Another great moment in journalism ...

Got a last-minute call to cover a coaches meeting tonight. They were discussing a football realignment proposal, which the paper I work for was interested in, as well as picking all-league teams.

Been years since I'd done any meeting coverage, but managed to get that part of the story. But when they went to all-league picks, I was asked to leave since they were discussing students, which I understand having spent some time on news side - although being able to write "Podunk West coach Joe Schmoe didn't think Podunk East's Bobby Biceps was good enough for first team, which will likely cost him a scholarship" would have been nice, just for the valuable sj.com man points.

So I look around for somewhere to finish writing (put about 200 words down before the meeting) and the only place I can find that's not off-limits? A padded bench in the ladies room.

Of course, someone's gotta have a better war story than that.

 

You left your number on the wall again, right?

 

Oh, the days of filing stories from bathrooms, 7 11s and once outside a strip.club with acoustic couplers on a trash 80...those were the days....

 

Filing from a phone booth in a strip mall across from Williamsport (Pa.) High School, in a blizzard, with a 16-inch Portabubble. Balancing the coupler on my knee with the phone, holding the screen in the other arm.

 

Riiiiiight.

 

Acoustic couplers were the best. Some high-falutin reporters turned their noses up at them and only used the phone plugs for their TRS-80s (or the fancy 200s) but the couplers were great when you needed to file from the pay phone.

In or out of a strip club.

 

Covered a night high school football playoff game at a small high school in rural Illinois (don't remember if we still used those Texas Instruments machines with the roll of paper on the back or if we'd graduated to TRS-80s by then). The school was quite accommodating and let me use a secretary's desk, but the janitor had to stay on duty until I was finished so he could lock up the building. He asked me about every 30 seconds how much longer I'd be. And when he found out where I was from, he said, "Your city's full of (African-American slur) and (Hispanic slur)." At least I made deadline handily because I was so eager to get away from the guy.

Back in those days I also filed from what was then the Big Three of fine dining establishments along interstate highways in central Illinois -- Denny's, Shoney's and Stuckey's.

 

Lot of static in those strip clubs.

 

Tip: Wrap a few G-strings around the acoustic couplers. For some reason, that helps.

 

Lots of Def Leppard and Warrant references tend to slip into your copy, too.

 

Lat time I tried to use a TRS-80 was at a juco softball regional in the mid-90s, filing from my hotel. I knew the couplers were a lost cause and talked to the techie about it, but he went what we now know to be full Trump, talking about how well things worked. So, just to be safe and to give the desk a break from taking dictation, I threw the typewriter I'd been given for a high school graduation gift in the trunk, and put it to use until the ribbon died. So I printed the rest in longhand and had the hotel desk fax it to the paper.