You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Coming full circle.
I experienced this moment the other day as I engaged a small town police chief.
The police chief didn’t want to talk to me. His officers were accused of beating a man who didn’t submit quickly enough to their requests.
I go to the police department. Dispatch tells me the chief is unavailable and won’t be able to talk to me.
I stand outside deciding what my next move should be.
Suddenly the chief walks out the front door heading to his chief mobile.
I see the chief and I feel opportunity mixed with anger.
I thought they said the chief wasn’t available.
I quickly summize that someone is trying to hide something from me.
“Hey chief, I gotta ask you about this,” I shout.
He holds up his hand in the universal signal of “talk to the hand.”
“Not today chief, gotta get a response from you.”
My camera man takes my lead as we press in on the man in blue.
He glares at my camera man like he’s Darth Vadar and he is using the force to break the lens.
I move close, mic in hand.
“Chief I gotta know why these officers are still working the streets.”
The chief is hot. He’s agitated. He wants to run to his car. He wants me to stop recording.
If he does, I’m going to blast him publicly for not addressing this serious issue.
I feel confident, aggressive, in control of the situation.
I am going to win if he stays. I am going to win if he runs. I can’t lose.
I am a confident pit bull knowing I have all the rope I need to patrol the entire front yard.
While the chief scuffs at the ground, steam pouring out of his ears, I have a flash back to another time.
The moment flashes before my eyes like a life beacon.
Where did I see this moment before, I think to myself.
And that’s when I remember.
It’s 1989.
I am standing in a field under a sky so big, so blue you had to crane your head way back to see it.
It’s a field somewhere in Wyoming. The air is crisp, the grass in the hills is green like an Irish Spring commercial.
George Herbert Walker Bush is at a podium and the magnificent Grand Teton Mountains are behind him.
I don’t know what he’s saying, but he is here to announce an environmental impact statement.
I am a one man band working at KPVI Ch 6. I am the bureau chief out of Idaho Falls, Idaho.
It’s my 1st real job working day-to-day as a general assignment reporter.
I’ve been on the job for a little over a year, and I feel like I know what I am doing, but this is the big time.
The president of the United States is 25 yards from me. The grand stand is filled with cowboys and wealthy ranchers who have paid big money to the Bush campaign to be this close to have access to power.
Secret service agents wearing suits and dark glasses are everywhere. They’re conspicuous like grizzly bears at a ballet recital.
This story is a big deal to channel 6 news.
The president in Eastern Idaho? This is going to be every segment in the show.
A fellow reporter and I are putting together four packages for the nightly newscast.
One of the stories I am doing is what it’s like behind the scenes traveling with the president.
I am in the press area and I see White House Correspondent Britt Hume.
He is on the phone talking to New York as I approach.
“Yeah this is a re-hash of the speech he gave yesterday in the White House,” He tells his producers. “Is it a lead? No this is B block stuff,” he says, meaning it comes after the 1st commercial break.
I laugh. Britt Hume is blowing off this moment like it’s cold mac and cheese. Meanwhile we are celebrating it like Jesus has returned with a satchel full of pixie dust.
Hume hangs up the phone.
“Mr. Hume. I’m a reporter with the abc affiliate in Idaho Falls.”
I feel my knees shaking a little.
This guy is the real deal. He stands up in the White House Press briefings and he levels difficult questions at the President of the United States.
How big is Britt Hume? He took over for Sam Donaldson who was a white house reporting icon.
“Nice to meet you,” he says with a friendly smile.
“I was wondering if I could do an interview with you for a segment we are doing tonight?”
He eye balls me.
I must be a sorry sight.
I am a one man band carrying my own camera, my own record pack, my own tripod. I am sweating through my button down shirt.
He is dressed in a conservative blue suit with a white dress shirt and power tie.
“I remember when I was starting out, no problem,” He says with an easy manner.
I thank him and clip a mic to his lapel.
I am very nervous. I feel like he is judging my ability, looking in a crystal ball and assessing my talents, now and perhaps into the future.
