Lucky us

The snow was swirling yesterday afternoon outside my 9th-floor apartment. Inside, I was reading a charming book lent to me by my nephew's wife.

"Dick's Book: Reflections of a Farmer" is by Samuel Dick Harris, who is my nephew's wife's uncle, her mother's brother. He opens his book with stories about his life growing up on a farm in Spotsylvania County.

As the snow fell on a cold March afternoon in 2014, I came upon this passage describing a snowstorm that happened two years before I was born:

Anyone that lived in central Virginia in January of 1940 will never forget the snow that started on January 24th at around three or four o'clock in the afternoon. By bedtime, it was several inches deep and still coming down hard. When we got up the next morning, it had stopped snowing. You couldn't see out the back porch, for the snow was plastered all over the screen. When the screen door to the outside steps for the back porch was finally pried open, one looked out on a world buried in snow. Some people said it was three feet. I think twenty to twenty-four inches was more accurate. It was difficult to tell because the wind blew so hard and the snow drifted so badly. It totally covered up much of the fences. Of course, the roads were blocked. We didn't go to school for two weeks. The milking, feeding and watering of the cattle and chickens took all day. We had some wood stacked on the back porch for our heating and cooking. Until the wind stopped, it was useless to dig out a path, as it would soon drift full behind you. After the first day, it got extremely cold and set records that still hold until this day. It went below zero degrees Fahrenheit every morning for five days, with one reading of minus twelve degrees Fahrenheit in Richmond....

Samuel Dick Harris also describes the first tractor his father bought for farm work, the coming of electricity to his rural home, the installation of indoor plumbing, hog-killing time and other tough work on the farm, and the joys of running barefoot all through the summer. His account is all the more delightful to read because of the straightforward, no-nonsense style in which he writes.

We've had snow in dribs and drabs this winter, but "Dick's Book" was a good reminder that we've had nothing to compare with the winter of 1940 -- so far.

It was a good book to spend an afternoon with on a snowy day and think about our good fortune, even in the winter of 2014.

Paging Mr. DeMille

When a snowstorm keeps you inside and all you have to play with is a cat and a camera, interesting things happen -- although the cat doesn't necessarily think so.

Endless February

Only three of us and our instructor showed up for fitness class at the JCC this morning.

It was actually more relaxed and informal -- and great fun.

I came in from Northside Richmond, where there was a crust of frozen rain on top of about 4 inches of snow. When I woke up this morning at 8 a.m., I looked out of my 9th-floor window and the roads were a mess. But by 10 a.m., the plows had been at work and the roads were fairly clear.

So I decided to go to class.

It took a few minutes to clear the snow from my car windows. It was mostly fluffy and brushed off easily.

On the way to the JCC on Monument Avenue I had no problems, even on neighborhood streets. No sliding. No slipping. And very few other drivers on the road.

When I met up with the class, it was interesting to learn about snow around their homes. Amounts varied. Our Thursday instructor lives near the University of Richmond. The snow fell more heavily there, about 6 inches. In the far West End, the snow was even heavier, with one report saying 7 inches.

February has been tough in Richmond this year. Usually we might get one big snowfall per season -- and big by Richmond standards is as little as 4 to 6 inches. This February alone, Richmond has already had three of what the TV forecasters call "snow events."

It's getting old. And it's supposed to snow again tonight.

The late Times-Dispatch columnist Charles McDowell once wrote in his annual tirade about this cursed month: "February lacks the new hopefulness of January, the windy excitement of March, the sunny promise of April. February depresses. It litters the landscape with dirty, clinging snow. It sabotages the automobile battery. It brings man into bitter conflict with his furnace."

Charlie nailed it. February is the wicked witch of months. The shortest month is the cruelest. And it seems longer than the Mesozoic Era.

The best thing you can say about this February is that there are only 15 more days before we can rip it off of the calendar.

And by the time summer's hurricane season rolls around, we'll have forgotten all about it.

Santa's name was Brian

Yes, there is a Santa.

And one of his names is Brian.

I was hosting a holiday dinner last night for a few of my family, five adults and two young children. This year we went to Extra Billy's on West Broad Street. We had gnawed the baby back ribs to the bone and were sitting back from the table to continue talking and catching up.

(I host this dinner every year out of love as well as out of enlightened self-interest. These are the relatives who invite me to share their Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner every year. They make sure I'm not eating a turkey sandwich alone in my apartment on these special holidays.)

Our waitress, who had given us special attention during our meal, came our way with the check in her hand and tears in her eyes. We discovered she was overcome by the kindness of a perfect stranger who had already picked up the tab for our entire meal.

