Taps

It seemed like a strange place for an alfalfa field.  Acres and acres of it, for as far as I could see.  The clover was dark green, and dotted carelessly with purple flowers, as tiny bugs scrounged and foraged and bees flew in precise, yet seemingly clumsy loops as they hunted meticulously for sweets to take back to their hive.  Life is active, careless, and humming in this vast expanse.

Across a simple asphalt path, there is another field.  This one teeming with somber humanity, this one rigid in it's organization, as columns of tombstones sprawl across a neatly manicured tarp of grass.  Grass that is likely sprayed regularly to keep pests and weeds away.

At attention are hundreds of police officers, sweating under the hot Utah sun.  Some are in their dress blues, motorcycle helmets fastened to their chins, hands extended above their right eyebrow, as they try, most in vain, to choke back tears.

Organizers had asked the media to station their cameras in the alfalfa field, a request we all accepted in an effort to give the family a respectful distance.  As the coffin gently sailed, towards its plot, with uniformed officers manning each corner of it, honey bees zipped past my ears, and a thousand American flags rubbed and flapped, tossed and pushed by a brisk, hot wind.

Sgt. Derek Johnson, rolled up to a grey Volvo parked awkwardly on quiet, residential Draper, Utah street.  According to investigators, before he could even unbuckle his seat belt, the officer was met with a hail of bullets, his SUV then sped chaotically away, hitting a nearby tree at a high rate of speed.   Johnson died later that night at a hospital.  Troy Walker is accused of shooting Johnson, his girlfriend then turning the gun on himself.  Walker survived, his mugshot shows him, with a crooked frown, and his head and jaw, trapped inside a metal contraption, reminiscent of a Terry Gilliam film.

Funerals for police officers and fallen soldiers have familiar story lines, a plane or helicopter flyover, taps, bagpipes, a 21 gun salute, and the folding of the American flag followed by one of the most difficult moments you will ever see, that flag presented to the fallen officers wife, or husband.

In my career, I would guess I've covered more than 50 funerals, every one of them for strangers whom, I've met only in grainy pictures, pulled from a dusty frame, or carefully plucked off a hallway wall.

When families allow me into their homes to discuss their worst tragedy, they will often also oblige me by allowing me to take pictures of their loved ones.  I've seen hundreds of grieving mothers and fathers thumb through picture albums, glassy eyed, grinning at captured, tender moments at Disney world, a wedding, or in the hospital, after the birth of a child.

I'm pretty good at keeping my emotions in check at funerals, I have trained my mind to understand the gravity of the pain being felt by the families without being consumed by them.

I have only been to three funerals in my life, that involved someone I was intimately associated.
My grandmother and grandfather whom the grand kids called MaMa and PaPa.  It's endearing to think about those nicknames, and to recall grown adults, in their 30's and 40's referring to another adults as MaMa.

The third was my father's, who died two months ago.  By his own design his was a decidedly low key affair.  Bill Jones, would never allow for a bagpipe, a singer, or a slide show at his funeral.  He even paid most of the burial expenses to reduce the "drama," for his kids.

Although he was the greatest man I'd ever known, I didn't cry at his funeral.  Maybe it was because of the utilitarian design of the affair.  Perhaps it was because I was named co-executor of his estate, and I had busied myself with dealing with Dad's apartment, his accounts, and finding a storage facility for his things, that I didn't allow myself to mourn.

As the bagpipes breathed in and out at Sgt. Johnson's funeral, I thought about his family, but, as I stood, in the spongy alfalfa field, across from the cemetery, I thought mostly about my dad.  The bees went about their business, Sgt. Johnson was laid to rest, and for the first time in months, I cried for my father.

I don't know you, but I hate you.

Although the setting sun was to his back, the eyes of the middle aged man were squeezed into narrow, angry slits.  His lip curled at the right edge, and the snarl was powered by some latent hatred, that seemed to radiate from a place, if questioned, even he could not pinpoint.  It was the kind of hatred, that comes from his DNA, perhaps from generations ago, attributable to his wronged and abused forefathers.  The nastiness was palpable.  To punctuate the smoldering animosity, was his right, middle finger raised in a proud, yet profane salute to me.

Photographer Patrick Fitzgibbon and I had just made a right hand turn onto Broadway, out of the 2News parking facility located in the Wells Fargo building in downtown Salt Lake City.  Moments earlier we had just 

Commented on how sharp the news truck looked, after a sign company had recently wrapped the vehicle in sharp, crisp graphics.  "I think it looks pretty cool," I commented as I slapped my satchel in back of the truck, and perched myself proudly in the passenger seat.

