Author: Jodie Peeler

The things that matter most

You spend years working on a project and you learn a lot of things. There are times you look at what you’re doing as a fun challenge. Other times you look at the project as a goal to be met. Other times, you curse the day you took the project on and wonder if you’ll ever get it finished. On a handful of occasions you want to assume a new identity and pretend the project never existed.

If you’re lucky, though, the day comes when you realize the project has given you gifts beyond what you ever imagined, and you’re thankful you decided to follow the path. You get to meet some interesting people, go new places, see new things, have new experiences. If you’re lucky and if you keep the right mindset about it, the project becomes this amazing adventure. Maybe not something on the order of an Indiana Jones adventure, of course, but one that’s fun and fulfilling and exciting in its own way.

And if you’re really lucky, you make friends. I have already. It’s how I met Brandon, who has been with me on this project since long before the website began. It’s how I came to know Mitchell and Judie Hadley, and how I came to know Carol Ford and Dennis Hart and some other genuinely good people who have added so much color and fun to my life.

Sometimes, though, you can’t believe who you get to know. I’m presently working through that right now, because two weeks ago I had the privilege of spending a few days visiting Dave Garroway’s daughter Paris. She’s retired to a sunny part of the American West, and there’s lots of cool things to see and do out there. Although we’d talked on the phone every so often, we hadn’t seen each other since 2018, and it was therefore a lot of fun to have the chance to be together again.

It was a long trip there by air, and it wasn’t helped by bad weather complicating my connection at O’Hare, and then turning my connection at Denver into a sprint through a busy concourse.1 One bumpy flight over the Rockies later, I was there, and there was Paris waiting for me at the airport.

We packed a lot into our time together. There was a road trip or two, some hiking, a wine tasting, some photography in some of the most beautiful places I’ve seen in the Lower 48, some really good meals together, visits with her friends and members of her family. And, of course, we talked about her life and her memories of her dad, and we also reminisced about dear Dave Jr. What mattered most of all, though, was the time we shared talking to each other as friends. We weren’t a biographer and the daughter of the biographer’s subject. We were two women sitting on the back porch, watching the sun set while we had some good wine and listened to some fine music, talking about life and what had gotten us here and what we’d learned along the way, sharing insights and hard-earned wisdom from our lives, because both she and I have had some adventures along the way.2 There were moments when we laughed, other moments when I felt my eyes get a little damp, but all of it was good. And, too soon, it was time to come home. It was time well spent.3

All too often it’s easy to think of a book project as this clinical, self-contained thing. It’s not. If you do it properly, you are essentially absorbing another person’s life story into your own life. That’s why you have to be careful to choose someone it’s easy to live with, because the subject of that book is going to be very, very close to you for however long it takes. And, beyond that, the people who were special to that person are probably going to become names you will come to know and sometimes care about. They become part of that story within your life, too.

But if you are extraordinarily lucky, some of those people will become part of your own life, and although you met them because of their relationship to the subject of your project, the relationship you build with them becomes independent of that. That’s certainly what happened here, and that friendship is one of the true blessings of this whole project.

I have so much to be thankful to Dave Garroway for. Most of all, I’m thankful to him because through this project, so many neat people became part of my life. That’s maybe my biggest piece of advice for anyone who wants to be an author or researcher. Keep your eyes, ears and heart open, because the chances are good that this whole enterprise is going to change your life in unforeseen, and often wonderful, ways.

The hardest thing

NOTE: In this post I make mention of suicide. It is a difficult topic to write about and I realize some of you reading this may find it difficult to read about, and if it is troubling you may want to avoid this week’s post. Most importantly, if you are having thoughts of suicide, whether or not you are in crisis, there is help and there is hope. You can find help through the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Call or text 988 to get help.

You face a problem when you’re a biographer. It’s not unlike any movie you’ve ever seen that involves a dog as a major part of the story. You know how the story’s going to end, and you know it will probably break your heart. Both life stories I’ve written thus far ended abruptly. In the case of Ben Robertson, it was with a plane crash. In the case of Dave Garroway – and there’s no easy way to say this – it was suicide.

