I was in a meeting with Frank Daniels III, executive editor of The News & Observer, and I was in a lather: Ididn’t “need” — I had to have — a dedicated server for a fledgling computer assisted reporting network I was building.
Frank Daniels III
Lucky for me there was a good chance I’d get it. Frank III was probably the most technological advanced newspaper editor in the United States. Proof? While some editors were still using typewriters,the computers in his house were networked.
So I made my pitch and he said OK.
But maybe he didn’t say it loud enough to suit to me, or slam his fist on the table say “OK!” So a few minutes later I start in on my pitch a second time.
Frank III interrupted me.
“When you get the answer you want you should learn to keep your mouth shut,” he said.
I stayed quiet, and I got my server. I also learned a valuable lesson, one I’ve used over and over since then to my great benefit: When I get the answer I want I don’t say another word.
Wayne Lewis and his wife, Carol, and two members of their family flew from Raleigh to Las Vegas on Frontier Airlines a few weeks ago on vacation. Wayne told me the tickets cost just $38 each.
“The only thing you got free on that flight was toilet paper,” he said.
But that’s not what this story is about. When we were searching for how is rabies transmitted to dogs while they pant, we met an impressive dog and so this story is about airport security dog trained to detect drugs and bombs.
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Carol and Wayne Lewis
Wayne said that when he and Carol and their son and his wife got to the airport in Raleigh he checked his luggage but kept a carry-on bag. And then, like other passengers, they lined up to go through security, you know, where you have to empty your pockets and take off your coat, your belt, your shoes and your dignity.
“As we were walking through the line I saw this dog they were having walk around everybody,” Wayne said. “Now I love dogs, but this dog didn’t look like he was very smart. Anyway, when we walked through the line he sniffed our luggage.”
The dog sniffed and didn’t move on — and that’s when it started.
“About five security people surrounded us,” Wayne said, and escorted them away from the line. “They wanted to know what we had in the carry-on bag.”
“I said, ‘Nothing. All we’ve got is clothes, you know, we don’t have anything.’”
Actually, that wasn’t quite so.
The security men said they would have to search them and one of them asked, “Do you want us to take you to a private room, or do it here?”
Wayne said he had been frisked before, after forgetting to take something out his pocket and setting off the alarm on a metal detector. Nothing to it.
“I said, ‘Well, you know, let’s just do it here.'”
“That was a mistake because, I’m gonna to tell you, my wife has never been that intimate with me before. And me and Carol were standing there, side by side, and all of a sudden Carol was saying, ‘What are ya’ll doing!’ I’m telling you they really went over us like a fine-toothed comb.”
After finding no drugs and no bombs they finally let all four of them go on their way.
So what caused that not-very-smart-looking drug and bomb dog to zero in on their carry-on bag and alert security?
