Strange Love

"Are you the father?" He inquires with solemn curiosity.  "The father?" I raise my eyebrows, caught off guard by the question  "Aw" I deduce.  For some reason he thinks I'm Robbie Parker, the father of Emilie, the 6 year old Ogden product who was killed by a gunman inside Sandy Hook Elementary last Friday.  "No," I respond simply.  "Oh, I saw you talking to a lot of people," the odd man with the blond ponytail says disappointed. "I just wanted to tell him I'm sorry."  The glass in his frames are thick, so thick that they distort his eyes making him appear cross eyed.  He turns quickly and scoots back among the empty chairs, and mingling strangers to search out "The father."

Robbie Parker at public memorial for his daughter

It is 6 PM, and the atrium at Ben Lomond High School is slowly bulging with humanity.  This is where the public memorial for Emilie Parker will be held.  On a squat stage, a Christmas tree glowing with a pink hue, Emilie's favorite color is being decorated with ornaments made by residents of Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

Principal Ben Smith is directing matronly women with their arms overflowing with boxes and ribbons in different directions.  The school cafeteria is just 2 hundred feet from the tree.  I can imagine teenage boys, in skater sneakers, and hoodies, flinging bits of Wonder Bread at one-another, while girls shriek and whisper, with their fingers darting across the glass of their smart phones, sending off messages into the air.  Tonight the chaotic echos of teens on reprieve, is replaced with hushed tones, and gentle sentences like "It's so terrible," and "how can this happen?"

Emilie Parker

As one of Emilie's cousins downloads a highly produced video montage of pictures of the darling little girl onto a laptop, a curious woman perches herself just off my left shoulder.  I can't see her, but I can certainly feel her.  "Your Channel 2?" she chirps nervously, and she shuffles 4 envelopes in her hands, "I, I, I, I like you," she blurts, diverting her gaze to the cards she holds tightly in her palms, "but, but, but, I like Christina better, better." She is referring to Christina Flores a fellow reporter and anchor at 2 News, "I like her better too," I joke, as she simply stares at me, "do you know the family?" I try to break her gaze, "No, No, No, I, I," she pauses, "I just think, um, its bad," her words gently taper off, "That man!" she returns forcefully, "That man should go to jail!"  I assume she is talking about the named Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza, who police say took his own life after the rampage.  I simply add: "yes he should."

For 10 awkward seconds we stand, then she thrust the cards towards me, "this one is for Christina, this one is for Heidi Hatch, and this one is for Jill," she says with a child-like grin stretching across her face.

Remembering Emilie

The cards are for our news team who anchors the 4 o'clock program.  The postage is tattered, worn, the corner frayed and it looks as if they have been carried from place to place for weeks.  "Oh," I say, "that's very kind," Certain I will lose them, I inform the woman, "Christina will be her tonight, would you like to give them to her yourself?"  The news that her favorite will be in the same room causes her to breath heavy, "she'll be here?" she beams as she points to the floor, "Oh, oh, oh!" she hops gently onto her toes with each proclamation, "OK!" and she shuffles quickly away, searching for Christina.

As the school begins to swell, the lights click on and off.  First on the left side of the room then the right, as an unseen tech somewhere test them.  I watch a man dart through the crowd,  likely searching for family members of Emilie.  I've seen him before.  In fact I've seen him many times, at court hearings for high profile criminals, memorial services for fallen solders and candlelight vigils for wounded children.

As Emilie's family begins to assemble inside the school, they hug, and cry, and laugh, first friends approach, Brady Cottle, Emilie's uncle grabs the hand of the mammoth principal, and pulls him in for a comfortable bear hug, then acquaintances meekly approach.  Then strangers.  I watch the faces of the family as these strangers extend their prayers.  I also watch as the Parker's adjust uncomfortably as people they've never met likely makes odd request or peculiar comment.  I see an uncle smile awkwardly, as his eyes dart to another relative, as he tries to pull himself away from peculiar conversation.

As the memorial breaks up and family and strangers make their way to the football field to release 26 lanterns in honor of the fallen victims, I see the man with the blond pony tail and Coke bottle glasses, press his way through the bulging crowd towards Robbie Parker, his lips move as he practices his greeting, "are you the father?" I imagine he will say as he thrust his fingers into the grieving father's palm.

The Sound of Silence

As Photographer Dan Dixon adjusts the light stand, the room is warm and silent.  Randy Parker stares wistfully into his living room as his father and brother study the ceiling, and breath heavy.  "Almost ready," Dan says nervously, concerned that his attempt to capture Randy in the right light is weighing on his patience.  The long, quiet pause is likely the least of Randy's concerns.

The Parkers, Emily far right

Parkers granddaughter Emily was shot and killed by Adam Lanza yesterday in Newtown, Connecticut, and he has graciously agreed to be interviewed by me.

His son Robbie grew up in Ogden, attended Ben Lomand High School where he met his sweetheart Alissa.  They married, had three darling little girls, and moved to Danbury in June of this year.  Randy says the young couple loved the place, they'd recently purchased a charming home along a river bank, and Emily was still chatting about the fun  she had at the Christmas pageant the night before a gunman opened the door of her classroom.

Robbie and Alissa Parker

Randy seems relieved to sit, and say nothing, to hear nothing, to think about nothing.  As he presses his thumbs into his weary, watery, crimson eyes, I imagine him standing in front of his television, hand over mouth, searching for signs that Emily is still alive.  Perhaps a video clip of her hugging her mother, or sitting with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders being tended to by a fire fighter, but the clip never rolls.  Instead he sees pictures like the one to the left of his son and daughter-in-law inconsolable, confused and destroyed. I can imagine the volume of the television, the uneasy hum of reporters on the scene, describing the anguish, the anchors on set in New York, Atlanta and LA, ticking off the death toll, and the commentators, demanding more gun control, or lamenting the lack of God in schools.

While Dan fumbles with his earpiece, Randy seems to be breathing in the silence.  I decide I won't make small talk or offer more condolences, rather I'll give him some peace, let the stillness of the moment act as some sort of respite, to ponder nothing, or everything, without the blaring hate, opinion, and advice spewing from television, Twitter and Facebook.  Eventually I will start asking questions about his chatty, inquisitive, beaming little girl he has just lost, but for now.  Silence.

Heart of Darkness

Curtis Allgier always has something to say, even when it's not his turn to talk.  As a lawyer with the Salt Lake District attorney's office argues some arcane rule of law in front of Judge Paul Maughan,  Allgier shows his disgust, leans in heavy to his own attorney, and frantically and angrily grumbles his disapproval.  Allgier seems to be at odds with even the most mundane details that leaves the judges mouth, or formulates in the mind of the District Attorney.

Curtis Allgier

As I sit in court I can tell Allgier's attorney is exasperated, every couple of minutes, the tattooed white supremacist  is peppering his left ear with angry, yet muffled proclamations.  The attorney seldom acknowledged his agitating client, as he tries to listens intently to the words of the judge.

Allgier murdered Utah State Corrections officer Stephen Anderson, when the prisoner was being escorted from his cell to the University of Utah Medical Center for an MRI in 2007.  Anderson, who had a reputation as a compassionate guard, who showed kindness to even the most despicable of criminals, was shot twice by Allgier after a brief struggle between the two.

