On assignment - weird places you have filed from

Also done dictation in the Shreveport, La., airport and sent from a paper three times the size of ours that was nice enough to let me swipe a desk for an hour (laptop batteries had died)

 

Pay phone in front of a Waffle House, using those temperamental phone couplers that came with a TRS-80.

 

Twice did stories on kids I covered getting taken in the NBA draft in bars, and once on the taxiway of the Tampa airport literally 20 seconds before the plane was in the air. Thank you, Verizon wireless card!

 

Kum and Go in Green River, Wyo. Hooray for AOL's local dial-ups. I think the stoner clerk comped my soul-saving Pepsi for the ride home, too.

SID's house in Stephenville, Texas. This predates wireless but more recent than TRS-80. I left him a couple bucks to cover the long-distance charge to dial in to my paper's system.

Finally, in San Diego I used the AP stringer's computer because my battery was dead and the power cord was shorted out. Dude's name is Sandy and I am forever in his debt. Bought a new cord at the Mac store at Fashion Valley Mall the next day.

I don't think this thread is weird places so much as bizarre circumstances. Good stuff, though.

 

The wireless stories are nothing...

I walked into a Burger King once and begged one of the workers there to let me use the phone...

I've done the same thing at convenience stores now and then...

My worst was I was covering a state football playoff game where I had to park about five blocks from the game. Afterwards, it was pouring rain, so I ran back to my car where I wrote the story. One of the people who lived in the neighborhood thought I was having car trouble and asked if I needed anything...

Actually, can I use your phone for three minutes? The guy was really cool about it...

 

Back before anyone had heard of a laptop, cell phones were almost a novelty and dictating was the norm: from a phone booth that served as a drug dealer's office in a very bad part of Knoxville at about 11:15 on a Friday night. I also think it served as his urinal, but that's a different story.

Anyway, after about 10 minutes, Mr. Dealer and four or five associates flat out told me I was holding up his commerce. My story came to an abrupt end, and I got the heck out of there.

 

I once got busy in a burger king bathroom ...

 

Absolutely right. Wireless is fucking easy.

One time when I was covering a big regional high school basketball game, I was fucked over by arena officials who said it would not be safe to work in the gym following the game.

I said what?

I ignored them and started working on the story after the game. Then I start to see a bunch of janitors fire up leaf blowers to clean the garbage from the isles. They had masks on and it soon became clear I would not be able to breathe if I stayed around.

I got in the car and in a desperate move drove to the big paper in that town and stood outside their door. It was probably 11:30 or near midnight. I was just waiting for someone to come out so I could bug them for a phone line. I got someone after too long and he thought I wanted to rob him. But I named dropped someone I knew from the paper and he let me in. I think I ended up filing with 10 minutes to spare.

 

Many, many, many years ago, I covered far-flung regional high schools for a good-sized paper in a Southern town. I scrambled to file nearly evrery week. Motel, convenience store ... my epiphany came when I realized every crappy little town, even if the convenience store is closed, generally has a police station. They're always open. They have phones. And they always seemed glad to see somebody who wasn't drunk, bleeding, or both. I did this several times.

 

Filed from a cab on the Kennedy Expy. en route to O'Hare once. Gotta love the air card.

 

That would have been the third Roy Williams I thought you were talking about.

 

I never understand reporters who can't find a way to send and end up dictating over the phone. Whenever I'm going some place new I always call the local paper to make sure I can send from there, and/or talk to the dude in charge, AD, SID etc... Also, I've never let anyone kick me out before I'm done sending my story. I mean I'm over 250 lbs so if they want to try and move me go ahead, I'm not leaving. But not to seem like a douche, I've had my fair share of sending issues, mostly because the shops i've been at are far behind the times when it comes to laptops and internet connections. I guess putting in a wireless card is more difficult than we think.