You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
If you can stay home, then stay home.
It’s an interesting saying.
I’ve said it. The mayor just said it. I’ve heard half a dozen reporters and PIO’s say it.
It means conditions are so bad, and you don’t need to get off your couch, then don’t get off your couch.
Grab another bag of Doritos, procrastinate about pushing the covers down, send another selfie to Facebook.
If you don’t have to be out, then don’t go out.
So simple to say. So difficult to achieve.
If you’re homeless or a government worker in a non-essential layer of tax waste, it’s easy to stay home.
If you’re a school kid ordered to stay away, that’s a blessing.
But if you are an emergency worker, or a news reporter or a truck driver or a mom who has to pay her bills, then staying home isn’t always possible.
Thanks anyway, Mayor.
When you are the Big Cat and the jungle is your lair, you gotta get off the couch.
You gotta engage.
You gotta brave the elements and scream FREEDOM!
It’s Day 2 of Snow-pocalpyse and it promises to be another 12 hours of challenges.
Can you say “Here we go again”
Most people don’t run a marathon, go home, sleep, and get up and run another marathon.
But that is exactly what I’m about to do.
My garage door opens with a yank.
It chugs and spurts and for a minute I think the rod that holds it all together is going to tear out of the wall.
I will soon come to see that there is a layer of ice so thick, it is like an electromagnetic gluing the garage door to the cement.
I step gingerly onto the driveway and I immediately think back to my days in New York when I learned to ice skate on frozen ponds.
At least there I could shovel driveways for 5 dollars a pop.
Schools are once again canceled and many businesses have shut down.
If you don’t have to go out don’t go out.
Ha.
That’s code for we live in the south and no matter what, we are ill-equipped to handle a wintry mix.
This last 3 days has been an assault. It’s a domestic violence attack where you are beaten repeatedly and you don’t call the police because you don’t think it will matter.
It’s cold and relentless.
The roads are so slick, you can tell if other motorists have front wheel drive, rear wheel drive or no drive at all.
If mother nature was a perp, she’d be arrested for molestation.
People have died, and people have lost power and cars need to be repaired and people have been trapped on interstates.
If you can stay home, stay home.
wouldn’t that be nice?
Sit by your fire-place and play on Facebook.
How fun.
Last night I was sliding on hills that hadn’t seen a salt truck all day.
It was me and me alone.
There is a moment when you tap the brakes and the brakes do that rapid Congo beat. It’s computer generated anti lock braking.
That’s when the car is adrift, floating down an ice hill.
That’s when you need to pray for friction and hope that a train or a semi truck isn’t coming the same direction.
Yesterday I went in 3 hours early.
Today, I’m lying low, hanging back.
Only went in 2 hours early.
“You’re live in all shows,” I’m told the second I hit the door.
I’m wearing 5 layers of shirts and I feel a bead of sweat trickle down my back.
I roll my eyes.
It’s a lot of damn work to be live and live and live.
Each producer wants what they want.
It’s like a momma bird sitting on eggs in a nest. They care about you, but they mostly care about their nest.
When will their eggs hatch? Will their eggs remain warm?
So I’m live outside the Bridgestone arena for the 4pm live shot.
I’m right after the Mayor who is telling the world what all his department heads have been doing for the last 24 hours.
I listen to the mayor drone on in my ear piece.
He sounds mayoral. He also beats a drum of negativity.
Schools out and roads are dangerous and stay home if you don’t have to come in.
Shut the F Up all ready.
People need to laugh. People need some hope, some sunshine.
I’m told to do a live shot. No taped material. Just me being me.
“What ya going to do?” my photographer asks.
I think about it. I could stand there like the mayor and beat a drum of pessimism.
Stay the course, woe is me.
I could be the Eeyore reporter and tuck my little tail between my little legs and kiss my ass good-bye
Or I could bring it. I could deliver a burst of sunshine and rainbows and maybe for 45 seconds make people laugh, or take their minds off their situations.
Suddenly the Predators P.R. girl emerges from the side door.
“Here ya go,” she says handing me a hockey stick and a puck.
“What are you going to do with these again?”
I smile.
“create a frosty rainbow,” I respond.
My photographer’s eyes light up.
“Really?”
“Really.”
Half an hour later, The anchor tosses to me.
Downtown Nashville is starting to show signs of life, he says.
“That’s right,” I say dropping the puck like I’m the head linesman in an NHL game.
I have a signed stick and I begin moving the puck up the icy frozen sidewalk toward the camera.
The puck slides easily and I feel like I’m onto something here.
“The Preds are playing the Sharks tonight. They’ve done a good job removing some of the ice and snow, but if I can play hockey up the sidewalk, you know there’s a lot of work left to do.”
I am running up the sidewalk. I am on the Power Play, pushing the puck easily up the frozen cement.
I get to the camera and then feel the urge to do something big.
I turn and fire the puck at the side of the Bridgestone Arena.
I do everything but put my arms in the air and scream “GOAL”
My photographer is laughing. I can hear the anchors laughing.
I know it’s good TV the moment it ends.
How ya like that Mayor?
30 minutes later, a cute girl going to the game will smile at me.
“I saw your hockey bit at 4. It was funny.”
Even though it’s 18 degrees outside.
I feel a little glow within.
I’ll do two more live shots before it’s all over.
The last one on the interstate, wind howling, my own frozen breath rising up around me.
I will talk about TDOT help trucks. We literally found these guys gassing up at a Shell Station and we followed them to a call.
These guys are the heroes. 24/7 running from calamity to nightmare.
It was a story we threw together in 10 minutes.
In some ways you couldn’t tell. In other ways, it felt like a disposable piece of who cares.
“You’re clear,” comes the signal in my ear.
The light goes off.
The whine of a big rig truck flowing under the bridge below me fills my ears.
I exhale.
Wow.
Another 11 hour day where I am literally running on live TV.
Did I eat? I wonder to myself.
I rub my hands together. They are so chapped, so dry, from unbearable days in unbearable cold.
Yes, I think to myself. Somewhere between a left turn on 2nd avenue and a right turn on Church Street, I remember cramming a sandwich into my mouth inside the live truck.
“Good working with ya,” my photographer says. “Nobody would have pushed a hockey puck up the sidewalk to demonstrate icy conditions.”
We high-five.
We get in our respective cars.
Just stay home if you can stay home.
YEAH RIGHT.
Life’s Crazy™