Journeys (sentimental and otherwise) – Page 2

Convention report (2018 edition)

As I began writing this, I’d been home for less than a day’s span. The sun is coming through the back windows. I was home Monday because the college cancelled classes as a precaution, but there’s barely any trace of the big storm that created havoc elsewhere, and that played a role in the tale I’m about to share. It was an interesting trip, and I got much more than I expected.

Last Wednesday morning I started out on the long drive north. Timing was with me because I was going to be well north of Florence by the time things started to happen. Aside from a lot of road construction around Charlotte gumming things up, there wasn’t a lot to complicate the journey. It was just hours and hours of long stretches of road grinding away at me. I took it in longer stretches than I probably should have. I also probably should have taken care to eat better and stay better hydrated (that’s a casualty of my tendency to minimize my stops en route). This bit me in a rather amusing fashion when I missed a crucial turn in West Virginia and ended up a mile away from where I needed to be, and I realized I was getting hangry. A quick stop for a snack helped take care of that. Soon Frederick, Maryland came into range, and from there a drive east to the loop around Baltimore, and then the last leg up 83 to Hunt Valley. I pulled in at the hotel right at 7 that night.

Tired but grateful, I dragged myself into the lobby and waited for a clerk. There were two meetings going on at the same time, and with such a large hotel there would be people needing problems solved. It took about ten minutes but I finally got checked in. I pulled the car around the back of the hotel near my room, unpacked everything and went on up.

After a few moments to decompress after the drive I contacted Kevin, my co-presenter, and asked him to meet me in the bar downstairs. I went down and snagged a table, using a few moments to catch up on work tasks. Finally Kevin arrived and we spent a few moments talking about our respective travels to the convention. Over a quick dinner we reviewed the next day’s slideshow, then with that done we talked shop for a while. Time was creeping up and I was starting to hit the wall, but before heading off for the night I showed Kevin where the room was that we’d speak the next morning. Then I went back to my room, up the stairs and down the series of hallways and corridors I’d traverse countless times the next two days or so, and conked out for the night.

The next morning I was up too early, my body still operating on work time. During the wait I ran through the slideshow, rehearsed my comments and timed my presentation. Everything seemed good, and for as much as my tendency to overprepare can complicate my life, it does make things much easier when you have to perform. A little before 8:30 I arrived in the lobby and Kevin was there waiting…complete with his Dave Garroway glasses and a bow tie. We went into the seminar room and started getting set up, and talked with the very helpful staff members who were helping out. I ran through the slideshow to make sure everything would work as intended (it did, thankfully), and then it was just waiting for the big hand on the clock to go straight up. While we waited people started to come in. Among them were Mitchell and Judie Hadley, who came up to the table to see us. That was the first of many, many conversations we’d have the next two days.

Finally it was 9 a.m. Time to make the doughnuts. And after all the preparation…it was almost anti-climactic, because things just worked. But that’s why you practice. I handed the floor over to Kevin for his portion and that ran quickly, and before we knew it the hour was up. All the work we’d put into all of this was now history. We didn’t have a packed hall (it was the first seminar on the first day, after all, so you had to want to be there) but we had a decent turnout and good response from those who were there, and through the convention both Kevin and I had people come up to us and compliment us on the program.

With that weight off my shoulders, I headed back to the room to change clothes and drop off the presentation equipment. While I was away, housekeeping had come in, left some replacement towels, made up my bed, carefully folded a couple of shirts I’d left on the bed, and neatly placed my toiletries on a folded towel by the bathroom sink. It was an unexpected and pleasant little touch.

Back downstairs I went for a quick sweep of the vendor offerings before the next seminar I wanted to attend. That one was at 11, and was presented by Mitchell Hadley. His seminar was about how a close look at TV Guide through the years will give you a window into what America was like at any given moment, and in some instances you find out…well, the more things change, the more they stay the same. It was like one of his posts on It’s About TV, but even better in person. I stuck around for the seminar immediately after, which looked at The Andy Griffith Show. Since I’m a Southern girl who just about grew up in Mayberry, and grew up watching Andy Griffith, that one was not a optional seminar for me.