You have likely seen Allgier on television.  His face is littered with prison tattoos, crude graffiti  carved into his skin proclaiming his admiration for Hitler, Nazi's and skin heads.  Every inch of his face is covered with grey ink, likely pumped into his face by himself or an equally "tatted" fellow prisoner.  As I look at him spewing silently into his lawyers brain, it's difficult to even recognize a human underneath  the angry scrawling  the boorish scratches, and vulgar proclamations.

I try to imagine Allgier as a little, toe-headed boy, skipping rocks across a pond, giggling in the school yard with he fellow kindergartners  or snuggling under his mother's arm after a scary nightmare, but I just can't conjure the idea.  To me, Allgier seems as if he just manifested on earth, as a hulking ball of rage, born in orange prison jump suit, and talking, always talking.

Stephen Anderson

He has been talking for the five and a half years since he killed Anderson.  Phoning reporters to do interviews, blurting out invectives to the judge in court, and finally, on the day of his sentencing, he has his grand stage, something he has been seeking since he was jailed after pulling the trigger and killing the father of five.

He talks for 35 excruciating minutes, at times he is tearful and apologetic, at others he is defiant and angry and often punctuates his speech with "s#!+ and "F*(# while the judge patiently allows hims to rant.

I get the sense that he has this grand idea of himself, as if he believes he lives by a special code of honor that the rest of us puny mortals can't even comprehend.  He talks about how he takes care of younger prisoners behind bars, giving advice to the "weak" ones.  He gnaws and snarls about his treatment in jail by guards, then chokes up with tears as he laments over how "great" a man he believes the now deceased Anderson is.

Allgier once wrote me a letter after a story I did about a woman he scammed into putting hundreds of dollars into his prison bank account.  The diatribe was scribbled in black ink on ruled paper, in the hand of a boy.  He punctuated his "S's" with lightening bolts often seen on the collars of officers in  the Nazi Shutzstaffel.  I could see he would go to great lengths to use words that ended in two "S's" for the ultimate affect.

Neo-Nazi Symbol

His long form complaint goes on for pages, and is filled with narcissistic rants about, his "honor," and his "strength."  He even claims his affiliation with the skin heads, isn't about racial hatred but pride in his own heritage, "I have friends of all races," he says.

As he waxes about Anderson, claiming he didn't want "that guy," to die, the judge finally tries to reign in the bluster, and with 10 armed guards surrounding him, the judge in a bureaucratic monotone that is a stark contrast to Allgier's bombast, calmly tells the murderer he will die in jail, Allgier sits, for the first time all afternoon in silence, as the judge has the final word, telling the loud man to be quiet and go to jail forever.

Paradise (Gardens) Lost

"Who designed this mad labyrinth?!" I throw my hands in the air, as photographer Dan Dixon and I continue our exasperating search for apartment 1-114 at a student apartment complex in Provo, Utah.

It's Friday and I've been assigned a wacky story about a college student who rents puppies to other college kids.  It is a far cry from the usual tales of sadness upon which I usually find myself reporting.

Jenna, the puppy whisperer, lives in one of a dozens of colossal student warehouses in this college town that includes three universities.  Branbury Gardens, or  Braebury Terrace, or what ever it's called, has a ridiculous footprint.  The complex is plunked down on hundreds of acres.  You can get an idea of its lunacy from this Google satellite picture.  This is just one of 4 groups of buildings on this property.  The mammoth, coiled snake is splayed out like a giant backward letter "S" There are a dozen different numbers sections inside each section of this serpentine thing,  Jenna is in there somewhere.  Jeennnaaaa!!! Where  are you?!

After 10 minutes of this fruitless searching I call her, "Hey Jenna, we're here at your complex.  Where are you exactly?" After a short pause, she utters, "uh."
That's when I realize even this poor girl, who is forced into this chaos probably cant explain the MC Esher world in which she had been sentenced.

After summoning our inner Magellan, and clicking on our GPS, we stumble upon her little house.

"Man," I say as I shake her hand excitedly as if she holds an antidote to some strange disease I carry, "this place is ridiculous."  As if she's met a kindred spirit, she vigorously agrees, "tell me about, it took me 10 minutes to find my door, when I first moved in here."

M.C Esher sketch, or Branbury Gardens, I'm not sure

Unfortunately our tail chasing won't end.  Jenna and a fellow puppy pusher, must deliver Wesley the Maltese, and pick up Toast, a fluffy brown something, and she will have to do this at two equally as large, equally as insane apartment complexes.

The four of us will drift aimlessly, like a group of Nebraska tourist trying to find a comedy club we read about on TripAdvisor, in New York City. "Well if this is building six, then that must be 7."   We will say to one another, as our lost caravan treks, like Ponce De Leon, searching for the Fountain of Youth.  "Eureka!"  Apartment 145!

Dan shoots a few frames of video, I interview one of the puppy renters, thank them for their time and finally we are free of this absurdity.  We say our farewells, and Dan and I lament about our ridiculous hunt, then as we stand in a gargantuan parking lot, Dan turns to me and asks.  "Where did we park?"

The Dog Whisperer

He literally can not hear my question over the roar of his very large, very ferocious German Shepard. "Whaa?"  he  dribbles, as the distinctive aroma of marijuana drifts carelessly out of his house.  "I said my name is Chris Jones, I'm from 2News!"  His dog, I'll assume his name is Fritz, Rutger or Cujo, continues his wild barking, snarling and snapping.  I remember wondering if he is cursing me in some  obscene Germano-Dog combo language.

Not Actual Dog, added for emotional effect

It's 3:30 Pm, I am in South Salt lake with photographer Dan Kovach, following up on a story from the day before.  A nice woman in a terry cloth robe, with purple hair, tugging mindlessly at her mulberry bangs, points across the street, "He knows the guy you're looking for, he even knows his address!"

The "Beware Of Dog," sign raises my awareness.  I like dogs, but when you spend as much time knocking on doors as I do, evidence of a K9 is always concerning   I was once chased by a Chow in Leaksville, Mississippi, had to hurdle a fence bolting from a Pit bull in Columbia, Missouri, and was bitten on the ankle by a tiny little rat dog of some kind in Nephi.  That little mutt was even on a chain.

 I hear the rattle of the chain lock, then the ca-chunk as the chamber of the dead bolt spins, then silence for easily 8 seconds.  In a blink, the door springs open like the hammer on a mouse trap, and Fritzy, lunges from behind the wooden door, blasting me with a raspy jagged bay.  "Wow," I say but I don't actually say "Wow" I can't say, what I really said, because this is a family blog, well assuming, of course, you haven't read any of my previous posts about prostitution, murder and assault.

Fritz's owner has a lazy grasp (I'm hoping) of the dogs leather collar, the man's face is cold, and straight, punctuated by two moist, squinty red eyes.  His pupils are the size of nickles.  The Shepard, is just yearning to be unleashed, I can see the carnal desire, dating back generations to his wolf pack DNA.  He just wants blood, I was thinking, Hey Fluff, You don't even know me." He doesn't care that I am generally a pretty awesome guy who has a wife, and a mortgage.  (Perhaps he knows I once had a cat)  he just wants to eat my face off.  His powerful hindquarters flexed, his sinuous muscles strained, his front legs elevated off the stained and matted beige carpet, his wolf eyes zeroed in on my jugular.