“So tell me what it’s like traveling with the president to places like this?”
He stares at me.
The moment is awkward.
I wonder if I have offended him.
He looks at me with a discerning eye. He is like the old wise bull. He has been there and done that. He is cocky and confident and sure of who he is.
I am the young reporter with all the credentials of a tad pole in nursery school.
“Wouldn’t you rather put me there,” he points to a spot ten feet away. “Then you can have the mountains behind me.”
I feel like an idiot. I suddenly realize I am interviewing the White House Correspondent in front of a line of blue port-a-johns.
In my nervousness to talk this iconic figure, I didn’t want to inconvenience him. I didn’t even think about what was behind him.
I stare at the port-a-johns. They are big and boxy and plastic and represent everything this moment shouldn’t be.
I feel like a gigantic dope.
“Yeah of course. Why am I talking to you with a bunch of port-a-johns behind you when I have the Grand Teton Mountains right there.”
He laughs. He is at ease. He casually takes 3 steps to his right.
“You rolling,” he says confidently.
I nod.
He begins answering the question not missing a beat.
The interview ends and I shake his hand. I am genuinely impressed with him and apologize for the 4th time for interviewing him in front of toilets.
“Your boss will appreciate the mountains instead,” he says.
And with that he disappears into the press area to confer with his producers.
About 15 minutes pass.
Suddenly there is a ruckus.
I see security scramble. I see secret service agents move quickly to a line where citizens are being searched at a mobile metal detector.
Britt Hume stands up and like Clark Kent changing into superman in a phone booth.
“What’s going on?” His voice booms across the field.
His voice cuts through everything. Secret Service agents respond to his authority. He is a pit bull with a laser guided tongue as he moves forward with steely eyed determination.
“What’s happening? How did that man get through security? I want answers. I want answers now,” he shouts.
I am like a squirrel looking for a lost acorn. I have no idea what is going on.
I am a pre-school child, my hands stained with ignorance.
Hume is a political savant. He moves through the chaos like a bird soaring on a breeze.
He not only knows what is happening, he is asking pointed questions about the incident and directing those queries to high level staffers.
He is a force. He is a singular moment in time.
I will never forget Britt Hume. It turned out to be a minor security infraction of some sort.
But in that moment, the white house correspondent was a heat seeking missile of truth, justice, the American way.
I remember watching him like a dreamy-eyed kid and saying to myself. “I will never be like that.
I am wearing a dirty collared shirt covered with sweat. I feel like insignificant, unqualified to represent my profession.
In that moment I wonder if I have what it takes. In that split second, I question if I will ever be that forceful, that confident, that sure of myself that I can scream at secret service and demand their attention.
That was 1989.
It’s now 2014.
25 years have passed.
I am standing in front of a small town cop who would prefer I turn tail and run.
He’s use to getting his way, ordering his men, bullying his populous.
Perhaps he feels like he can bully me.
But in a small way I am Britt Hume. Some of what Mr. Hume had on that Wyoming day has channeled its way into my news soul.
Years of news have transformed me.
I am neither afraid, nor intimidated. In fact, I feel like I own this moment. I have the cards.
I am a small town Britt Hume and I want answers.
And you know what’s awesome, the chief knows I’m Britt Hume.
He stands at attention and takes his medicine.
He tries to give me grief telling me that all the media who have covered this story are biased.
“Hey Chief,” I say with the confidence of a Britt Hume clone. “I’m unlike any cat you have ever met.”
I laugh to myself.
Britt Hume would never call himself a cat. But you know what, I do, and I love the unique quality I have that has made me my own news gathering mechanism.
Suddenly the chief smiles. He knows that I am different.
“OK,” the chief says. “You are different. Ask your questions.”
And with that I ask about the beating, the investigation, the officers never disciplined.
While he gives me a canned answer, I think back to that day in 1989 when I was afraid to ask Britt Hume to move away from the porta-johns.
I have come a long way.
Thanks Britt Hume.
Life’s Crazy™