Patrick was building his argument for how he thinks the show, Breaking Bad, of which we are both fans, will end in a few episodes, when I saw the salute, and the hateful face that eventually morphed into a gleeful grin the moment the saluter was certain that I had seen his insult.  

His satisfaction was an oozing, slippery smile that crept onto his face like that of a movie villain, when he blows up a building, or triggers a trap door that sends the hero into a cavernous dungeon filled with cobwebs and Gila Monsters.

I lost connection with Patrick's theories for several minutes as I pondered the anonymous insult, hurled at me for likely no other reason than, I worked in media.  "I'm just shocked," I crooked my head and shut my eyes, searching for the logic, "that a perfect stranger thinks it's ok to insult us for no other reason than he sees us in this truck."  

The man appeared to be a functioning member of our society and by that I mean, he wasn't a wild haired maniac kicking around the streets of Salt Lake City, wearing a pair of ski pants for the third month in a row and screaming randomly at passersby about flying saucers.  

He seemed to be someone who understands social cues and norms.  He was dressed smartly in a green, pressed button up shirt and a pair of creased khakis.  He likely says "yes sir," and "No sir," has a firm handshake, and opens the door for his wife. He could have been on his way to a business meeting, or to pay his mortgage at the bank branch located in the building in which I work.  Oddly, the sight this gaudy news van, made him go "caveman."  His docile, casual thoughts about his next vacation, how he would pay his kids tuition, or what he might eat for dinner, were interrupted kinetically, by a visceral, prehistoric tool box, from which he pulled out "the bird" to insult some anonymous stranger, who was passing the time of a 20 minutes ride to Centerville, Utah, by chatting about a program on basic cable.

Sadly this kind of thing happens pretty regularly.  Several months ago, as I stood outside a downtown tattoo parlor, as police swarmed a neighborhood, looking for a man who had recently fired a gun at two people, a pleasant fellow sat calmly on the crumbling stairs outside an aging, brick apartment building sipping a Pabst Blue Ribbon and taking short drags off of quickly shrinking cigarette butt.  He nodded his head, and smiled enthusiastically at me as I waited for a public information officer from the Salt Lake City Police to round up reporters and give us an update on the search.  I looked at the man, smiled broadly and chimed, "hey, how's it going?"  To which he cocked his head, grinned and said with sugary venom, "why don't you go f*#k yourself."  I just stood there, stunned, as he geared up for a frothing diatribe, "go get a real job!" he groused, "stop perpetrating hatred, do something productive with your life you jackel."  To which I said, "you mean productive like you, guzzling cheap booze on the steps at three in the afternoon."  Admittedly, the prudent choice would have been to say nothing, and I realized that as he thrust his filter less cigarette towards the pavement and barreled, headlong at me before being intercepted by a nearby officer, who seemed unaffected by the man's rolling rant.  The guy circled back to his PBR and his concrete step with the parting salutation, "f*#k you!"

I suppose you get used to it.  Check that, you don't get used to it, you accept that you are a simply an empty vessel in which people deposit all their frustration about what politicians call, the "lamestream media."

Before my dad passed away he used to call me up and complain about something he'd read in the Wall Street Journal, or something he'd seen on the CBS Evening News, "why do you guys do that," he would demand.  "I don't know dad, " I would joke, "I'll chat with the president of CBS News when I get to work."

I suppose when people, "flip me off," tell me to 'go to hell,' or call me names, it's less about me, and more about the vast, billowing media world that angers them, from Mylie Cyrus, to the New York Times, to Fox News, to Twitter, to Facebook, to layoffs, to Syria you name it.

I guess, that polite man in the clean shirt, on his way to a lunch meeting is just sick of it all, and I suppose I'm the guy in the news van, who gets to hear about.  I don't accept it, but I suppose, I get it.

  

   

The Hard Way

My dad, who passed away in July, used to say, "you're just like me, you have to do everything the hard way."  Bill Jones was right, again, about himself, and about his third son.  During his life, the old man, cycled from wild success to miserable failure during his 89 year adventure ride, in which he quit his secure job at age 27, and went into business for himself, never working for another person as long as he lived.

It was a boom or bust existence, I recall one Christmas with a towering, 9 foot tall Spruce, a flood of presents, bicycles, and hockey sticks, surrounded by gaudy decorations, and soaked in catered food. That year a Mariachi band atop a flatbed truck was waiting to haul our family around our streets to sing carols to our weary and confused neighbors standing in there bathrobes, pink slippers, with coffee in hand.  They would wipe the sand from their eyes wondering, "why the hell is their a Mariachi band playing at this hour?  Strike that, "why is there a Mariachi band playing at ANY hour?"

