Our first image comes from the recent furniture factory fire in High Point. This officer was nice enough in person, but he looks fairly menacing in this snapshot - kind of like he wants to arrest my camera or something. I can hear him now...“Yeah, base - run the plates on an unmanned fancy-cam at the corner of College and Main. I’m writing it up for unauthorized logos and flagrant loitering -- aided and abetted by a tripod from the Civil War. There’s also a guy with hairy forearms and a thousand yard stare taking pictures of me. I‘m gonna run a strip-search...”
If I look a little non-plussed in this photo from five years back, there’s a good reason: I had just jogged up Hanging Rock when Bob Buckley snapped this inherently unflattering shot of your friendly neighborhood lenslinger. Following a group of excited furniture executives on an early morning motivational hike up a mountain seemed like a cool gig when I signed up for it, but halfway up the craggy trail I wanted to cough up a lung. Maybe it was the frenzied pace, the antique camera bouncing on my shoulder or the sixteen dying batteries stashed around my waist. Either way, I remember looking over a glorious sunset and thinking, ‘I’m too old for this shit.”
“Then he said, I bet that WON’T fit up your nose.” Okay, so that’s NOT what the nice gentlemen in the hospital bed was telling camera crews moments before his surgery. Fact is, I don’t remember what he said to me and my camera-swinging cronies, only that he was a likeable old chap from Alamance County. Fifteen minutes after the interview, my esteemed colleagues and I popped each other with rubber gloves as the anesthesiologists gave Mr. Nose the sleepy juice. What followed was a breakthrough nasal procedure that made for a pretty decent health piece - not to mention another weird episode to embellish the next time me and my buddies are babysitting the crime tape.
Speaking of idling at the edge of drama, there’s plenty of that in my line of work. Whether it be the protracted train wreck, the tardy Governor stop or the city council stalemate, the waiting truly is the hardest part. Here, veteran photog George Harrison and ever-happy Eric White while away the hours debating the finer points of company logo wear - namely the merits of late-breaking blue versus the look-here allure of action news red. After that scintillating topic, they moved on to Rock-Paper-Scissors. I’d tell you their final score but I was too busy trying to open a vein.
Of course sometimes the monotony erupts into moments of sheer terror- like the time the good ole boys at the Barrier One test site tried to send Eric Liljegren and me to that great press conference in the sky. Twice. Trust me, until you’ve run for your life from an out-of-control truck, you haven’t truly contemplated a second career. The one minute video of our impromptu mad dash is downright guffaw-inducing and will hopefully soon make an appearance here on Viewfinder BLUES. Right, Weaver?
Aside from all the excitement, I get to hang out with and compete against many talented and interesting people. There’s no finer example of this phenomenon than the legendary Leonard Simpson. I like Leonard alot and not just because he originally hails from Downeast like myself. I dig him because he’s a class act - an old school news warrior who has worn off more scars than I’ve yet to collect. Here the wily veteran thumbs through a copy of the Rhino Times from the comfort of a dry news unit - while his trusty partner Bill Welch shoots video out in the pouring rain. No Sir, they don’t teach that kind of cleverness in J-School.
Lastly, I must veer off the straight and narrow news path to observe an occasion I’m most proud of. Back in 1990, I brought a series of bad decisions to a screeching halt by asking the most incredible woman in the world to marry my sorry ass. Back then she was a promising student at the University of South Carolina and I was a budding derelict trying to erase all visible signs of my recent naval service. After a whirlwind courtship, a tortured seperation and a most unlikely reunion, I weaseled my way into her life and exploited her momentary lapse of sound judgement. Together we made an unlikely couple, but the chemistry between us was undeniable and in the end I came out the winner. Thanks for an incredible fifteen years, Shelly. I swear I’ll make you proud yet.Well now you’ve made me get all mushy. How am I supposed to foster a veneer of cool indifference when you let me show snapshots from the Great American Romance? Next time, I’ll up the macho news quotient with a riveting post from the edge of danger! I’d tell you more but I want to keep you in suspense. Okay - here’s a one-word clue:
IMPLOSION...
By three p.m., it had already been a long day. Having traversed the Piedmont from Lexington to Summerfield, all I wanted to do as I plopped down at my desk was process the footage I’d recorded and go home to cut the lawn. But before I could grab my mouse, a familiar shadow fell over my desk.
So I did what any good photog would do: I popped off a few shots of the confusion and dialed the station. Once I told the suits back at the shop they may want to re-think their lead story, I stashed my gear inside my news unit, jumped in the driver’s seat and cranked the engine. Three minutes, a couple of curses and one jumped-curb later, I found a much better vantage point. As people poured out of cars and buildings to stop and gawk, I set up shop on the sidewalk. Zooming in to the squat brick building at the base of all the smoke, I hit ‘Record’ just in time to capture a tower of flames shoot up through the building’s roof. A chorus of oohs and ahs rang throughout the crowd gathered around me as the heat from the blast washed over us. Whatever the building in the distance housed, it was fueling new flames like an off-shore oil derrick fire.
