The Sunday Memory Drawer - We Cut To Len at Campaign Headquarters

As we await the midterm elections, let's remember when again.

No, I never worked for CNN.   Or what's left of it.  But, at one point in my college radio career, I made a brief and ultimately doomed attempt at being a news reporter out in the field.  This was back in the day when technology had not yet taken hold of the industry.  There were no satellite dishes on top of trucks or elaborate hand-held cameras.  

Nope, we had a tape recorder.  A pencil.  And you hoped that you had plenty of dimes to call in your story from the nearest phone booth.

This was the case at Fordham University's WFUV-FM, 90.7, 50,000 watts broadcasting from Keating Hall on the Bronx campus.

I had yet to figure out exactly what I was really good at in the broadcasting world.  I had tried doing play-by-play sports.  Those airchecks are now contained in a book called "How Not to Do Play-By-Play Sports."  I hated the sound of my voice but folks at the radio station convinced me that I didn't sound that bad so I did get to do some air work on the evening news which aired every night at 530PM.

"Tonight, temperatures should drop into the 40s with a 20 percent chance of some rain."

Invariably, I would stumble and the temperatures would drop into the 20s with a 40 percent chance of some grain.  I had yet to develop the muscles that connected my mouth to my brain.  But, there were folks in charge at the station that kept encouraging me, which likely discouraged most of the WFUV listening audience.  One of my earliest supporters there was an assistant news director named George Latimer and people residing in Westchester, New York know he has enjoyed a long, long career as a politician in that county.  If people realized he was the one who gave me my first start in broadcasting, he just might lose his current bid for re-election.

Nevertheless, there was one Election night where the new station news director had some really ambitious plans.  Just like the journalists for famous all-news radio outlets in town like WCBS-AM and WINS-AM, WFUV reporters would fan out across the city covering that evening's electoral contests.  Well, fan out across the Bronx.   Since there were so many different places to cover, we needed a lot of staff that night.  And that's how even I wound up with a field assignment.

I would be stationed in the campaign headquarters and hopeful victory party for then Bronx County Borough President Robert Abrams.  I got lucky.  His campaign was housed about two blocks away from the campus.  On top of the building where you could find the Sears Department Store on the corner of Fordham Road and Webster Avenue.

So, I would be ready for this challenge.  And scared as shit.  But, I would be at least look professional.  I got into the blue double-breasted blazer that I wore to church service every Sunday.  I hitched up a tie.  Okay, my grandmother tied it for me.  And off I went.  Gabe Pressman Jr..

I was entrusted with one of the station's Sony tape recorders.  The assignment was reasonably simple.  I would hang out at the Abrams headquarters.  When there was news, like his expected re-election, I would record my thoughts and then find a telephone.  I'd call the studio engineer and then play my report.  A few minutes later, they would run it on the air.  Of course, there was also the chance that I might phone in and, if it was really big news, they would put me on the air live.

Live.

Gasp.

I'd deal with that dilemma later.  I secretly prayed that Robert Abrams' re-election headquarters was the dullest place in all of New York City that night.

They had cleared press credentials for me, so I was easily and eagerly ushered into a meeting room just above the home appliance department at Sears.  The room was full of supporters and campaign workers.  I was mesmerized by the hustle and bustle of it all.  And amazed by the amount of food that was laid out for all.

And bowls of sangria.

Now, Fordham journalism professors had lectured all of us would-be Roger Mudds that you didn't go out in the field to enjoy free food.  That was no issue for me this night.  I was not hungry.

But I sure was hot.  It was an unusually warm and muggy November night.  I could have reason to go on the air at a moment's notice. 

Live.

Gasp.

My throat started to constrict.  There was a dryness that only Peter O'Toole had endured while making "Lawrence of Arabia."  I needed liquid.

Just a little sangria.

That did the trick.  I felt better.

Meanwhile, it sure was dull being at the campaign headquarters of a landslide winner.  Nothing much was happening.  As soon as they would confirm his victory, I would write up a quick summary on my note pad, record it on the Sony cassette recorder, and phone it in.  All I had to do was wait.  And sweat.

And just a little more sangria.

It would be another two hours before anything meaningful happened.  Which amounted to a full 120 minutes of...

Just a little more sangria.

Finally, victory for Abrams was proclaimed.  His supporters were jubilant.

I was snockered.

And ready to go on the air. 

Suddenly, I had no clue what I was doing.   I wrote up some sort of summary that passed as breaking news.  And then looked for a phone booth.  Ages before cell phones, the only one I could find was in a deserted hallway.  Next to a window with a fire escape. 

This would be my office.  As unfocused and shitfaced as I was.

Of course, sitting on the window sill and trying to juggle the microphone of the tape recorder, I looked like Jerry Lewis trying to carry luggage in "The Bellboy."  Naturally, something would be dropped at some point.

And that's when my notepad fell out the window.

Uh, oh.

I would have to call the studio and do it live.  

Gasp.

And hiccup.

I remember little of what I said on the air that night.  The memory of it all disappearing in a sangria haze.  But, I do recall the anchor back at the studio was pretty annoying asking me a lot of questions.   What the hell does he think I am?  A reporter?

"So, Len, you're at Robert Abrams' headquarters and he was victorious tonight?"

I screamed my response.

"ROBERT ABRAMS!!!!   YEAH!!!!!!!!!!"

That would be my mantra the entire two minutes I was on the air.  Which was mercifully cut short by a telephone operator.

"Please deposit forty cents for the next three minutes."

I didn't have another forty cents.  And, for that, the New York City radio audience was rescued from the clutches of one inept and inebriated college journalist.

I would move onto other things at WFUV.  The very next morning.

Dinner last night:  BLT at Barney's Beanery.