"That lady says you know the man I'm looking for." I utter, eyes darting between the man's deliberate, prison yard stare, and his dogs chaotic, maniacal struggle to chomp my leg.  The man says nothing, his head wobbles slightly as the dog jerks towards me. "Do you have ID?"  He asks after a ridiculous pause.

This scene is already beginning to wear my patience.  I'm beginning to realize, the dog master, relishes the threat his beast is inflicting on myself and Dan.  He savors, the perceived power he has over another human being.  My guess is, when he has a concern with a neighbor  he raps on their door with his dog on a leash, "Hey Bob," he might say calmly as the wolf snarls, "just wanted to say, your daughter can't park in front of my house anymore."   frankly this power play is beginning to bore me.

I snap a business card out of my pocket, and flash it in front of his glazed orbs.  He studies it, taking it in like he's viewing the Mona Lisa, at the Louvre.  I roll my eyes, wondering if he's going to pull up a chair, snatch a pair of opera glasses from his breast pocket and ponder the art, "What do you think Fritzy? I believe the blending of colors is derivative." His lazy eyes drift slowly back to my face.  He glances at the only strength he apparently has, his rigid, frenzied dog to his left, then smiles, "nice card."

"Alright," I put an end to his dominance and leave.  He stands on his threshold for a few more seconds as we board our news truck and roll away.  About 5 minutes later we find the man's house, and gathered the information we need, as we drive our way back past the wolf tamers house, he is still in his front yard with Fritz, likely waiting for some school children to terrorize.

Little Lessons, From Big Men

He is arguably, one of the 10 most powerful men on the planet, and at 9 PM, in the days before Christmas, I am standing awkwardly in the living room of Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi.

I don't call his press secretary, send a written inquiry or make an appointment, I simply stroll up to his door and rap on it.

Senator Trent Lott

In December of 1994 President Bill Clinton has announced possible military action in the war-torn nation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and my boss at WLOX, demands that I get an interview with Senator Lott, who is back in his hometown of Pascagoula for the winter recess.  "Um, OK, so you want me to just go his house?"  I question with awe.  I've only been a reporter for a couple of years, and filling this request seems unlikely to say the least. "Yeah," Doug Walker bellows into the phone, "see if he'll talk to ya.  It's a long shot, but what the hell."

Lott is on a fast track in the senate, and will soon be elected senate majority leader.  As I knock on his door, I expect to be confronted on his front stoop by men in drab suits, and dark sunglasses speaking in whispered tones into their sleeves.  Instead  my partner and I Amy are greeted at the door by the senator's pleasant wife, in a bright, festive sweater.

"Can I help you? Patricia Lott answers casually and Invites us into the couple's spacious mansion on Beach Blvd.  The stately  home looks out across a two lane street and into the Mississippi Gulf.  

Lott's house is just a few doors down from his brother-in-law Dickie Scruggs, at the time the richest man in Mississippi.  Scruggs made gobs of money suing asbestos companies and later represented the state of Mississippi in a lawsuit against the tobacco companies.   The state received a jaw-dropping settlement of $250 billion.  Dickie, was featured in the film, The Insider staring Russell Crowe.   A film about tobacco company whistle blower Jeffrey Wigand.

Russell Crowe:  The Insider

Scruggs, despite his enormous wealth, would often allow me to pop, uninvited, into his nondescript offices on Delmas Avenue to interview him about the progress of the mammoth lawsuit, the upcoming movie, or the revitalization of Pascagoula's desolate and abandoned main street.  Scruggs would kindly help me by giving his opinion about the need for new restaurants,  or store fronts, which is remarkable given the fact that he was in the process of hammering out one of the most significant legal settlements in the history of jurisprudence.

Scruggs is later convicted of attempted bribery in 2007 and 2009.  Just in the last two days, he has been released from jail on 2 million dollars bond while he appeals the conviction.  I know many of his family and friends and each believes he is innocent.

Dickie Scruggs

As I stand quietly in Lott's front parlor in my worn Sears slacks and a hand-me-down tie given to me by my brother, I'm pondering the senator's lineage and powerful friends, and wondering how in the world, Mrs. Lott would allow this rag-tag team of fresh-faced journalists into her house to interrupt the few moments she has with her busy husband, just days before Christmas.

I had interviewed the senator many times in the past, but always at pre-arranged events, with red, white, and blue bunting in the background as the senator christens a ship, or announces the addition of new jobs at Ingalls Shipyard, but never had I been in his home, under the intimate glow of a majestic spruce, regaled in pleasant Christmas lights, and ornaments that  have dangled from their trees for decades.  

I imagined him sitting casually in his terry cloth rob, scratching awkwardly as he sips coffee out of a familiar mug and scans the daily papers.  Surreal.

I hear the door jingle open and the senator with his coat over his arm, walks pleasantly into the house.  He kisses his wife on the cheek and quickly and eagerly greets his two uninvited guest.  "I saw the car in the driveway," he chimes happily, "How are you?" Not at all concerned that two doe-eyed kids with a camera and a microphone are stationed in his home.

"Sorry to bother you Senator," I announce reluctantly, "Could we get a comment from you regarding the president's announcement an hour ago.

The Senator furrows his brow, "Guys, all the other networks are not gonna be happy with me,"  Lott is aware, once our station shoots the interview it will appear on Good Morning America the next day, and the other networks will also be clamoring for a response.

Amy and I stand silently, and the senator relents.  As we frame up for the shot, he notices the family Christmas tree directly over his shoulder, "guys," he says pleasantly, "given the nature of these comments maybe we shouldn't put that tree in the shot.  "Of course," I slap my palm against my forehead.  As we re-angle the most powerful man in the senate, the leg of the camera tri-pod snaps, rendering it unusable, and we are forced to shoot his comments "off the shoulder," "Hm, gonna be a bit shaky, don't you think?" Lott, has likely done thousands of television interviews, and knows when a shot is going to look bad, and he can see it in this one.  

 I feel the a damp layer of perspiration glazing my forehead, "I'm sorry senator, It's the best we can do,"  As I begin my naive questions, the small light that is stationed on top of the camera slowly dims away, "Uh-oh," the senator jumps in, "your light.  This shot's not going to be very good." My partner Amy, ring in confidently  "It'll be fine, we've done this plenty of times," to which the senator responds, "so have I," with slight exasperation.  

As Patricia gently shows us to the door, I shake my head at our sad performance, and I vow, internally, to never be embarrased like that again, and always pay attention to the little details.

The next morning as I watch Good Morning America, I see the senators interview.  It is shaky, and dark, and poorly framed, as it is shot by, well, by two beginning journalists, in one of the smallest television markets in America. The senator, who had better things to do than entertain a couple of amateurs, managed, without his knowledge, to teach us a lesson a lesson or two about journalism.

Behind The Wheel

My hands cling and wrestle with the steering wheel, as my little white news car squeals and bends its way around a winding Pascagoula street, reaching speeds of up to 70 miles an hour, a police detective revs up beside me in his unmarked Crown Victoria, and warns me, "DO NOT get too close to this scene Jones, or I will arrest you!"