After a quick lunch I returned to the vendor room to introduce Kevin to some folks and show him a Jack Paar item I’d found. We looked around the various tables full of wares (and there were many). Then I was able to introduce him to my friend Carol Ford, who was again promoting her magnificent book on Bob Crane, and who had given me so much advice last year. Kevin and Carol quickly discovered they didn’t live far from one another, and they hit it off. It reminded me again why I go to these things: it isn’t the stuff you can buy, but the people you can meet and the friends you get to see again. And speaking of friends, I spent a lot of time both days hanging out with Mitchell and Judie, who were selling Mitchell’s books (his two novels and his latest book, The Electronic Mirror). Sometimes the conversation was deep, often it was hilarious, but all of it was good.

Be that as it may, I did find a few things to bring home. Most of it involved books or magazines, including a TV Guide with Dave Garroway on the cover. I also stumbled across a gentleman selling off a massive collection of soundtrack LPs. There were a couple I had to get because they’re favorite movies (The Bridge on the River Kwai, Grand Prix – and even though I have the much-expanded Grand Prix soundtrack on CD, the album has a spectacular cover that for such a low price I was not passing up). But when you find something like this, there’s no way you can pass that up.

Howard Hesseman, Jan Smithers, and moderator Leah Biel.

That afternoon I attended the WKRP reunion. To be there on time, I came in as the previous panel – featuring several stars, including Morgan Fairchild and Ed Begley, Jr. – was wrapping up. Then the WKRP folks came in. It was only Howard Hesseman and Jan Smithers; Tim Reid was delayed en route, and Loni Anderson had cancelled (but I don’t think anyone held it against her, for obvious reasons). It was a fun seminar – Hesseman is a hoot to begin with, and Smithers is delightful, and it’s obvious the affection the cast members have for one another to this day, and that they regarded working on WKRP as a truly great experience.

Once that was done, Kevin and I thought about getting something to eat. It was a little too late to go anywhere, so we thought about returning to the hotel bar…only to see it absolutely packed. (At the table closest to the entrance, who should we see but Robert Wagner and his party. I didn’t look to see if he was dining on mutated ill-tempered sea bass.) Since it was so late and I was tired, I told Kevin we’d just do a rain check on dinner, and we parted ways for the night. I stopped by the ever-handy vending machines on the way back to the room.

The next morning I enjoyed the feeling of not having to give a seminar and went downstairs at my own leisure. I wanted to catch Rick Goldschmidt‘s seminar about Rankin-Bass, and it was a good seminar. I looked around but didn’t see Kevin anywhere. This was answered when I went out for lunch and checked my voicemail: he wasn’t feeling well and was going to rest for a while. (Later that afternoon I heard from him; he was feeling better, and had gone to a few more events.) But with my supply of cash dwindling and having scoured almost all the vendor tables, I was running out of things to do. I spent a good bit of time again at the Hadleys’ table visiting with them, having this fun, wide-ranging conversation that covered so many different things. Then one last sweep of the vendor room, and that was pretty much it for me.

Now, against all of this Hurricane Florence was playing out, and it was in the back of my mind the whole time. I was constantly watching the forecast updates. I’d planned to spend all of Saturday driving home so I could have Sunday to rest before going back to work Monday. But it started to look like my part of the world was going to get hammered. And word came that work had been cancelled for Monday. I began thinking it would be prudent to spend Saturday night somewhere north of the bad weather. So I quickly redeemed some loyalty points for a room a few miles north of the North Carolina border. This would help split the drive home but still keep me away from anything serious.

But, of course, this meant I had to figure out what to do Saturday. As it happened, there was much to choose from, and I decided to fulfill a promise I’d made to myself long ago. I spent the morning at the National Air and Space Museum’s annex next to Dulles International Airport. Suffice to say that for someone who loves just about anything related to aviation and spaceflight, the place is pure catnip. I was there when the exhibits opened for the day, and for me the most powerful moment came right when the exhibits opened. While just about everybody else was milling around or entranced by the SR-71, I made a beeline straight for the Space Hangar. This gave me probably ten minutes alone with the Space Shuttle Discovery. The last time I’d seen Discovery was ten years ago, when it was lifting off for the International Space Station. Now it was just the two of us, alone and up close. It was profound. Of course, there was so much else to see, and so many pictures to take, and I’m surprised the camera on my phone survived, but it did.