She said the bill was paid by "a secret Santa."

We speculated madly among ourselves for a few minutes. Who could it have been?

A few minutes later we had our answer. The waitress brought Brian, who appeared to be coming along reluctantly, from the area near the bar. He was our secret Santa.

Brian said he had watched as we enjoyed what was clearly a special occasion and decided to give us a Christmas present. He choked up a bit but recovered quickly as he explained.

We invited Brian to sit and chat. He stayed for a few minutes, clearly captivated by my niece's two young children. And then with hugs all around and much wishing of "Merry Christmas," he left to rejoin his friends.

Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I was dumbstruck.

Brian, a perfect stranger, had no reason to pick up our tab at all. Except that he was feeling the Christmas spirit in a big way.

I think I can speak for all of us at the table last night -- Mike, Becky, Terry, James, Milagros, Carlos, and me.

We're all feeling the Christmas spirit a little bit more now.

Broken news

My University of Richmond journalism professor, Joe Nettles, introduced us to the concept of making difficult news decisions.

He began by asking us which of the following stories should be the lead in the morning newspaper:

(A) Pope Elopes.

(B) Sun Rises in the West

(C) Quake Dumps California into the Ocean

They're all preposterous. But there's really only one choice. The biggest story is the one that affects the most people. I pick option (B). Such an occurrence would knock our entire conception of the universe for a loop.

That was almost always my criteria when I was in the decision-making game in WTVR TV's newsroom.

Sometimes, all things being equal on a slow news day, I might go for shock or titillation value -- as in option (A). At other times, option (C) might look best -- just think of the amazing visuals you'd have in a live report from the Reno oceanfront.

But 99 percent of the time, I stuck by my guns: How many people does this story affect?

I must have been doing something right. WTVR's news broadcasts were the most-watched in Central Virginia during my tenure.

In the 1960s and 70s, management mostly left our news department alone to do its own thing. In fact, there was a firewall of sorts between the news department and management/sales. The station didn't make any big profits from news. Prestige, instead, was the payoff.

That, clearly, has changed dramatically since this very day in 1977 when I got out of the business.

Nowadays, local TV newscasts -- and network newscasts, too, for that matter -- are heavily influenced by marketing and sales. Petty crime often shoots to the top of the newscast. A titillating story about a flash-in-the-pan celebrity who is famous for nothing more than being famous carries a lot of TV news weight. And video of a tool shed in flames -- if it's really good video -- can work its way to the top.

Back in the day, the possibility of a dusting of snow was covered during the weather segment. Now it's breaking news at the top of the broadcast. Even if it's only a 30 percent possibility.

I remember a seemingly endless telephone conversation with a woman who wanted us to cover an elementary-school pageant. "The children are so adorable," she kept telling me.

At the time I had three reporter/photographer crews out on the streets covering real news. My only other crew was editing a story for the next  newscast. I just couldn't spare anybody to cover her pageant.

"But you have to cover it," she told me. "It's news!"

I was fast becoming exasperated. "It's only news if I say it's news," I told her.

That's definitely an arrogant thing to say, I realized after we had hung up.

But when you come right down to it, that's why I spent four years in college and a decade in TV journalism: to know what a news story was when I saw it.

And that's why I'd have all my crews working on the story about the sun rising in the west.

But in today's TV news business, that children's pageant might still make it into the lineup.

Especially if the station were a co-sponsor of the pageant.

Heck, the pageant might even be introduced as breaking news.

Going, going, gone

For 33 years I called it home.

Now, it's somebody else's home. A family with two young children is moving in.

Closing on my house was two days ago. Today, I got the check.

I might not own a house any more, but I am now the proud owner of a big chunk of cash. That seems fair to me. In fact, considering what I paid for the house in 1980, what I got seems more than fair to me.

Now, if the furnace in the basement stops working when it's 25 degrees outside, it's somebody else's problem.

And when that LBJ bird builds a nest inside the front-porch light fixture, as she did three years in a row, somebody else can clean it out.

People have been asking me if I miss my old house. I miss the good times, but I don't miss the responsibilities of home ownership. I have a great apartment now, and I'm happy as a bug in a rug.

But I might miss that frustrated little bird.

I wish the new owners of my old house well. The house itself, built in 1928, has a great floor plan, good bones and a big back yard. I can picture a swing set under the 30-foot maple tree.

If they're lucky, the new owners will be as happy there as I was. And, perhaps, three decades from now, when their kids are all grown, they can sell it to another couple who are just starting out.

