peddling stanza cheap
where truth lies buried deep
and media sleep
President Biden received his COVID-19 vaccine booster after public health officials recommended them for many Americans, including those 65 and older. Mr. Biden, 78, got his third shot on camera.
Over this last weekend, the Street Vibrations Fall Festival was in Virginia City. The town is part of my news beat, so naturally, I spent a lot of my time there.
It amazes me to walk into one of the local saloons and find myself in conversation with strangers. In this case, it was several members of a Marine Corps motorcycle club.
As we sat jawing, one guy asked me what I did for a living. I explained that I write for the local newspaper, and he asked, “You mean the one Mark Twain wrote for?”
“No,” I said, “That paper is no longer in print, but I do work for the one that took its place.”
He immediately turned to the other members of the club and hollered, “Sam Clemen’s replacement is here.”
Perfect Marine humor.
To that, the entire bar burst out in laughter, and I turned beet-red. And when I thought my embarrassment couldn’t get any worse, someone in the back of the bar shouted, “You mean Foghorn Leghorn?”
It was just before midnight when the dog hopped from the bed and started down the hallway. There was a brief light than a sound as the man gently returned to sleep.
As he slipped into unconsciousness, he was sure that the light was the hallway nightlight and the sound, the plastic flap on the dog door. Then it happened again, but he was too far asleep to realize the light had come before the sound when it should have been in reverse.
He felt the dog hop onto the bed and curl up. He’d learn the truth come daylight.
Over the last couple of days, I have seen a broad spectrum of complaints that a missing “white woman” is getting more press time than a missing “black man.” The blame rests with the national media and their reporting practices. Odd how half of the nation knows and understands how biased the media are and how the other half continues to defend these so-called journalists.
In 2019, Daniel Robinson graduated from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Not long after, he was hired as a field geologist and moved to Phoenix, Arizona.
Co-workers last saw Robinson at about 9:15 a.m. on Wed., Jun. 23, 2021, testing groundwater near Sun Valley Parkway and Cactus Road. At some point, he got into his blue 2017 Jeep Renegade and drove away.
The Buckeye, Ariz., Police Department received the report of his disappearance that evening.
Authorities immediately checked with local hospitals and conducted a ground search for the missing man. Later, the Arizona Civil Air Patrol completed several rigorous air searches for Robinson.
Investigators spoke with his friends and family to gather information about him and where he may have gone. They learned that before vanishing, he had been “acting strange” and “seemed withdrawn.”
Detectives obtained cellphone and financial records but were unable to locate any information to aid in the search. They also tried to access the On-Star technology from his Jeep, but there was no power to it. Police pinged his cellphone but could not get location data because it was either turned off or out of range.
On Tues., Jul. 20, 2021, a cattle rancher found his Jeep about four miles southwest of his last known location. The Jeep appeared to have rolled 20 feet down into a ravine.
The airbags had deployed. But it was determined that Robinson had been wearing his seatbelt when the Jeep entered the ravine. The driver-side window, however, was smashed, and the windshield cracked.
His boots, safety vest, cellphone wallet, and keys were near the vehicle. Detectives conducted a ground search of the area surrounding the Jeep but came up empty.
The 24-year-old Robinson stands five-foot-eight, weighs between 150 to 165 pounds, has black hair and brown eyes. He was born without his lower right arm.
If you have information regarding Robinson, contact the Buckeye Police Department at 623-349-6400 or 623-523-0234. You can also contact Crime Stoppers at 1-888-274-6372.
Perhaps it was Buddy-dog moving, or maybe it was not knowing the sound as I slept. Either way, I woke up ever so slightly to listen.
Ah, the wind and the sound of bits of rock showering the side of the house, that’s all. I slipped back into sleep.
How much time passed, I have no idea.
It was the throaty growl of Buddy as he alerted. This time I got up, pulled on my nightshirt, slipped into my tennis shoes, and strapped my pistol and belt to my hip, picking up my mag-lite along the way.
Quietly, Buddy and I went to the sliding glass door and slipped into the back yard I was sure that the mysterious sound had come from the side of the house, and it was more than the sand and rocks whipped up by the wind. Nothing.
Buddy stood at the doorway as I searched the yard and the other side of the house. Again, nothing.
Heading inside, I secured the door and went to the front door. I stepped out onto the front porch and did a quick sweep of the area. I walked to the end of the porch, to the other end of the porch, around my pick-up truck and again found nothing that hinted the slightest to the sound I knew I had heard.
Buddy and I were standing on the porch. I was looking up and down the street, seeing if I could see even a hint of movement or hear the tiniest of sounds when a heavy gust of wind came streaming by. Both the dog and I jumped as from behind us a large thump emitted.