I also recall a Christmas with a tree no taller than a fern, and 2 small, wrapped presents, one for me, and one for my sister, placed gently on a white towel, hastily snatched from the bathroom on Christmas Eve.

My dad ultimately sweat and bled his way to financial stability, founding a chain of discount dry cleaners, that eventually added up to about 200 stores, but he, as he had mentioned to me ad nausium, " "had done it the hard way."

While thumbing through his meticulous files in the days after he died, I came across a letter he had written to a friend and investor 30 years ago.  It read:  "Fred, as you know I have recently filed for bankruptcy, and I promise you will soon be paid the $5000 I owe you, but in the meantime, I want to tell you about a great opportunity in which I think you might want to invest."  He was always working, and always raising money, sometimes in the hardest ways possible.

He did pay back Fred with interest, and Fred, my uncle, did invest with my dad again.  Even though he was as he would say "busted." my dad never stopped working or hustling, he had to, because he did everything the hard way.

As I sat in our news van, perched outside the home of Cheri Walker, the mother of a man believed to have gunned down a Draper, Utah police officer last week.  I was thinking about my dad.

Just two days earlier, Sgt. Derek Johnson coasted up next to a grey, late model Volvo parked awkwardly on Fort Street in Draper.  The tires on the squad car of the decorated officer likely didn't even stop turning, when police think Walker open fire, hitting and killing Johnson.  Walker is then thought to have turned the gun on his long time girlfriend, Traci Vaillancourt, shooting her in the back before rotating the pistol into his mouth, and squeezing the trigger.  Miraculously both survived, and, as is so often the case, that's where I come in.

Outside the home of Cheri Walker, I was pondering some of my dad's old sayings and watching as a woman pulled up next to three reporters from competing stations.  "Do you want to go see what she is saying?"  photographer Patrick Fitzgibbon asked as I propped my feet on the dash, and adjusted my sunglasses, "Nah," I said, with a nervous pit in my stomach, "I hate globbing onto other reporters work."
After 15 minutes, the woman sauntered off, and, my pride wouldn't allow me to chase her down to see what she had told my competitors .

After more than an hour of waiting for the return of Troy Walker's mother, I decided we needed to do SOMETHING, so I Googled and searched and eventually stumbled upon an address that Vaillancourt had lived at years ago in Murray, Utah.  "No, I don't know her," chimed the sing-song voiced mom, who had just purchased the home a week ago, "The name sounds familiar, but I don't know her," she said eagerly, bouncing a small toddler in her arms, as he munched down a soggy fist full of Cheerios.

It was 7 PM, and for television news, that is the bewitching hour.  If you haven't nailed down your story by then, you are in jeopardy of not making the 10 PM news cast.

"Ok, ok, ok," I sighed heavily as I vigorously ran my hand across the top of my head  as if, the friction would make my brain conjure a brilliant idea, "I have one more address," I bleated with discouragement, "but she hasn't lived in this place for years."

"Who is it?!"  a woman shrieked from inside the non-descript suburban rambler.  "I'm Chris Jones, from Channel 2."  The metal, brown door swept open, "I know why you are here."  

The middle aged woman with smiling eyes, had purchased the home from Vaillancourt's parents several years ago, but knew everything about the family.  She knew Vaillancourt and her boyfriend had a child, that Vaillancourt had a rare blood disorder, and that Walker had guns, but she was unwilling to share any of it on camera, which, of course in the TV business, is what it is all about.  "I'm so sorry," she would shake her head with real sympathy, like a mom, forced by an overbearing husband to carry out a overly-strict punishment on a teenager.

As I peer at my watch, 7:30, I begin to accept the defeat that is looming in the air, "You guys have a nice day," she says pluckily as I turn the door knob, "I wonder if Traci's sister could help you, I know where she lives," she says nonchalantly, burying the lead.

"Yes Traci is my sister," says Vicki King, teeth clinched, brow furrowed,  "In fact she was here the day before the shooting," she announced, eager to tell the story of how her sister went from beauty queen to a woman living in a car and addicted to pain pills.

As I flip on the mic, I am satisfied that we will be the only station to tell this part of the story, until I see two reporters, with their photographers in tow, approaching the front stoop and prepping their camera's for the interview.

As the reporters step back to their vehicles, "how did you find her?" I ask with amazement, "oh," says one of them, "remember that woman we were talking to outside the Walker home?  She told us where Vicku lived."

As I searched my briefcase for my glasses, I could only think of my father, and his words, that rang more true on this day, than they had in sometime, "you always have to do things the hard way."