It is 1996, and both our cars are careening towards the arrest of a teenager who it is believed with another man, to have gunned down a convenience store clerk, just hours ago.

When I slide to a stop at the edge of a police barricade, I see half a dozen officers, guns drawn, their black boots slapping the pavement as they frantically converge on one of the suspected murderer.

No one is manning the perimeter, so I awkwardly snatch my camera from the trunk, as begin to gallop towards a mob of officers, screaming, wrestling and fighting with a wirey teenager as the officers collapse his body to the ground.  His face is planted in the well-manicured grass of a bewildered Mississippian who stands, jaw gaping as police grab violently for the man's flaying arms and wildly kicking legs.

Just as officers click their handcuffs tight around his wrists, their police radios squawk to life, "We're chasing the other, He's on Martin Street!"

One officer quickly gathers up the dirty, sweating teenager and stuffs him painfully into his squad car.   A dozen other officers disperse in all directions as if they've been warned that a hand grenade has been dropped in the middle of the frantic men.  I follow their lead.  I run at full speed towards my waiting car, and fishtail the small Mercury Topaz behind the cavalcade of police cars, lights as their lights dart into the daylight, sirens wailing and squawking through the streets.  As our chaotic, motorized wagon train fumbles dangerously and disjointedly towards a second pursuit, I snatch a cloths from my backseat and try in vain to sop up what seems to be gallons of sweat invading my eyes, filling my ears, and settling in my mouth.  My face is streaked as salty sweat spiderwebs across my body. In Mississippi in August, if you move, you sweat.  If you run, you are awash in moisture, under the oppressive sun, and all consuming humidity.

After driving wildly, and blindly for a few seconds, I spot an army of officers in blue, wrestling a second man to the ground, he screams obscenities  as officers force their jagged knees into his back, and plant their boots firmly on the scruff of his neck, as the alleged murderer fights, then wiggles, then finally relents into submission.  I roll my camera catching the entire melee on tape, as my head thumps with the beat of my heart.

Some time later that day, I can't recall exactly how, but I come across the father of one of the teens.  He slumps on the stoop of a lilting shack.  The white paint clinging loosely to aged slats of wood.

He smells of urine and liquor.  His greasy hair speckled with sprigs of grass, suggesting he may have spent the evening passed out in a pasture  "Well," he slurs carelessly, "if he did it, I guess he's gonna pay."  The man then takes a long drag off his self-rolled cigarette, as the cherry at the end blazes a brilliant red, he drags his palm across the top of his head, extinguishing an itch, then pulling a dead piece of brown grass from his hair, "Huh?" he ponders the sprig between his fingers, then tosses it to the ground.

As police fingerprint the two men, disturbing details are beginning to emerge about the two killers.  They shot the woman with a shot gun AFTER she gave them the money the violently demanded.  According to police she was reading her King James Bible, just moments before the two entered the store to steal her money and her life, and just hours later I would capture two murderers in a violent, mindless run from justice.

Fever

As the piercing, unsettling shriek hammers my ears, I breath in the overpowering scent of potpourri, folded in with a subtle, sickly, whiff, of recently smoked cigarettes.  In this room, shrouded in chaos and claustrophobic emotional rawness, the sweet smell of orange slices, cinnamon, and Marlboro steadies me.

The unrelenting squelch of the fire alarm ricochets at the speed of sound off the redwood paneling dotted with the portraits of a family I've only just met. 

Robert Allen Page

 Robert Allen Page, a solid man of farmer's stock, is crying deeply, as his wife Joy grasps his rough, creased, and calloused hand.  Robert, emotionally naked in front of two television cameras, is about to share his most personal moment about his granddaughter, who recently died during a unreal, freak accident.  As he prepares to share a tale about Nikki, the radiant heat from our studio lights trigger the alarm in his tiny living room.

"I'm sorry," I offer as photographer Mike DeBarnardo scurries to snatch off the light, and uses his ball cap to whisk away the heat from the white pod on the ceiling  "It's.  It's OK," Robert sniffles, as he drags his hardened paw across his face, self-consciously erasing the tears from his cheeks and blinking wildly as if he is trying to wake himself from a trance.  As the piercing pollution finally relents, I awkwardly return to my line of questioning, "so you were saying how Nikki could light up a room?"

Robert's 11 year old granddaughter, Nikki Clark, died yesterday after a terrible accident.  The girl is running up the stairs of her home, with a rod, used to adjust blinds, when she falls, plunging one end under her skin, just below her clavicle bone.  As Robert tells it, the rod only enters about an inch into the girl's body, but it also partially severs an artery.  As Nikki scurries to her father, she blurts with wide-eyed terror, "look what I did." she yanks the rod from her chest, and instantly begins to bleed out.  hours later the little girl is declared brain dead, then later dies at a hospital in Ogden, Utah.

Nikki Clark

I meet Robert and his family at his home in Hyrum, Utah.  The house is warm and inviting but also very small.  As Mike zips open canvas bags filled with lights and light stands, Nikki's two sisters, and another little friend begin to perch themselves right behind me.  The living room is about 10 feet by 10 feet, and decorated with several large chairs, and a room engulfing, billowing sofa, that likely swallows up a third of the space.

The body heat, and the warmth radiating from the blinding lights, is beginning to raise the physical temperature of the room exponentially.  As Robert settles into his chair, the tiny space has the feel of a greenhouse.

A photographer from another station finds her head swiveling from left to right, as she surveys a room for a place to stand.  There is none to be found, because every foot is occupied by cables, cameras, and bodies.

She clumsily gravitates to the only empty space in the room to my left, and I find her just a few  inches from my shoulder, as Nikki's sisters hover behind me.  They are so close, I can feel the air wisp past me when one of them moves her head or scratches her nose.

The room is like a fever, physically hot, and getting emotionally hotter as Robert, and his wife cry, claw, and search for answers to a tragedy that has none.

As Robert begins again after the uncomfortable interruption of the fire alarm, He speaks calmly for  a few minutes, then the tears well, and stream down his face once more, and the quiver, again, takes hold of his lower lip, "She was our little "Red," he says of the redheaded little girl, "She was our every..." his heartfelt recollection, shutters to a stark end, as that alarm, that blasted alarm, screams at us once again.  "That's been our luck," he says showing his exasperation.  My throat is pulled towards my stomach, as I sigh, and close my eyes.  I am mortified.

Kevin Clark, Nikki's Father

As the interview winds to a finish, the room squeezes tight with even more people, all of them draped in the pall of pain.  Ten people total, now submerge themselves into the sweltering, and aching ocean that is filling the paneled room.

 I prepare to signal to Mike that the interview is over, when Nikki's father Kevin, crushed by grief, darts into the room, grabs the grandmothers's hands and tells us, "there is nothing we could do!"  His frantic sorrow, catches like a summer wildfire fueled by brittle cheat grass high in the Wasatch Mountains.  Robert and Joy begin to weep loudly and openly, as the children at my back move in even closer, and the temperature, slowly ticks up a few more degrees.

I thank the family for sharing their story, then step outside into the brisk openness, unzip my coat, and flaunt it away from my body with both arms as if I have wings, as I invite the cool, almost frigid air to engulf me.

Fantasy VS. Reality.

