13 and a half years ago I plopped myself down in a chair in front of a monitor and 6 tiny teevees. I had 6 red plungers that lit up when I mashed them as some unseen voice beckoned, “ROLL”.Sitting back in my tiny, black cove swallowing the day’s news was challenging. Story after story, face after face. When I went home at night and closed my eyes I could still see a 2 ½ inch version of the missing girl of the week.
Names like Shaquita Bell, Joyce Chiang, Caity Mahoney, Sophia Silva, and Kristin and Katie Lisk still hang in my broadcast cache. Serial killing was hot that year. Andrew Cunanan and Richard Evonitz claimed more than their allotted 15 minutes of fame.
“Two boys in 1999 walked into their high school heavily armed emptying countless shells along the way dropping classmates like flies. Columbine, Paducah, Mississippi, Georgia, Nickel Mines, VaTech.
Brazill, Tate, Mangum, Abraham. “These kids committed crimes that were brutal…that doesn’t make them adults. It just makes us wish they were—and wish we could lock them up forever and forget them.”
The Capitol shooting, Holocaust museum, Muhammad and Malvo. "Be still and know that I am God." Sarah Ramos, Conrad Johnson, Premkumar Walekar, Sonny Buchanan, Lori Rivera, Pascal Charlot, Linda Franklin, Dean Meyers, Kenneth Bridges. Iran Brown.
September 11th. Hurricane Katrina. Princess Diana. Monica Lewinski. OJ Simpson. 2000 Election. Part II. Saddam Hussein. Afghanistan, Iraq. What’s that terrorist’s name? The first black President.
Abortion, gay rights, stem cells, torture, corruption, domestic violence, hate crimes, cancer, aids. Olympic Bombing, Elizabeth Smart, Jonbenet, Annika in PGA, Larry Craig, Martha Stewart ex-con.
Joe Gibbs, Pettibon, Norv Turner, Robiskie, Schottenheimer, Steve Spurrier, Gibbs, Zorn. Hike.
Black Oscars, Janet’s Super Bowl nipple, Ellen’s gay, Greta Van Susteren’s new face. Dan Rather steps down, Walter Cronkite dies, Jay Leno leaves. Lance Wins Seven, Chastain Bears Bra, Granato Grabs Gold, WNBA Forms, WUSA Folds.
Johnny Carson, Jack Paar, Charles Schulz, Hanna of Barbera, Peter Jennings, Mother Theresa, Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, Michael Jackson, Ray Walston, Dave Thomas, David Brinkley, Yasser Arafat, Christopher Reeve, Maude, The Joker, Johnnie Cochran, Ossie Davis, Bernie Mac, James Brown, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Anna Nicole, Kurt Vonnegut, Tammy Faye, Pavarotti, Charlton Heston, Patrick Swazye, Teddy Kennedy, Alice Swanson.
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