This is a hard topic to talk about, for many reasons. For some folks, it’s deeply personal. Maybe others have lost loved ones or neighbors or colleagues this way.4 In the case of Dave Garroway, it was something I knew I’d have to handle because of how I remembered the coverage of his passing in 1982. The more I learned, though, and the more I researched and the more I talked to people in the know, I found that it was nothing new in his life, and that it had been something on his mind for a long time before he finally did it. (Depression sucks, and depression can indeed kill.)

But even though it’s a horrible thing to talk about, I’m doing no one a service if I avoid the topic. My job is to report the bad alongside the good and great, not to burnish an image, because that’s public relations and not biography. My problem then becomes, how do I tell it? The way he went was not gentle, but I have to find a way to tell it without getting lurid.5 I also have an obligation to the Garroway family to treat it with sensitivity. The event was traumatic enough; the last thing I needed was to even accidentally inflict new trauma in the retelling.

I knew what the newspaper stories said about his last observed moments. But I had nothing in between the time his wife left the house to go to an appointment, and the discovery of his body. In my first draft, I wrote what seemed plausible as a sequence of events leading up to that last second, and I tried to write it with as much discretion as I could, because the reader could piece things together. But it just didn’t feel right somehow. Then, as will happen, I made a discovery that changed things.

One of my long-standing interests is aviation history and accident investigation. One specific long-standing interest is the crash of American Airlines Flight 191 in May 1979. It’s the first aviation disaster I remember in detail, and even though I was a child when it happened I was fascinated by the story and have been since.6

The Flight 191 disaster was especially painful for the staff of Playboy magazine, because four people affiliated with the magazine were killed in the crash. Out of the grief came an assignment to writer Laurence Gonzales to conduct an in-depth investigation of aviation safety in the United States. In June 1980, Playboy published the first part of Gonzales’ two-part investigation. All these years later, it remains deep and bracing reading, and I regret that it’s paywalled and hard to access, because it’s seriously good investigative reporting that is written so well.7

Gonzales was out there among the cops and firefighters and reporters and everyone else on the scene that horrible afternoon, and three months later he came back out to survey the scene once more. He began his report with a description of the scene three months post-crash, and made mention of strands of white electrical wire that still stuck through the mud in this field where nothing could grow.

As the first installment concluded, he briefly described a visit to the McDonnell Douglas factory in Long Beach, where DC-10s were being manufactured. He noticed the wire harnesses, with hundreds of miles of electrical wire in each aircraft, and felt there was something eerie about it. Then he realized why. The first installment thus ended with a callback to all those strands of wire still sticking out of the mud near O’Hare.8

And it’s from Gonzales that I got the idea of how to handle Dave Garroway’s final moments. When you read the book, you’ll recognize a similar callback. It allowed me to handle a horrible moment with, I hope, the best available sensitivity.

For that, I must credit Laurence Gonzales. Thank you, sir, for helping me get better at what I do. I’d like to shake your hand.

Happy birthday, Dave! (And happy birthday, us!)

Happy birthday to Dave Garroway (he’d be 110 today, you know!) – and happy birthday to our website, too. Six years ago today we went live with this ongoing tribute to our Dave, and the book was but an aspiration. Six years later, the book is now an actual thing that you can buy (and if you haven’t…well, what’s keeping you? Hmmm? C’mon…you know you want it!).

In these six years we’ve chronicled a good bit of Garroway lore and made several friends, some of whom provided important insights and materials for Peace. There have been times I wished the book could have been out years before, but if that had happened, we would have missed out on several discoveries that made the book that much better. Sometimes a project knows its own timing better than we do, and we have to take a step back and let things unfold at their own pace, and a miracle happens. That certainly happened here.

Right now I can’t tell you what’s to come in the ongoing story of the Dave Garroway story, and that’s because the project has yet to decide where it wants to go next. There could be follow-on projects, perhaps, if the opportunities present themselves. I’ve ruled nothing out. For now, it feels like enough of a victory to finally have the book out there. I thank all of you who have bought it and read it, and I hope you’ll spread the word.

— And word is getting out. My employer issued a nice press release about the book a few weeks ago, and a local radio station had me in for a brief interview about it, which I enjoyed because it was a chance to be in a good old-fashioned radio studio for the first time in forever. Earlier this week I gave an online presentation to a local group, and that was a lot of fun. I am hoping more opportunities to speak are to come (and if you’re interested in having me speak, drop me a note through the contact form).