I don't really care for rabbits as a pet.  I remember as a child being fascinated by them, thanks in part, to Bugs Bunny cartoons.  So when I discovered one of my class mates in the second grade had one, I rudely invited myself over to his house one day after school.   I guess I expected that rabbit to be munching desperately on carrots just like bugs and bounding violently, 6 feet off the ground, and I suppose, wearing white gloves.

The real thing is a sobering disappointment. when he isn't hiding in his cage, the bunny simply ignores the two of us and spends all his time carelessly and soullessly foraging for leaves of lettuce, and, it turns out,  he doesn't hop at all, he lazily bounds a couple inches from one place to another, and to my horror, doesn't eat carrots at all.  It was yet another childhood cartoon fantasy shattered, like: 1) vanishing cream doesn't make you invisible.  2) Road runners are not 4 feet tall.
3) Anvils don't really fall from the sky that often. 4) Castor oil, well, I guess not even the cartoons really explained what that is.

My opinion of rabbits changed yesterday when I met Houdini, the mortality-dodging bunny, who escaped death.  Jason Price is in jail today because he tried to kill Houdini with a sword.  Price's old friend, Corey Blanke, reluctantly invites the wayward man to stay at his South Salt lake City home with his family which includes a wife, a 14 year old girl, 2 dogs and of course, Houdini.
At 5 AM, Price wakes up, and allegedly retrieves Houdini from his metal, mesh cage, snatches a long metal, 30 inch decorative sword off the wall, pins the bunny to the floor and grasping Houdini's leg, proceeds, according to police, thrust that shiny blade repeatedly at the little guy.

Corey tells me, Price stabs at Houdini several times, but Houdini shucks one way, shimmy's another and avoids every death blow. Corey isn't so lucky, fearful that Price will go after Blanke's family, Corey latches onto the business end of that blade and pries it from Price's grip.  Price retreats out the door, in his boxers, and Blanke ends up with 10 stitches in his hands, "It hurts like hell," he laughs, "but I'll be fine," he tells me.

As I glance at the video of Houdini, doing what rabbits do, sitting in his cage, thinking about lettuce, I just can't get this comical image out of my mind of Houdini, shift-shaping his way out of the way of that gleaming blade, like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, bowing his back gracefully, poetically, and of course in slow motion, out of the path of air-bending bullets. Reeves wears black in all three of those movies, Houdini is of course, black.  All he needs is a pair of sunglasses to complete the daydream.

I have respect for Houdini this morning, and by association I suppose, now the entire bunny species.  Houdini manages to bring some of the childhood fantasy back to life, Now if he could just learn to hop a little higher.

World's Apart

The sun sets a little earlier every night it seems, as the temperatures nose dive and settle into gentle icy, rounded hills of lofty snow, that stand proudly on street curbs and at the end of driveways, after the seasons first winter storm.  On television, commercials are already beginning to entice children with promises of mountains of toys on Christmas day.  In the lawn of a perfectly manicured, expansive South Jordan home, bedazzled with cherry wood shutters, and beige stonework, a large oak statute of a moose, adorned with a Santa hat, and highlighted with hundreds of twinkly lights signals the beginning of the warm holiday season,  the little girl who lives there will grab the wooden cheeks and squeal, "Hello moose!"

At the corner of Stagg and depot Streets in Midvale, Utah, the temperatures seem a bit colder, the snow a touch deeper, and darker, those mounds of what used to be brilliant white, are now splattered, soiled and splashed with tar like mud shed by thousands of aimless, passing cars.   The small, weary neighborhood of manufactured homes, is almost an afterthought, oddly dropped in the middle of metal shops, car repair joints and vast fields filled with lumber shrink wrapped and ready for shipment.   If you weren't looking for it you would surely pass it by.

The trailer homes, have long since lost their newness, and are now patched together by cardboard, masking tape, and plywood. Scattered among them, sit several rusting RVs.  Once built to prowl the open road, filled with blue haired ladies and their potbellied retired sailors husbands, sporting baseball caps honoring the U.S.S Alabama, now instead, these rolling fortresses are wedged preposterously and likely illegally among the handmade plywood sheds, to the west, and manufactured homes to the east, and an illogical, pock marked cinder block wall to the south.  These RVs are no longer rambling the highway, but are now homes to men, women and children who have found themselves with no other options.

Number 49 is the one for which I'm looking.  The Unified Police Department says it is ground zero for an aggravated kidnapping attempt and robbery that ended with the arrest of two men.  Officers spent the lion's share of the day working on this case.  According to them, two men came to 49 and argued with it's owner over a car swap, eventually pulling a gun on him, before he runs away and they steal his car.

I was hoping to speak to the owner of this metal house, but when I knock on the hollow, flimsy door, there is no answer.  The dented shell is adorned on one window with tinfoil to keep the heat in, and on another with plastic wrap to keep the cold out.

In this neighborhood, a knock on the door is met with suspicion.  At the house next to 49, I rap on the worn screen door, only to see the lights flick off and the TV go dark and mute.  Whoever lives here, has likely learned, that when the bell rings after dark, it's best to let the ringer move on to the next house.

As photographer David Yost shoots video of the rumpled metal house, a boy on his aging Huffy peddles by.  As he veers close to me, he eyes me carefully, wondering, perhaps, if I'm an cop.  I smile and he returns the gesture, as his rusty bike, sounding like it's owner is hording a box of mice, squeaks away.

Near a red, creased, peeling mobile home, that is weighted down with pots pans, tools and duck tape, I meet a man named Alex.  He is kind, and not at all concerned about my presence in his neighborhood, we talk casually, and he tells me the owner of number 49 is a hard working scrap metal collector, just like Alex.  He says, the man is nice, and has never had any problems with police before.  Alex excuses himself at about 5:30, and says he has to get back to work, then climbs into an ancient red pickup driven by his wife or girlfriend, and the two head out to track down more scrap.

As I load into our news truck and David plunks his camera down into a sliding protective draw, two girls, likely 11 or 12, pass by coat-less  and snuggle together, as they giggle and laugh about boys, or school, or gym class, they seem as happy as that little girl in South Jordan, who is greeted every morning by a towering wooden moose.  All three girls, it seems to me, will dream of a Christmas filled with gifts and good cheer, despite living only a few miles, but yet, worlds apart.

A Single Question

Lynn Presley is the kind of man who seems destined to be a governor, congressman, or senator.  He is handsome, whip-smart, and charming.  As Chancery Clerk of Jackson County Mississippi (basically the Chief Financial Officer) Presley, knows every crack and crevice of the county's massive budget.  It turns out, when you know all the cracks and crevices, you know where to hid the money so you can steal it later.  In Presley's case, he did just that, and spent years in federal prison, after making a mind boggling confession to me, just months before he is charged with embezzlement.

Jackson County Courthouse

In 1997, as a young, overworked, understaffed bureau cheif at WLOX-TV in Pascagoula, I spend much of my day just trying to keep up with car crashes, stabbings and convenience store robberies.  Understanding the dark recesses of the painfully boring county budget is far off my radar.

"I'm tellin' ya boy," pontificates County Supervisor Burt Patterson, from his large desk in the back off of his Ocean Springs, Mississippi pharmacy, "Just ask some questions about the Chancery Clerk's office son, now that's your job right?"  Patterson, has always been ominously vague with me, often trying to guide me towards corruption with nudges that include few clues, but with the ominous admonishment of "ain't that your job, go on down to the sheriff's office and ask some questions!"  Without telling me who or what to ask about.

