Month: October 2018

Censored

The businessman, whose company was a polluter, asked me, “Is that your typewriter I hear? Are you typing down what I say?”

I said I was.

And he said, “That’s unethical!”

Huh?

Working late at The Charlotte News. Putting in extra hours became a lifelong habit, to my benefit and detriment.
Working late at The Charlotte News. Putting in extra hours became a lifelong habit, to my benefit and detriment.

I was working on a story we called “A Sewer Named Sugar,”  about companies that were polluting Sugar Creek, a creek that runs through the heart of Charlotte and through its most popular park.

I had waded and walked the creek for more than 15 miles, from its headwaters to a point south of Charlotte, along with some tributaries, and I had found a number of polluters. Now I was trying to interview them.

I said to the man, “I told you my name; I spelled my name; I told you I was a reporter, that I worked for The Charlotte News; I told you why I called you, that I was working on a story about polluters; and I told you I wanted to ask you some questions.”

But he said he was done talking and he hung up.  I waited, and I didn’t have to wait long.

The guy I was interviewing was the son-in-law  of a top executive at my paper.  A few minutes later I saw that executive get off the elevator and walked straight into the editor’s office.

I have no idea what he and Perry Morgan, the boss of The Charlotte News, talked about. I wasn’t there.

I do know Perry did not allow me to name that man’s business, or quote him. I could only identify it as a “heavy industry” and the general location.

That was bad, but it got worse.

The newspaper I worked for was also polluting the creek. The News dumped chemical solutions used to develop film into a storm drain that eventually drained into Sugar Creek.

I was not allowed to name my paper either.  Perry told me, “Now you’ve gone too far!”

Postscript: Nothing, and I mean nothing, like that ever happened to me in the 37 years I worked for The New & Observer in Raleigh.  If I could find it and prove it  The N&O would publish it.  No one and no thing was off limits.

Coming Friday: Navy Propaganda

It Was ME!

Hurricane Fran smashed into Wake County on Sept. 5-6, 1996, causing about $900 million damage to residential and commercial property in my county alone.

Our subdivision, Greens Pines, was messed up bad — trees were down on houses and cars, blocking driveways, and laying crisscrossed on our street like fiddle sticks.

Except for a few small branches, our house appeared untouched,  thank goodness.

franEarly that Friday morning some of my neighbors were already out in the street, chain sawing, when I joined  them and cranked up my Husqvarna. They had smaller saws, or dull chains, or both.  My “Husky” was easily the king of the road.

One by one the other saws went silent until I was the only one cutting. The other guys started dragging trees and limbs I had cut, and it won’t easy for them to keep up.  My chainsaw was humming.

I cut all day, getting trees out of the neighborhood streets and driveways and off houses and cars. Twice men said to me, “It sure pays to have good equipment.”

Both times I replied: “Equipment? It’s not the equipment, it’s the operator.”

* * *

Postscript: The next day my wife, Donna, and I drove to be beach, on a vacation that we had planned weeks earlier.

Great timing, I thought.

The power was off in our neighborhood and stayed off for several days. But Hatteras Island, North Carolina, where our family had rented a beach front house, was untouched. Hurricane Fran had come ashore at Wilmington, 175 miles to the south as the crow flies.

When we returned home a week later I discovered my mistake.  One of the small branches I hadn’t paid attention to, about the size of a broom handle, had gone through our roof like a spear — and rain had done the rest.  Part of our kitchen ceiling was on the floor. 

Coming Monday: Censored