Not to mention, this very, very kind review was published last week. I’ve known this writer for years and have high regard for his work, both in newspapering and in his own books, and I’m still floored that he wrote so kindly about something I had a hand in creating. Wow.

“All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories”

One of the pleasures of this historical expedition of ours has been meeting some kind people who are doing some neat things of their own. One such example arrived in the inbox a week or so back, and I’m happy to share with you here.

All Bones Considered is a podcast that tells the stories of people whose resting place is in the Laurel Hill Cemeteries near Philadelphia. As you may remember if you’re a careful reader of what we do here, two people very special to us were interred there: our Dave, along with his wife Sarah Lee Lippincott. And, as it happens, there are episodes that tell the story of our Dave and his Sarah. You can find the episode about Dave Garroway here, and the episode about Sarah Lee Lippincott is brand new and is here.

Now, I might be tempted to post the start times for their segments, but I want to encourage you to listen to the whole thing and not scrub past the other fascinating stories. It’s a very peaceful and interesting podcast, and I think you’ll enjoy it a lot, so go check it out. It’s worth it.

(And in the interest of full disclosure: Joe Lex, the host and driving force behind All Bones Considered, used material from this blog in the creation of the segment about Sarah Lee Lippincott. The use was with my blessing, and it’s a treat to hear some of my words spoken in a rich, soothing voice as part of the podcast. Thank you, Joe!)

Coming to a bookshelf near you….

(UPDATE: Here’s a link to buy a copy!)

Last week the post office had a very heavy box for me to pick up. You’ll never guess what was inside.

There were twelve books in there. (I know – you’re seeing eight.) One was a blooper (my jacket and cover, but someone else’s pages in it9 – but it’s being replaced). Two immediately went out in the same morning’s mail, one to Brandon and one to Dave’s daughter. Most of the rest of these went out over coming days – two to folks who lent me photos, the remainder to people who were helpful in various ways.10 I have another box of books on the way, and most of those are earmarked for other folks who were helpful.

I have enabled the book for distribution, which means over the coming days and/or weeks IngramSpark will disseminate the data to the various book exchanges and you’ll be able to order a copy through your preferred bookseller. I am also in the process of setting up a Bookshop affiliate account, and will provide a link for you to order the book through that link.11

(Ed. note: Here’s a link that will do for the time being.)

I also plan to order a supply of books to keep on hand here, which I will need for readings and what not, and I’ll find a way to offer them through this site if you want a signed copy. I have to anticipate these things because it usually takes two weeks from order to delivery12, and since a case of books involves a certain amount of money, I have to plan ahead. But I’ll make it work out.

As you can see, it’s not a small book. But I think you’ll find it worth the cover price when you have it in your hands. Stay tuned – you’ll soon be able to do just that.

Pre-flight checks

There come times when you have to make big decisions. A few weeks ago, I made one. For a variety of factors, a deal I thought I’d made to get the book published wasn’t progressing as I’d hoped. I’ll spare details on this, but some thoughts came to mind, and they were provoked by people I admire.

The first was from the subject of my previous book, who had struggled to get his first novel published. One night, talking about the frustrations he’d suffered, he suddenly had an inspiration: “Hellfire, we’ll publish it ourselves.” And so he did, raising some money and getting it privately printed.13

I also thought of an observation Natalie Merchant14 made in a recent interview. When she went solo she could have become a big-time pop star, but that’s not what she wanted. What mattered to her was doing the work she wanted to do, and doing it her way. One of her projects15 took a long time and required her to spend a massive amount of her own money, which took her nearly a decade to recoup. But it mattered that much to her to stay true to her vision, so she took charge, spent the money and did the hard work, and has never regretted it.

That kind of thing chewed at me as I thought about Peace. I’ve spent this long working on the book, rounding material up, doing all the things one must do in order to write a biography. I’ve been through it before, how it feels to turn over the product of a very intimate and personal process to a publisher, who will then turn it over to people you don’t know and who don’t know you, and then your work becomes subject to their vision. I had a vision of how I wanted Peace to look, how I wanted the cover to look, how I wanted the interior to look. I couldn’t be guaranteed of that if I went with an outside publisher. I wouldn’t have the control I wanted. I knew what I wanted, I knew how I wanted it to look, and I didn’t want to sacrifice that. This had to be done my way.