Turning, I pointed my pistol in the direction of the sound and flicked on my flashlight. Found it — my wife’s new green, glittering metal pumpkin welcome sign hanging by the door.
After holstering my sidearm, taking the sign down, and bringing it inside, I slunk back to bed, with Buddy close behind, aware of my silliness.
“And some days it don’t come easy
And some days it don’t come hard
Some days it don’t come at all
And these are the days that never end…”
— I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That), Meatloaf
It is an accurate statement when I can’t seem to get a good lead built for whatever news story I might be writing. At those times, I find it easier to pen a short story.
And when neither are available, my memory takes over, and I find myself talking aloud, outlining an event from my life that has been buried for years but has chosen to resurface for no particular reason. I find myself there right now.
Part of me wants to call this memory “The Night Wire,” another part says “By the Bell.” I can’t decide, and so that will have to come later.
“When I wasn’t much younger than you,” Gerald said. “I decided I wanted to learn to be a broadcaster, but I got more interested in the engineering aspect and eventually redirected my focus.”
I sat quiet, knowing he would do all the talking as he worked on the machine.
“Back as a kid, I found the telegraph to be fascinating,” he said. “Did you know that’s how most newspapers got their news back in the day? Well, that’s where I came in.”
“Not only was I good at using the key, but I could also type, and being the only male to apply for the job, I got it. Back then, men believed women’s constitutions were too delicate for all-night work or some of the news stories that might come across the wire. Posh!”
“By the way, we say “wire” today, but it isn’t. But it literally was a wire when I was a kid.”
“Anyway, I’d sit up all night long and listen to the wire sing one news story out after another. I had a supervisor who’d then come over and get the stack of copy I’d typed that hour and go through them to see which one was worth passing along. He’d do that.”
“Can you imagine sitting in a room with a single overhead light, a small lamp on the desk beside you for eight hours?” Gerald asked.
I shook my head “no,” as he continued.
“And think about this, the wires came wrapped in either paper or cloth, including my headset cord. That could have killed me at any minute.
He laughed at the thought.
“Come with me,” he said, breaking his rivery, “Let me show you a small prize I was allowed to keep from one of my last jobs at an all-night wireman.”
We walked down the hall to his office. And after a quick scan of a row of binders behind his desk, he pulled one down and flipped it open to show me.
It was a faded piece of paper, type-written words faintly visible. I couldn’t read a single word of it.
“This is about the moment that I knew our world was about to change,” he said. “Sputnik. The wire was heavy with traffic that night and early morning. Reports about the sound it made, reports of it seen as it sped by, reports of fear. What a shift that was.”
“Anyway, while I never got to see it myself, I knew this business was on the verge of change. I read Popular Mechanics, Scientific American, and I understood that the wire would be gone in a couple of years and that satellites would soon replace the telegraph key.”
“I moved on in my career, into engineering, because I knew my skills would no longer be needed, that whatever was to come along and replace the key would be faster than me. I was right about that, too. They called it the teletype machine.”
“Not as romantic, but very efficient.”
We returned to the machine he was working on, and I had to check the wire. I should say “wires” as the facility I work for had five of them, all operating at once.
That’s where the title, “By the Bell,” comes in. My duty was to pull the copy and separate it by bell status.
One bell meant the standard fare of this politician said this, firefighters rescue kitten, 95-year-old woman completes a marathon. Five bells were the big stories, terror attacks, space shuttle disasters, and presidential elections.
It has been years since I’ve worked in broadcasting, news, or music entertainment. When I left the business, all of those teletypes in the hallway were gone, replaced by computer and video screens. Instead, we kept a television on in the newsroom, tuned to one cable news outlet or another, sound off, of course, to give us a heads up about any major breaking news story.
“Not as romantic, but efficient,” I can hear Gerald saying.
Along with the constant clickety-clack of the old teletype machine, missing from the radio broadcast station, the on-air and sound studios have changed. No longer are live performances the norm like they were in the heyday of terrestrial broadcast.
Gone are the shelves of 78, 33, and 45 rpm (revolutions per minute) records, the bank of double reel-to-reel machines, the cart machines with their clunky-thump at re-cue, or the compact disc, and the stacks of players, all lined up and ready to play at the press of a button.
And I cannot recall the last time I saw a cassette tape or a cassette record. But then, Radio Shack, a mainstay for Baby Boomers, is gone, unable to keep pace with the changing of technology as it morphs from day-to-day into things we only read of in Dick Tracy comic strips or watched on Star Trek.
Gone is the mom-and-pop local broadcaster. Not even the voices you hear are live very often these days but prerecorded in a sound studio. No, much of it is computerized, and in some cases, radio signals are transmitted, not by line-of-sight or skip waves, but by satellites, by Sputnik.
Gerald was right, not as romantic, but efficient.
The Old Blog in the Desert 