Today, Patterson is a bit more candid.  The County's port authority is in need of money from a fund managed by Presley, but for some reason he just won't give it up,  Patterson, has called for an audit but the results are not yet in.  Finally, stabbing the air with his stubby finger, he shouts, "go on down to Presley's office an' ask him, 'where's that port money at?!"

"Hello son," Presley greets me at his office, with a firm handshake, grabbing my elbow and pulling me in closely, "How are you young man?"  Presley, as always, is gracious, even during the late night budget hearings during the year, he is always kind, and welcoming.

"I'm good sir," I dribble nervously.  Presley cuts an impressive figure, and I often find myself tongue tied and intimidated by his sheer presence.  I often stumble into his office, dragging unwieldy camera gear, with cables dragging behind me like tin cans trailing from a married couples 1978 Ford Fairmont, and sweating, from long hours baking in the oppressive Mississippi sun.  I am often foraging around in a pair of rumpled Docker slacks, and Polo shirt that is often creased and always darkened by my own sweat.

Presley is dapper, and perfectly quaffed, not draped in an over sized seersucker suit or suspenders, like you might expect from deep in the deepest parts of the south, but rather, he cuts an impressive figure, in a tailored black suit, with expensive hand woven ties.

"What can I do you for you young man?"  He settles into his large leather chair, and bows the seat back, slapping his fine leather shoes onto his desk, and interlacing his fingers behind  his head.

"Um," I sputter, "it's the Port money," I slowly suggest, "uh-huh, uh-huh," he blurts with confidence, "well, I guess the question is: Why won't you just give it to them?"
He quickly jerks his feet off the desk, and unlaces his fingers from behind his distinguished brown and grey hair, and is sitting with his hands locked in front of him, "well son," he looks me in the eyes, "It's not there."  He says casually.

"Oh," I squint in confusion, "well.  Where is it?"  "Well, it's all over the place, I often use that money for loans." he suggests plainly."
"Um, to who?"
"Well, I loaned some to my cattle ranch, I loaned some to the mayor of Moss Point, I loaned some money to the guy who owns that fast food place in town."  He shuffles inside his desk and produces a copy of a check, but see, they always pay them back."
"Are these county loans?"
"no sir, no sir, I'd say they are personal loans,"
"Wait, you are making personal loans, to your cattle ranch and other people, out of county funds?"
"Yes sir, but as I mentioned young man, they always pay them back."
"But," dumbfounded, "I don't think you can do that."
"well the rules are foggy son, again, the money always gets put right back in."

As I wander to my car after the astonishing confession, Burt Patterson pulls up in his dark colored Crown Victoria, "Did you talk to Presley?" Dazed I drag my eyes to the portly pharmacist, "I did,"
"And?" He demands.
"He says he doesn't have the money, he says he loaned it out." I blurt.
Patterson's mouth slowly gapes open, he twists his head forward violently then screeches off.

As I tap away  at my computer in my worn Market Street office, the phone rings, it's Presley, "Hello young man," he says meekly, "that conversation we had today, my belief is:  That was off the record."
"Uh, well, no, not really sir."  After a significant pause he continues, "Do you intend of reporting on our conversation?"
"I do."
Another long pause, "Young man, let me warn you," his voice trails to a threatening whisper, and continues, "I took you into my confidence, in an effort to help you in the right direction, I had no intention for this story to be about me."  I gulp deeply, and spill a shaky response, "well sir, this story is about you now," and I gently click the phone down.

In 1997 Presley is charged with 8 counts of embezzlement and admitted to stealing $320,000 dollars from the county coffers.  He spent 84 months in federal prison.

I don't know why he admitted his shell game to me.  Perhaps he thought his kindness in the past would insulate him from a scurrilous report.  Perhaps he believed I wasn't smart enough to connect the dots, or, as some have suggested, maybe he felt guilty and simply wanted to be caught.  No matter the reason, I learned, sometimes, a simple question is enough to unravel the complicated truth.

Information Underload

Sgt. Amy Maurer stands reluctantly in front of a half-moon configuration of cameras, photographers, and reporters.  Behind her is a post-apocalyptic scene, bustling with police, crowded with squad cars, and layered in yellow crime scene tape. Shrouded behind a short black curtain lay a body, next to that person, a car and an SUV, resting in place after what appears to be some sort of cataclysmic collision.

The scene, with Sgt. Maurer out of focus

Maurer, explains, someone has died, and an officer is injured, and that it all unfolded at "1:23 PM" but beyond that, the Sergeant, deflects every simple question with an even simpler retort of:  "I don't know."

Who shot who?  "I don't know." How did the cars end up like that?  "I don't know?"  Is the victim male or female?  "I don't know?"

Maurer, is patient, as she is peppered with questions for almost 10 minutes, she understands that the three bits of information she's handed the reporters is all she will volunteer.  Fellow journalists contort their question, hoping internally, that posing the inquiry with a different sentence structure will trick the West Valley City officer into accidentally spilling "the goods."   After several minutes, I literally throw my hands in the air and walk away from what is devolving into a comical scene.

Police must withhold fact sometimes from the public, if they don't they risk jeopardizing the investigation.  A poorly released piece of information could  damage the ability to get to the truth or taint a case when and if it ends up in front of a jury, but as I look from one face to another among my colleagues, I am impressed with how many jaws are literally hanging open.

As Maurer slinks away from the disappointed horde, reporters begin to talk about the remarkable lack of candor from police, "I've never seen anyting like this," one says shaking his head in disbelief. "What was that?" another asks, as a third, interjects, "that was unbelievable."

As I prepare for my live report, I spot a West Valley City Patrolman whom I know, he is standing sentinel in front of a squad car, lights peppering the quickly darkening night with blinding, quick red and blue pulses.

"How are you?" I ask, attempting to pass the time, "I'm good dude," he pops off jauntily, and without prompting, volunteers, "Sorry man, they have shut down information," he shakes his head grimly.  "Yeah," I squint my eyes and I shake my head, "why is that?"  Is it because of Susan Powell?"  I ask knowingly.

Susan Powell disappeared from her West Valley City home two Decembers ago.  Her husband, Josh was a suspect but was never arrested, later he would kill the couples two children in a ghastly fire he set, burning his home, his kids, and himself to the ground.

Susan Cox-Powell

West Valley City Police had been asked some difficult questions by the local media in the wake of  Josh's suicidal rampage, and at the same time, torched by the national press.  On this cool Friday evening, as investigators mill around the scene, my friend says the press scrutiny didn't help, but he admits, "the shutdown," of information, had begun in his words, "long before that."

