More Than A Day Away By Mike Steely
I’ve covered a lot of stories in my many years as a reporter. Some stories were published, and some were never shared because the facts were too unbelievable. I’d like to share (and, in some cases, reshare) a few with you.
The One-Hundred Dollar Cube
When I was bureau chief for a large East Tennessee newspaper, I was interviewing a local attorney about a trial I was following. During our chat, he told me a story I did not write about at the time. A true tale, but one that led me to decide, although I had been a pre-law student, that I didn’t want to be an attorney. “Bureau chief” means simply that I was the only daily reporter in the town covering three counties.
The lawyer said he was defending a client accused of theft. While the person was talking to the lawyer in the attorney’s office, the lawyer was called out briefly by his secretary. When he returned, he concluded his talk with his client. Sometime after the client left, the attorney discovered that something on his desk was missing.
Missing from the desk was a transparent sealed cube that was labeled “One Hundred Dollars.” A stack of one-dollar bills was visible in the clear Lucite container.
The lawyer knew no one except the client had been in the office. He called the police, and the client was arrested and the cube returned. The odd thing about the $100 cube, the attorney told me, is that it only had two one-dollar bills, one on top and one on the bottom. Everything between that looked like the edge of the other bills was simply paper.
That tale, by itself, would be enough for a memory, but what topped it off for me is that the attorney defended his client on the original theft charge and then charged his client with the theft of $100, because that’s what the thief thought he stole.
The Long-Haired Suspect
In the same time period, the son of a local business owner was arrested for selling drugs. The long-haired and bearded young man was jailed, and a trial date was set. His father hired an out-of-area attorney, and when the young man came to trial, he was clean-shaven, in a suit, and had short hair.
During the trial, the defense attorney was questioning the female undercover agent who had arrested the suspect. He asked for a description of the young man when he was arrested. As she described the long-haired suspect, the doors of the courtroom opened, and all eyes turned as a young man with long hair and a beard entered and sat in the last row.
The defense attorney asked the undercover agent if anyone in the courtroom answered the description she gave. The fellow in the back row stood up, although the officer pointed to the clean-shaven defendant.
The clean-shaven young man was found not guilty by the local jury.
The Bootlegger Winked At Me
I got a call one afternoon that a raid on a local bootlegger was going to be held, and I was invited to tag along. I was running a weekly newspaper in the small town at the time and knew the police chief well. He sometimes tipped me off on incidents, including one unfortunate hanging by an inmate in the city jail. I went down and took photos of the very dead young man still hanging from an upper bunk and then gave the chief the roll of film.
The state and local policemen were assembled at the city hall, and I followed the police cars to the bootlegger’s house. I didn’t realize until I got there that the bootlegging raid was taking place at the home of one of my distant relatives.
The older man, whom I’ll refer to as “Uncle” because he was an uncle of my mom, met the lawmen at his house and invited them in. For several minutes, the police looked through his small home and found nothing.
As they left, my “Uncle” winked at me.
About a week later, I had a cousin visiting from Florida who wanted some moonshine. I called my “Uncle,” and he said come on over.
We arrived, and he brought us a mason jar of moonshine for a few dollars. I recall asking him how he knew the police were coming, and he said he always knows. Obviously, he had friends in the police department.
Grocery Store Owner Gets Married
There was a large supermarket just outside the Kentucky county seat where I was working as advertising manager for the local weekly newspaper. Each week I’d drive out to the supermarket to pick up the information for his advertisement.
Often he would ask me to take my car and drive him down past his main competitor, where he would look at the window ads, copy the products and prices, and then designate what he wanted in his ad. That way, he constantly undercut the prices that the other store had posted.
The supermarket manager called me one day and asked me to please not run his name in the public records section of the paper. Seems that he and his long-time girlfriend, whom everyone had assumed was his wife, had only recently wed.
The wedding announcements were public records, as were criminal, court and property records. He begged me not to include his wedding in the paper. I spoke with the editor and was told we could not withhold the information and would publish it.
I told him most people didn’t read that portion of the paper, but he said that if we ran it, he would cancel his ad. We did, and he did. In a few weeks, he came back to advertise and never mentioned the event again.
The Upside-Down Ad
I once had a new business that wanted to advertise, and I met with the owner, designed the ad, and showed him what I had put together. He wanted a full page and for it to appear on the back page of the paper. He had one other stipulation; it had to run UPSIDE DOWN.
He thought it might get more attention. We had a verbal agreement, and I agreed to bill him for the ad and the special attention he requested.
A week later, he called complaining that the ad wasn’t working and he had few customers. I tried to tell him that advertising only once probably won’t draw much attention. He didn’t listen and wasn’t going to pay for the advertisement.
A couple of months later, we took him to court, and he told the judge the ad didn’t work and he wasn’t going to pay for it. The judge asked him if everything in the ad had been approved by him, including running it upside down, and the man said, “Yes.”
The judge told the store owner to pay the bill. He never did.
On a personal note:
Lessons learned over 79 years
I’ll turn 79 years old the day after Christmas. I don’t always follow what I’ve learned during all these years, but I know better.
Here are a few things I’ve learned over the years:
– If it works, don’t fix it.
– Good enough is ok.
– Old friends are best, they already know your faults.
– Your children are always your kids, no matter their age.
– Our home is always welcome to our family.
– Honor your job, do the best you can.
– Be as truthful as you can, but fudge a bit.
– Driving gets harder as your judgment fades.
– The shortcut is not always the way to go.
– Treasure what works best, nurse what doesn’t.
– Delaying something usually makes it worse.
– Hugs are good, comforting things.
– Channel your anger into something else.
– Try to report the facts, not your opinion.
– Listen to critical remarks.
– Be faithful and hold your tongue.
