In 1966, my senior year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I worked the spring football game for the UNC Sports Information Office, setting up the press box for reporters covering the game and for the statisticians who worked for UNC.
My responsibility included checking out two pairs of field glasses from the Athletic Department, to be used by spotters who worked for the statisticians. When the game was over I was supposed to return them.
But somewhere along the way one pair of field glasses went missing. I turned in the other one and told my boss, Bob Quincy, the sports information director, what had happened — someone took the other pair.
He told me not to worry about it and that was that. I didn’t. A few weeks later I graduated and went to work as reporter for The Charlotte News.
A year later I received a letter from Vernon Crook, UNC’s assistant athletic director for business, dated April 12, 1967.
“Sarge Keller indicated that his records show that a pair of field glasses were charged out to you while you were here and never returned,” Mr. Crook’s letter said. “Can you throw some light on this for me?”
I meant to write back right away and tell Mr. Crook that I didn’t know what had happened to those field glasses –I didn’t take them — tell him I had told my boss, the sports information director, that they had gone missing and that my boss told me to forget about it.
But I didn’t write back that week, or the next, or the next.
Couple of months went by and I was looking for something in my desk when I stumbled across Mr. Crook’s letter and I meant to respond right then, but I didn’t. Didn’t have time right then. I put his letter back in the drawer.
After that I’d come across that letter every few months or so, reread it and think about it some, what I should say in response, and put it back in the drawer.
In 1971, when I resigned my job in Charlotte and went to work for The News & Observer in Raleigh, I took Mr. Crook’s letter with me, fully intending to respond as soon as I got settled. I didn’t, but I did continue to think about Mr. Crook’s letter every few years.
Finally, finally, on May 18, 1978 — 11 years and a month after Mr. Crook’s inquiry — I got time. Or I guess I should say, I made time. I began the letter to Mr. Crook this way:
“In response to your letter of April 12, 1967…”
I apologized for my failure to answer his letter in a more timely manner and told him I didn’t know what had happened to those field glasses.
Mr. Crook wrote back immediately. He thanked me, and one upped me. He had retired on July 1, 1974, but, apparently, he had continued to work some at the Athletic Department because he told me —you know he wasn’t serious — that my letter had wrapped up his last piece of unfinished business.
Coming Monday: The Hard [But Good] Lesson