Sgt. Maurer makes her hourly pilgrimage to the edge of the crime scene perimeter as she has promised reporters, and each time, her information basket is empty.  "I have to say," my eyes connecting with hers, "I get the sense that there is a concerted effort to hold back information," I pause, waiting for an answer, the dutiful sergeant's eyes widen, and her lips part, "uh," a squeak escapes, I  interrupt, "It seems..." I pause as I search for the right words, "dirty," she demurs.  "No," I say matter of factly, "I would never suggest, at this early stage, that police have done anything wrong," I move closer to her, "but I'm shocked, and surprised by how little information you are willing to give," I continue, "and all it does is force us reporters to seek the truth elsewhere, and fill in the blanks, perhaps in a way that the police may not like," I raise my eyebrow, and wait.  "I agree," she pulls her shoulders upwards to her ears in an exasperated shrug, then shakes her head, "I agree." her voice trails off as her eyes cast downward to her heavy black military style boot that is nudging a small pebble across the black pavement.

Danielle Willard, 21.

"I heard three or four shots," a witness tells me in his thick Eastern European accent.  Another woman, calling herself "Pinky," relays the scene of chaos, gunshots, the crunching of metal, and a woman laying on the pavement.  Derrick, a teenage transplant from West Virginia recalls, in his thick southern accent, an officer grabbing desperately for his knee, then tumbling to the ground.  All snap shots of of the full scene, one police are unwilling to explain.

Her name is Danielle Willard, she is 21 years old, I will learn from Danielle's mother several days later that her daughter was not armed when she was shot and killed by a pair of police detectives.   Melissa Kennedy says that is all she has learned from police.  The other threads from that afternoon, she has heard from witnesses who have approached her,  or things she has hunted down on the Internet, or unburied on blogs.  Kennedy is just three days away from burying her daughter when she agrees to meet me in the parking lot of the funeral home, where her baby girl now lay.

"I'm patient." she tells me,  Kennedy's mind is swirling with questions, something about that afternoon doesn't sit right, but she says "I'm might have to wait for the investigation to come to an end," I say to her, "I agree," echoing the words Sgt. Maurer gave me just a few days prior.

It's Not So Bad

Here it is.  Election day, Finally! It has been a raucous campaign cycle.  On the national level, President Obama and Governor Romney have exchanged body blows for 18 months.  Here in Utah, Mayor Mia Love and Congressmen Jim Matheson, if the rules would have allowed it, might have entered an MMA ring to determine who would win the 4th congressional district in Utah.

The nastiness of the battles have many longing for the more gentile days of American politics, particularly hearkening back to the stately, distinguished days of our founding fathers, to which I say, "what are you smoking?"

Our political history is littered with smear campaigns, lies and even murder.  In fact you could argue the founding father's wrote the book on ugly politics.  Historian Edward Larson said of the FF's "They could write like angels and scheme like demons,"


Thomas "The Brawler," Jefferson VS. John "The Crippler," Adams

As George Washington prepared for retirement from the presidency, a frenzied fight was unfolding behind the scenes.  Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, with the help of their surrogates, where as Larson suggests, "scheming" to be the next president.   Jefferson hired James Callendar to do a hit job on Adams, and Callendar did it in spades writing that Adams was:

"a hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."

Did the guy on the two dollar bill just call John Adams a "hermaphrodite?"

Adams wasn't a saint either, in return, the team that supported the soon-to-be second president of the United States and signer of the Constitution said this of Jefferson:

 "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father ... raised wholly on hoe-cake (made of coarse-ground Southern corn), bacon, and hominy, with an occasional change of fricasseed bullfrog. ..."

Team Adams was also quick to label Jefferson, who supported the French Revolution, a dictatorial, homicidal maniac if elected.

"Murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will all be openly taught and practiced, the air will be rent with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes."


The Pimp VS. The Killer

In the election of 1812, Andrew Jackson accused John Quincy Adams of serving as a pimp for the Russian Czar, to return the favor, Adams suggested that Jackson had killed defectors during his time as a general during the war of 1812.

Miscellaneous Pot Shots

1) Davy Crockett accused the portly Martin Van Buren of wearing a corset.

2) Opponents of President James Buchanan, who had a congenital condition that caused his head to tilt to the left, started a whisper campaign claiming that J.B. had once tried to unsuccessfully hang himself.

3) Grover Cleveland was accused by his opponent James Blaine of fathering an illegitimate child, that he allegedly left fatherless.  At Blaine rally's the crowd would chant, "Ma, Ma, where's my pa?"  After Cleveland won the presidency, that year, his supporters responded with the chant, "gone to the White House, Ha, ha, ha!"

The Big Ugly

Politics never got as ugly as it did in 1800's when Aaron Burr,  Vice-President of the United States called out Alexander Hamilton for a duel.  Burr, was about to be dropped from the Jefferson ticket and had lost a couple of political races and he felt that Hamilton was the guy who'd done him in politically.  In 1804 he shot and killed Hamilton in New Jersey.  

After Hamilton died, President Jefferson did indeed dump Burr, probably not a bad idea, Ironically Burr was never charged with killing Hamilton.  Burr would spend the rest of his life trying to start revolutions and generally raising hell around the world.

So, as you pine for the good ol' days this election day remember the words of Billy Joel, "The good old days weren't always good, and tomorrow's not as bad as it seems."

"Shoe less" Mia Love

Mia Love isn't wearing shoes.  The mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, a woman who is on the precipice of knocking off 6 term congressman Jim Matheson, to take her seat in one of the most vaunted chambers in American politics, is barefoot.  Love knows I am coming.  The mayor has just been tapped by the Republican National Committee to speak at the nominating convention for Mitt Romney in Tampa, Florida, and our assignment desk has arrange for me to show up with a camera at Love's new and spacious Saratoga Springs home.  She is dressed like a congresswoman might dress, Orange power blouse, brown power suit, but no shoes, and no socks.

Mia Love speaks at the Republican National Convention

Love is an indefinably disciplined candidate who seldom, if ever veers off script.  Even in casual conversation, she, sometimes with awkward adherence, will not drift from her talking points.  "Man this must be exciting, and nerve wracking as well," I attempt to make small talk as photographer Matt Michela sets up lights in anticipation of our interview   Love, isn't going to break from character, "it's an opportunity to talk about real issues that affect real Utahn's," she recites, unwilling to express giddiness  fear, or awe, about the surreal world in which this once unknown mayor from a tiny Utah town has now been thrust.   

During our interview  Love is confident, energetic and bold, if not repetitive.  The answers I hear today, do not vary significantly from the quotes she's given to other newspaper reporters and TV journalists in the past.  

When I ask her if race, (Love is black, the daughter of Haitian immigrants) may have been a factor in her selection as a speaker at the Republican National Convention, she pulls out a soundbite I've heard before, "Saratoga Springs does not have the highest bond rating in the state of Utah because I'm black," she repeats.  I understand her reluctance to veer from script, at the time, she is 15 points behind the incumbent  and she certainty doesn't want to utter a gaffe that would end up destroying her then slim chance of knocking off Matheson in November.

"What do you think about Todd Akin's comments?" I ask, referring to the Missouri Republican, who had just made that infamous "legitimate rape," statement that was exploding into a full-fledged media disaster for his run for the US Senate race in the "Show-me State."  

It was a question the mayor hadn't received in the past, and one for which she was not prepared, "Well we don't know what happens in a person's personal life," Love wanders, searching for an answer, before shutting down the meandering word grasp and finally concluding, that she doesn't adhere to Akin's views.

