Category: Newspapering

The Rule Maker

I resigned from The Charlotte News in 1969 to go to work for WAYS radio in Charlotte. I didn’t want to be radio news reporter but John Kilgo, the WAYS news director, had offered me a company car — I was driving a rusty Chevrolet Corvair, the one I bought for $1 — and a whole lot more money.

this is a 1986 file photo of perry morgan, former publisher of the virginian-pilot and the ledger-star. photo was taken in march, l986.
This is a 1986 photo of Perry Morgan, courtesy of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, where Morgan was publisher.

So I went to see Perry Morgan, editor of The News, and resigned.

“You not hitting me up for more money, are you?” Morgan said to me.

“No sir,” I replied.

“You’re really quitting. You’re going to be a radioman.”

“Yes sir,” I said.

“Boy, you’re a fool!” Morgan told me. “You should be trying to hit me up for more money.”

I told him, I said “Perry, I know the rules. The maximum raise here is $10 a year. It would be years before you could pay me as much money as WAYS is going to pay me now.”

And Morgan replied, “I made the rules. I can change the rules.”

Postscript:  He did change the rules, at least for me. And my radio career was over before it had begun.

John "Killer" Kilgo
John “Killer” Kilgo

NOTE:  Kilgo, the guy who tried to get me to go to work for WAYS radio, had been a reporter at The News  when I graduated college and went to work there full time in June 1966. He was, by far, the most dominant  breaking news reporter in Charlotte and, it turns out, the best breaking news reporter I ever worked with or against in a 42 year career.  Most of his stories, it seemed like, were published on the front page.

Kilgo’s nickname was “Killer.”  I don’t know where that moniker came from but it was well deserved.  He did not take prisoners.

When I went to work at The News “Killer” was told to take me around my beat — I was assigned to cover county government, the District and Superior Courts and the Sheriff’s Department — and introduce me, help me get off to a good start.  He had covered that beat and knew everyone. He took me around, introduced me, said the usual nice things and then, right in front of me, he would say, “I want you to help this boy out when you can but if you got something good, call me.”

Like I said, “Killer” did not take prisoners.

Coming Friday: More Growing Up Country

A Good Buy

I’m 76 years old and I’ve only traded one car and sold one truck, for next to nothing.

When my wife, Donna, and I get done with a car it goes to the junk yard or, in rare cases, when there’s a little bit of life left, to charity. The fact is, I don’t want anybody in my yard who would interested in buying one of my cars.

Donna and I have owned a lot of used cars, including two state surplus cars we bought at auction, drove more than 100,000 miles each, and then gave one of them away and junked the other one.

Donna didn’t like those cars, they were just too vanilla, and she got one of our sons, Mark, to gussy up one of them, got him to saw a hole in the top and installed a sunroof he bought at a junkyard.

When I got out of college in 1966 we drove the car Donna’s Dad gave her when she was in high school, a 1949 Chevrolet with a hole in the floorboard of the back seat.  That was back in the day before seat belts and Donna  would tell our boys, “Sit up straight and don’t wiggle or you’re going to fall though the floorboard.” Or words to that effect.

This Covair is better looking than our rusty blue one.
This is not a photo of my Chevrolet Corvair.   The Corvair I drove was a rusty blue, with a lot of dents.

After we got rid of that car I bought a use-to-be-blue Chevrolet Corvair from Brother Dave. Older folks may remember that that’s the car  made famous in Ralph Nader’s book, “Unsafe At Any Speed.”

It was a death trap, according to Nader.

The best thing about that Corvair was that it started when you turned the key. The top was caved in a little and rusting — it had been rolled. The heater didn’t work. Or the air conditioner. The passenger side door wouldn’t open. The seats were ripped open and cotton was coming out.

I drove it back and forth to work at The Charlotte News, and when I had to go out on assignment.

Councilman Alexander said I got a good buy.
Councilman Alexander said I got a good buy.

One day I met Charlotte City Councilman Fred Alexander to show him a problem I was going to write about, a problem I hoped he would try to fix. We went in my car.

Fred had to get in on the driver’s side, of course, and when he slid across to the passenger side he got cotton all over his suit. It was a hot day and, like I said, there was no air.  We both rode with our windows down.  When we were finished I asked him, “What do you think of my car, Fred. I paid a dollar for it.”

Fred looked at it, thought for a moment, and said, “It’s worth a dollar.”

Coming Monday: The Rule Maker