Fleet of One

There are those who dabble in broadcasting and those who succumb to it. Greg Pell is of the latter. It's something I don't really think about when I run into him at crime scenes, but this pipe-smoking optimist has been manning a camera since Gerald Ford was stumbling up to the podium. For proof, dig the above artifact: there's Pell third from right, kneeling in front of a hopped up cargo van bristling with stickers and gizmos. It was 1976 and no doubt a proud day. Why else bring together such an esteemed group of hunter-gatherers. Koontz, Taylor, Stafford, Lawing - not to mention El Ocho elder Chuck Hemrick, standing stubbornly to the left of the - ahem - mini-cam. Sure, they look like extras from that Anchorman movie, (and if that's not Herb Tarlek's jacket I'll trade in my entire VHS collection of WKRP in Cincinnati), but this motley news crew was completely bad-ass, trolling the mean streets of the Queen City while I was doodling Jimmy Carter grins in my fourth grade textbook. That I now get to trade elbows with a few of these fellas is a deep kick indeed; especially when they drop a detail from back in the day, as Pell himself did when he pointed something out about this photo...

Note the Unit 2 on the truck. Unit 2 was the first and only truck for the first 6 months. We wanted to create the impression that we had 2 trucks while we were "flying the flag" around town. And we think TV news has (just lately) gotten too promotional?

I guess some things haven't changed.