After quizzing a few curious locals, I learned more about the business at the base of the conflagration. A man in a stained wife-beater t-shirt told me the building was ’Happy Living Incorporated’ - a small furniture factory that had been the victim of some vandalism as of late. Seems someone had set a dumpster on fire out behind the business the day before. Now, those gathered around the blaze were already using the ‘A‘ word. It was less than definitive proof of foul play, but as the flames found the stash of wicker, wood and foam inside, the inferno doubled in strength. Squinting through my lens, I realized, arson or not, I had me another new story. 
Much happened over the next ninety minutes. The crowd of onlookers grew in size, turning the my sidewalk post into an impromptu amphitheater. Other news photographers showed up as well, dusty figures on the horizon schlepping cameras and tripods in my direction. Eventually the firefighters contained the blaze, but not before it dazzled the crowd with a display of pyrotechnics usually seen only on old A-Team episodes. Before long, my own back-up arrived, a trusty live truck piloted by one Bob Buckley. Together Bob and I interviewed the owner, who confirmed the possible arson angle. For someone who had just lost his business, Bill Verouden was remarkably composed. I dare say I was grumpier, but the again, we’ve come to expect that, haven’t we?
By the time five o clock hit, I’d cut the footage, set up the live truck and rigged cameras and lights. When the news open ended, Neill McNeill threw it to Bob, who ran down the events like only Bob can. As Bob spoke, the director back at the shop rolled the footage I’d sent them: the plume of smoke, the clouds of fire, and the curious crowd. After a few de facto questions, Neill moved on to other news and our signal was cleared. Sequestering myself in the back of the truck, I began re-editing the footage for our upcoming six o clock report. Bystanders poked their heads into the truck and provided running commentary as I chopped and sliced images from just an hour before. As other news crews set up the gear around us, I chatted with viewers and voyeurs alike. Looking out over the gutted building and exhausted firefighters, it occurred to me I’d probably return to this scene in twelve hours.
It’s an assignment I’ve successfully dodged for a couple of weeks, but today it was once again my turn to baby-sit the April Greer murder trial. I’ve covered 
McCall Pera was there. The UPN 48 anchor and 
Things picked up a bit after lunch, as the Prosecution took the floor for rebuttal and unleashed the kind of fire and brimstone regularly seen on old Matlock episodes. But by then the balcony was teeming with conversations and commentary as a steady stream of news folk filtered in for what threatened to be an eventful afternoon. With the judge about to charge the jury, it would be anyone’s guess how long the twelve men and women would spend deciding the case. Some in the balcony said it was a slam dunk, and predicted the dozen deliberators would return with a verdict in half an hour. But the sagest amongst us laughed at that assertion, reminding us all how foolish it is to second-guess a jury. 
In truth, few of us in the Fourth Estate wanted the trial to end today - as a late afternoon decision would spark a frenzied foot race to the Courthouse steps below, where attorneys from both sides and probably a few family members would finally face the cameras. It may be exciting to watch on the evening news, but these kind of rushed lens-clusters could be hard on the back and eyeball -especially when there’s only a few scant minutes between interview and five o clock live shot. I’d much rather leisurely cull a few interesting moments from the stack of tapes I’d already recorded, than dash out a cogent report in ten minutes. But we who shovel pixels for a living are rarely in charge. When the judge finally did dismiss the jurors, all we could do upstairs was place bets on the length of their seclusion. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear Don Henley singing 
Reading these four paragraphs, it all sounds rather crass. As grief stricken family members from both sides shielded their eyes from the grisly crime scene photographs on display, my cohorts and I played quiet grab-ass and complained about the case’s pace. But I make few apologies about our lack of reverence. Cover enough tragedy and tripe and the crusty outer shell thickens up quite a bit. Everyone gathered over the table of monitors was a veteran of countless trials. While we still counted ourselves as human, we didn’t show up at this out of the way Courthouse to empathize with either side of this senseless crime. Rather, we there to record, to report, to disseminate. The 
In the end, the jury didn’t render a verdict. Instead the judge sent them home for the night shortly after five, sparking silent whoops and a few high fives from we jackals in the balcony. Before the courtroom gallery could empty, most of us were already outside, tossing gear into open hatchbacks while punching our station’s digits into company cell phones. But, alas, it’s only a temporary reprieve - as deliberations resume tomorrow morning at nine-thirty sharp. I may very well be in attendance - camera on shoulder, microphone unsheathed, thumb poised over the 'Record' trigger. Then again, I stand an equal chance of spending my next shift surrounded by hyped-up second graders on an end-of-year field trip. I'm not sure which one I'd prefer less...
