30, 2015

Mrs. George Ketcham, Backpacker

The August 8, 1967, Missourian caption said “Even Charles, son of Mr. and Mrs. George A. Ketcham, wants to assist his mother with her back pack, a 20-pound weight that she has been wearing for months in preparation for a hiking vacation next week when she will travel about 10 miles a day, walking over the Appalachian Trail with her husband, and her father.” Click on any photo to make it larger. You can read the full Emily Hughes’ story here.

Hike will start at Nantahala, N.C.

I guess someone thought the shot that ran in the paper was cuter than this one that shows Charles’ face. Mrs. Ketcham’s mother was going to keep the six-year-old while the hikers start out north of the Georgia border at Nantahala, N.C.

“Mother will drive us to where we get on the trail, 30 miles away,” Mrs. Ketcham said, “and then we’ll take three days to get back, rest and repack. Then she’ll drive us to the other end and we’ll hike the 20 miles back in two days. After that, well see how we feel. If we’ve had enough, we’ll turn around and head home.”

She had been working up to carrying a 20-pound pack since May. She wore it when she was working as a counselor during the Junior Cadet Day Camp so she wouldn’t lose conditioning.

Grandma Gatewood

I’ve been scanning photos of another hiker, Grandma Gatewood, for a future story. This is a shot you’ve seen before.

This remarkable woman was one of the first extreme hikers and an ultra-light hiking pioneer who was the first woman to hike the whole 2,168-mile Appalachian Trail in one season. She did it in 1955 at age 67, wearing Keds sneakers and carrying an army blanket, a raincoat, a cup, a first aid kit, one change of clothes and a plastic shower curtain, all stuffed in a homemade bag slung over her shoulder.

She hiked it again in 1960 and then again at age 75 in 1963, making her the first person to hike the trail three times (though the final hike was completed in sections). She also walked 2,000 miles from Independence, Mo., to Portland, Ore., averaging 22 miles a day.

This was shot in 1969 when she was walking in Hocking Hills State Park