And they can add more memories to a good, solid home.

"It seemed so wrong ..."

It wasn't long before we started playing the "Where were you when ..." game.

It wasn't actually a game. It was therapeutic.

"Where were you when President Kennedy was shot?"

A couple of days ago I sent off an email to a handful of old friends and relatives.

I suppose it's saying something about the age of those in my inner circle that so many were in school.

My niece Terry was still quite young. "I was out on the playground for recess at John B. Cary Elementary School. I was 9 years old and in the 4th grade. The teacher on duty sent me into the school for another kickball. As I walked through the halls, an older student was screaming 'The President has been shot! President Kennedy has been shot!' I forgot all about that kickball ... and ran immediately back out to the teacher and told her what I heard.... She rounded up all the students and escorted us back inside the school where we spent the rest of the day watching the newscasts on TV, some of us in awe and some of us scared and crying."

Terry wasn't alone. There were grownups, too, who were scared and crying.

Terry's brother, Mike, was older. He had stayed home that Friday morning because he was sick, and his grandfather took him to the doctor's office. "We had finished at the doctor's and were going by the drugstore to pick up a prescription when we heard on the car radio that JFK had been shot." Mike was 12 years old.

My friend Walter, an Army brat, was a sophomore in high school in Atlanta. He was about to go to the auditorium for an assembly to mark the end of Democracy Week -- "I have no memory of what exactly that was about," he wrote me -- when the principal put a radio station on the PA system.

"We went to the assembly; I remember nothing of it at all, as I'll wager is true for most of the other students. At the end of the program Sister Mary Whatever, the principal, announced that he had died. We were led in a prayer or two and walked numbly back to get our coats and begin the long trip home (two city buses and about an hour).

"Downtown Atlanta was spooky, weird and quiet. Once I got home I sat, like most Americans, in front of the TV for four days."

My friend John David, with whom I worked at AFTV in Germany in the late 1960s, still stays in touch via email. We haven't seen each other since December 1969. Like Walter, he was a sophomore in high school in 1963.

"Came over the P.A. Teacher was pretty bummed. I was too young to understand the severity of this, but soon after we were all dismissed. I recall my mom and dad were not happy, but no real mourning -- we (I guess I was formative) were GOP voters, ex military dad, college grad mom. I doubt they voted for the man, and I remember being sort of bummed out with the 24x7 wall-to-wall media for a whole week."

Chuck Minx also worked with me in Germany. He taught me most of what I know about photography. I haven't seen him either since coming home, but we stay in touch. He wrote me from his home in California.

"I was in my dorm room in college and heard shouting downstairs. I found my dorm-mates in agitation in front of the TV. We as a nation used to think that this kind of thing only happened in other countries. Afterwards, we had to face the fact that we were no more stable or less volatile than anywhere else."

My friend Jill, who grew up to be a newspaper reporter and a free-lance writer and editor, was 17. She was a high school senior in Fort Meyers, Fla.

"I was ... coming out of my 5th period Spanish class and encountered my friend Marcia who told me that President Kennedy had been shot. She had been in the high school's administration office and heard the report on the radio. I headed for my next class, physical education. In the girls' locker room, I heard the announcement from the high school's principal that the President was dead. I felt numb."

As did so many of us.

"I had just been to the cinema with my father in the West End of London," wrote my most far-flung correspondent, Christine, who is now an author and indexer. She was a grownup whose memories went back to the Blitz. I thought it would be interesting to get the perspective of somebody who was not American.

"We'd been to see a Garbo film, I can't remember which one. As we were about to descend into the underground station -- I think it was Leicester Square -- we saw a newspaper [display] which announced that President Kennedy had been shot dead. Again, I don't remember the exact wording. My father and I looked at each other in shock and disbelief. Neither of us could speak."

Christine was for all the world like an American in what she was feeling and thinking 50 years ago.

"Kennedy was an unbelievably charismatic figure, the youngest US president to have been elected to office.... He seemed to emanate confidence, optimism, vigour and intelligence," she wrote. "Quite apart from politics, the Kennedys made a strikingly glamorous couple. It seemed so wrong that JFK should have been cut down at such a young age, when he still seemed to have so much to offer. We grieved for Jackie, who was by his side when he was shot. No wife should have to see her husband die in such a horrifying way."

For the record, I was in the announce booth at WTVR TV recording promotional station breaks for that night's prime time. They would never be heard on-air.

Fifty years ago we clung to each other for support. This year, we don't cling. But we do share. We survived. And we have never forgotten that day.