Congressman Jim Matheson

As Matt removes the lapel mic from Love's collar, I flopped down casually onto her large leather sofa, "We might be sending someone to cover your speech," I  announce, to which a man with a shaved head,  and oddly ornate button-down shirt whose been standing nearby, silently texting and emailing on his smart phone, finally interject curtly, "who?"  Probably Decker," I say benignly, referring to our eccentric, political reporter, Rod Decker, a surly  disheveled  yet thoroughly entertaining, and wildly competent reporter.  Decker is a Utah institution, he  doesn't delivery his stories as much as he bellows them into his microphone, peaking the VU meters on the control board back at the station.  "We've got nothing to say to him," announces the bald man.  "Listen," Love says, eyes burrowing into mine, "if you are fair to us, you will get your access.  If not..." Love trails off, leaving the rest of her  sentence a mystery for me to interpret as I will.  

"Well," I say to the woman who may be the next representative from Utah's 4th District, "You'll find, if you win, some stories will be positive, some stories will be negative, but in the end, the coverage will even out and be fair overall."  Love just stares at me, unconvinced  unmoved, and silent at my answer.  

"well," I slap me palms together, "it's nice to meet you mayor, good luck in Florida." I turn and head towards the large, heavy oak front door of her home. "What time will this be on?" she asks, "Four, Five and 6 PM," I answer.  "OK," she moves in closer, eyes locked on mine, "I'm going to watch them all," she warns, "each and every one of them,"  her eyes squint, then she smiles, "have a good day," she announces as she rustles her bare feet across the pile carpet and escorts me to the door.

Hurricane Georges

The soft tap of the rain against the hood of my poncho reminds me of a child casually popping bubble wrap retrieved from a box filled with mailed Christmas gifts.

I desperately brush the rain drops off my camera lens, and point it as hundreds of people falling in line outside one of the only grocery stores still open in Pascagoula, Mississippi.  Hurricane Georges is churning in the Gulf of Mexico, and these last minute shoppers make the nervous, yet familiar pilgrimage to the water, battery and canned foods isle.

For long time residents on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, hurricanes, and warnings of hurricanes are as much a way of life, as the changing of the leaves in Maine, or the first winter snowfall in Utah.

As they casually board up windows on their beach front homes, old-timers will often spin you a yarn, about Hurricane Camille in 1969.  The storm flattened the Gulf Coast and eventually killed 259 people as it swept inland. "I been through Camille," they'll extol as they hammer rusty nails into warped, plywood, "If I can survive that, I can survive anything."

In 1998, I am, as I've mentioned before, still living in Pascagoula and working for television station WLOX.  By now I am somewhat of a fixture, in the  practical, blue collar, shipbuilding town.  I am in the "bureau," which means I work with one other person outside of the main station located in Biloxi an hour away and, for the most part, am what they call in the business, "a one-man band," that means I run the camera, write the stories and deliver them on air all by myself.

After 2 years I've settled into the Southern way of living, where you accept the sweat soaked work shirt, moistened by the blazing Mississippi sun and accentuated by the humid air that sweeps off the gulf.  You understand that parades in Moss Point start 30 minutes late, and your appointment with a city councilman or the sheriff might be delayed, if he finds himself, "visitin'," with an old neighbor after lunch.

As Georges climbs on shore, I am hunkered down in the Jackson County Civil Defense building.  The solid, stubby, granite edifice is an immovable rock of a structure, and likely the safest place to be in town.  As I gather my gear around me late the first night and lay down on the cold tile, under a banquet table inside the marble facade, I am ever aware of the torrent of rain, powered by 80 mile an hour winds, pummelling the building outside.

Early in the morning, we discover our tiny office, used to transmit stories back to the main station, has been destroyed.  "you're gonna have to drive it here," says assignment manager Doug Walker, "we gotta get it on the air."

I am forced to make the hour long trip in a tiny Murcury Topaz, along an expansive extension bridge that towers several hundred feet over miles of Mississippi marshes.  The eye of the storm has moved on to terrorize another community  but the wind on I-10 is still wild, and the rain still torrential   As my partner Amy and I reluctantly load into the news car, we brace for the long terrifying trip ahead.  We dodge debris littering the soggy pavement, and pock marked by potholes burrowed into the highway by the passing storm.

Although I am behind the wheel, it is the 60 mile an hour winds that are doing the driving, pushing us frighteningly close to the Jersey barriers of this swaying bridge high above the water below.  As we splash over mini-lakes that have formed on the road, I feel the car hydroplane as the tires detach from the pavement, thanks to 7 inches of water and begin to gracefully drift our little car out of control.  Fortunately before the vehicle goes into a complete spin the rubber grabs black pavement again and jerk us back onto our path.

there is no talking in the cabin of our car, we only hear the whip of the wind and smashing of the rain.  My hands grasp the steering wheel so tightly I fear I won't be able to remove them if we make it safely to Biloxi.  As we pull off the towering bridge onto safer ground, Amy and I sigh together  and spill out a frantic, jubilant laugh as we hug each other, and Amy drags her index finger under her left eye wiping the tears of fear from her face.

The next day is remarkably clear and cool, as I tour the town.  Two-hundred year old oak trees are easily plucked from the soil and mindlessly laid hard on homes.  The roof of the elementary school, a place once designated as a shelter for people without homes, has been plucked off.  Small boats usually moored in the nearby harbor, are now casually tossed and planted on front lawns and in the middle of Denny Avenue.   Homes, entire homes,  are gone, swept away by an indifferent storm.  All that remains of a dozen houses in the concrete slab on which they once sat.

In Pecan (pronounced Pea can) east of Pascagoula, long time residents paddle in boats down rivers that were once paved streets.  I recall interviewing a rough hued southern boy, as he shovels mud out of his kitchen.

We chat about the sand, water levels, and "getting back to normal," when, like a SWAT team storming a drunks motel room after a long stand off, something burst out of the man's kitchen cabinet and onto my host's head.  The wet, wild raccoon hugs his matted hair, the ratty mongrel eyes me intently and rabidly as it squawks and squeaks and hisses, I stumble backwards, fumbling my camera, and trying to steady myself against the kitchen counter only to send pots, and plates careening to the ground.  "holy hell," I holler, as the man gives me a curious look, then pulls out a dog biscuit from his pocket and feeds it to the beast, "why you all bothered," he giggles, "this here's Charlie, he ain't gonna hurt ya." His laugh starts slow then quickens, becoming contagious as the giggles of 6 other dirty men in the room gather, much like that now passed hurricane, in hysterical laughter at me.  "I'm sorry guys," I blurt sarcastically as I pick up my camera and dust it off, "it isn't everyday a 20 pound rodent springs out of the soup cabinet." I say embarrassed , "It is around here!" the man proclaims, as he laughs even louder, his buddies struggling to match his level of hilarity.

For the next week, I will toil daily telling stories about things like the 6 large alligators that escape from a nearby animal refuge and are tormenting power company employees attempting to spark the cities power grid back to life.

Every night I will drag myself home, to a house with no power.   Thankfully for me and my roommate, our neighbors have stocked their refrigerators with ground beef, steaks, and sausage   Each evening we will gather in the middle of the street for an unplanned party, easing down in weathered lawn chairs, eating and laughing into the darkened night, only to return, flashlights in hand, to dark house and get up the next morning, pull on my slickers, and splash into the salt water for another long, lonely day.