As it happened, I had the tools and know-how already. I have InDesign and Photoshop and Illustrator. I have close to 35 years of experience with document layout and design. I’ve got more than two decades’ experience with Photoshop and Illustrator. Why not see what I could do? One long weekend16, that’s what I did. I had Brandon give the text a very careful read, and he caught a lot of things that got past me and made the whole thing much stronger.

A scene I know very, very well. But it’s an amazing tool.

The other bonus is that it’s really easy to self-publish these days, especially if you can supply press-ready PDFs. And, as it happened, that’s what I know how to do, and IngramSpark could do the rest. And, last Friday, the result came in the mail:

And here it is, almost ready for your shelves.

Mind you, this is the printed proof. The moment you send something off, you find a whole lot of things got past you, and I have spent the last several days fixing those last little things. Some of them were fairly important, and others of them were tiny. I knew, though, if I didn’t fix them I would kick myself every time I saw them. As the great Dan Gurney once observed, “If you have the chance to make something beautiful, and you don’t…well, what does that say about you?”

Even then, even with all its imperfections, I was impressed by how it looks. It’s a solid book. The dust jacket is even more gorgeous than I imagined it would be. The paper inside is bright and opaque. The binding and cover feel nice and solid. This book looks and feels the way I hoped it would, and I am happy with it. It’s not the deal I would have gotten had I been able to interest a big-name publisher, but I’ve more than made that up by the fact that I have been able to this my way and make the book, in appearance and in substance, the way I wanted it to be.

The final revisions will be sent to Ingram in the next few hours. Once that file is properly in place and I’ve approved the e-proof, expect the book to go on sale really soon after. You’ll be able to get your local bookstore to order it in, and I’ll also be setting up a link here for you to buy it through this website.17 There’s also a chance I may have a limited supply of signed copies later on, too.

Stay tuned. It’s almost here, at long and blessed last.

Remembering Barbara Walters

A post I regret needing to make: Barbara Walters has died at age 93. I can’t say I’m surprised, as I knew she was not in the best of health, but it doesn’t make the news any less of a punch to the gut. There’s no way to calculate what women in journalism, and women in broadcasting, owe her. It’s better for others to cover that ground, as they will, and so I shall leave that to others better qualified than I am.18

Instead, it’s worth remembering that someone who helped her get her career started was Dave Garroway. It was while he was host of Today that she was hired as a writer, and she spoke often of how important that was in helping her get her start.19 As part of this hastily-assembled memorial post, here’s a clip in which she talks about Dave Garroway, what she remembered about him, and what made him special.

An evening with Santa Dave

A few years back I wrote about the 1954 and 1955 productions of “Babes in Toyland,” staged by Max Liebman with an all-star cast that, not incidentally, included our own Dave Garroway. In the spirit of the season, a kind soul has posted the 1954 production, and I present the link for your enjoyment. Be sure to catch all the inside jokes in Santa Dave’s conversations with his young friend (not to mention the “sweater girl” comment that was axed from the 1955 production after being criticized as too racy for young ears).

From all of us here, whatever you celebrate or observe, may it be wonderful, and may it be filled with…peace.

Time machines and buried ledes

It’s been busier than I’d like of late, and that’s where I’ve been. On the other hand, it means a lot of cool stuff has accumulated. Let’s begin with this image, which is from a large-format negative I recently acquired. It’s from December 7, 1954, and Dave’s expression captures what I’ve spent a lot of time feeling because of work.

Next up, check out this really cool interview with my friend (and collaborator) Brandon Hollingsworth on my friend Mitchell Hadley’s It’s About TV. The topic isn’t Garroway, but Brandon is always worth listening to and Mitchell’s blog is always worth reading.

Now let’s take a trip back in time: it’s 1958, and here’s a brief glimpse at the RCA Exhibition Hall. No glimpse of the Today set in its final months, alas, but it’s the Exhibition Hall and that’s worth checking out any time.

Finally, here’s a chance to see just how well I can bury a lede: at this link, you can get a glimpse of the image that will be on the cover of Peace: The Wide, Wide World of Dave Garroway, Television’s Original Master Communicator. (It’s also a chance for me to say that working with the estate of Raimondo Borea, and with Jon Gartenberg, could not have gone better or happier, and I gladly recommend both to you.)