The Price of Journalistic Freedom

The first Flipside Column appeared in this newspaper on March 30, 2007. My journalistic aspirations go back much further though. 

The first column I ever wrote appeared in the January 1970 issue of the Troop 22 Tooter. The Tooter was a publication that I wrote and published for Boy Scout Troop 22 in Bloomfield, New Jersey. Once a month I would pound the typewriter keys into the wax stencil and print the latest troop news. 

Each issue featured breaking news, merit badge tips, a scoutmaster’s corner and an editorial. Flipside readers are probably not surprised that I have a stack of Troop 22 Tooters stashed away in my filing cabinet next to The Camp Crier and Cold Turkey but I am getting ahead of myself. Alongside the Klondike Derby results and merit badge tips (“Home Repairs has only one requirement: need I say more.”) was my first column called Get It Together Guys. In the column I implored my fellow scouts to be prepared. “If a patrol leader fails to plan correctly for the canoe trip, the whole patrol goes hungry.” Frankly, I am surprised they didn’t publish that nugget of wisdom in the next edition of the Boy Scout Handbook. During the summer of 1972 I served as publisher and editor of The Camp Crier, the voice of Camp Christ The King in Blairstown, NJ. The mimeographed staff newsletter featured the lyrics of camp favorites like On Top of Spaghetti and jokes like this winner: “What did the hippie paper say to the pen? Write-on!” Captivated readers also learned that Cabin 8 was first in line for breakfast for the first time this summer and Sister Christine took two campers and a counselor to the Newton Hospital this week. My column in the one surviving issue of The Camp Crier offers tips for fighting off mosquitos which was a relevant topic in the Jersey woods. The third newspaper I was responsible for never bore my name. It was an underground newspaper called Cold Turkey that was distributed in 1974 among the young men of Essex Catholic High School in Newark, NJ. Cold Turkey was more of a silly satire piece than a newspaper. Instead of preaching anarchy or revolution, it offered record reviews, fake letters to the editor and weird school news. Freshmen were bribed with a free lunch to pass each issue out in the halls. “Dear Cold Turkey,” says one letter. “I am offended by your suggestion that Led Zeppelin IV is the best album ever. What about the new Osmond’s single or the greatest rocker ever, David Cassidy? – Signed Brother Dagwood, Principal.” My column in the spring of 1974 focused on the closing of our senior smoking section. It seems unbelievable by today’s standards but Essex seniors could smoke cigarettes in one section of the school cafeteria. The administration finally saw the error in that policy and moved the senior smoking section to the student parking lot. Journalists around the globe have been jailed for reporting the truth. My friend Jim and I received a few days of detention for reporting absolutely nothing important – a small price to pay for journalistic freedom. Thirty-seven years and hundreds of columns later, I am not sure if the quality of my columns has improved much but at least I can sign them with my real name.

My Old Kentucky Road Trip

I had a lot of time to think about cold weather last week. Locked up for most of four days by a crippling ice storm and thundersnow, I kept saying "it's not that bad."

Actually it was pretty bad and many Texans were unjustly mocked by out of towners from Pittsburgh and Green Bay for their reaction to the storm.
I ventured out each day and managed to get home without a dent but the odds were against me. It wasn't the first time I challenged those odds.

On a Sunday afternoon in January of 1978 I set out from Bloomfield, New Jersey for the 21-hour trek back to Murray, KY - my old Kentucky (college) home.

First let me explain a few things about my car. It was a faded green 1957 Chevy that came pre-dented and pre-rusted when I bought it two years earlier. The engine was smooth but the big car bounced along on worn shocks and ball joints that made it drift across the lanes. This forced the driver to constantly adjust the steering wheel to keep it aimed straight down the highway.

The flurries started about 20 miles into the trip but returning home would have been a defeat for this college senior. I was soon climbing hills in eastern Pennsylvania as the flurries turned to snow. I swung up north to the gritty town of Scranton to pick up a passenger and before we hit the next town south, the blizzard hit.

About the car again... the windshield wiper operated off of a vacuum pump that would lose pressure when the engine was stressed. In other words, accelerating up a hill would cause the wipers to stop until I released the gas pedal.

Facing near white out conditions, my passenger was leaning outside the window wiping the windshield with a snow brush while I slammed on the gas and let go intermittently. There was only 16 hours to go.

At the bottom of a long mountain hill outside of Wilkes Barre on Interstate 81, I did a 360 and fortunately struck nothing but snow. We shook it off and then caled it a day at the next exit. We stayed at a nearby relative's house and started out after sunrise for the other 917 miles.
The sun was shining but the temperature hovered near zero and the highway was covered with deep snow. We followed in the tracks of tractor trailers although we saw more than a few rolled on their side in the medians. Thirteen hours later we had travelled about 450 miles on snow covered roads. We called it a night in Columbus, Ohio.

One final word about the car - the floorboards in front had rusted out and only the original thin floor mats protected our feet from the cold air and moisture. The breezes were enough to numb the toes down there.

Tuesday morning we found the roads similar to our Texas roads last week - covered with ice. We rarely found dry pavement and crept 330 miles across the Western Kentucky Parkway in 10 hours - that's an average of 33 mph.

The 19-hour drive had taken 27 hours and still ranks as the toughest road trip I've ever endured.
As a footnote - we arrived in Murray, Kentucky just in time to enjoy several weeks of ice covered roads and cancelled classes. The winter of 1978 had just begun.