I’ll never know how close I came to not being hired by The News & Observer when I drove to Raleigh on May 14, 1971, to interview for a job.
I had done all right at The Charlotte News and I was pretty sure The N&O would offer me a job if I could just avoid a major mistake during The Interview.
So when I sat down in the managing editor’s office and we began to talk I was relaxed.
I shouldn’t have been because I hadn’t done my homework. I knew almost nothing about The N&O — I had heard good things but I had never read it. I was there because I wanted out of Charlotte as fast as I could go.
The Interview was going well when the phone rang and the managing editor, whose name was Woodrow Price, answered. While he was on the phone I started looking around, looking for something to say when he got off the phone, and I noticed a stuffed fish hanging on the wall behind him.
When Woodrow got off the phone I said, “Woodrow, I see you’ve got a fish on your wall. Do you like to fish?”
Woodrow, the slowest talking man I’ve ever met, replied, “Welll, yasss, and I’ve been writing a column about it in the The News & Observer for 20 years.”
They hired me anyway.
Coming Friday: The Psychology Of Winning