A perfect way to spend a Saturday morning.

Then it was on to the stop for the night. The weather was reasonably decent, with a few instances of rain (but nothing too heavy) along the way. In late afternoon I reached my overnight stop. I checked in and found to my surprise I’d been given a large and nicely-appointed room. Across the highway was a little family-owned Italian restaurant. I’d been eating out of vending machines the last few days and was pretty much famished, so I made a beeline for the Italian joint. Suffice to say that what ensued was pure bliss. Back in my room, I took a nice long bath and spent the evening watching football games and eating the other half of my pizza. Or, I should say, “trying to watch football games.” After a certain point the signal kept going out. I looked out the window and saw driving rain, almost horizontal, pelting everything. I’d gotten back just in time. I was in a big hotel room, warm and dry and with a full belly, with nothing to do but relax. It was just this side of perfect.

After a good night’s sleep, I bundled everything up, loaded up the car, and drove the rest of the way home. Most of the trip was routine. The only really sporty section of it was around Charlotte, where the rain got kind of heavy. But in time, we got through it. And, finally, I was home. To my relief, we’d been spared anything other than a little wind and some rain. My adventure was over, and two affection-starved cats were dueling for my lap.

Some of my finds. See if you can go to this thing and not buy stuff. I dare you.

It was an adventure – this year, more than I bargained for. But it was a lot of fun. I’m already looking forward to next year.

Live from Hunt Valley (2018 edition)

Hello from the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention in beautiful Hunt Valley, Maryland. The Garroway at Large delegation (me) arrived safely last night after what seemed like a long and arduous journey of 18,132 nautical miles and a little adventurous weather along the way. But we navigated it just fine. Last night I met up with Kevin Doherty, my co-presenter, and we discussed last details.

This morning we gave our presentation. It was nicely attended (you can’t ask too much at nine in the morning, but we drew a decent crowd regardless), and they were engaged and when they laughed, it was for the reasons we’d wanted them to laugh. Throughout the day it’s been nice to be stopped by folks who said they enjoyed the presentation, or to ask questions, or that kind of thing. There’s a satisfaction not only in having the thing in the books, but in knowing the job was done well.

With the presentation done first thing and the pressure off, it means I can use the rest of my time here to attend other seminars, browse the vendor rooms, and – best of all – meet up with friends. Mitchell and Judie Hadley are here, and they are as much fun to be with as I remember. Mitchell gave an outstanding presentation about TV Guide this morning, and is selling copies of his wonderful new book here at the show. Speaking of wonderful, the wonderful Carol Ford is again here, too, and it was delightful not only to meet up with her again but to introduce Kevin to her. Kevin has been making new friends and building valuable connections for his own project, and it’s been fun showing a first-time attendee around.

I’ve been sort of frugal in the vendor room. My top-dollar purchases have been books, because you never have enough of those. Most of the rest have been little items, typically no more than $10 each; stuff like soundtrack LPs (Victory at Sea in Jazz was something I just couldn’t pass up) and odd paper ephemera. But I did find a nice copy of a TV Guide I just wrote about the other day, and when I’m back home maybe I’ll show you something more vivid than the murky microfilm scan I presented earlier.

I’ll be back downstairs in a little bit (no way I’m missing the WKRP reunion presentation), but I did want to share an update. I’m here one more day, and then headed back home early Saturday morning. Once I’m back home, expect an update in full, including some photos, perhaps. Stay tuned!

Lost in the stacks

The latest research-related trip is now in the books. It wasn’t as ambitious as last year’s Wisconsin adventure, but it was valuable just the same, and yielded some pieces that will fill in some blanks (and provide the basis for an upcoming post or two that you may enjoy). And when I was in my room for the night, the time I might otherwise spend watching television was instead spent going through a couple more months in the ongoing search through Newspapers.com. It’s tedious work, capturing articles and logging them in the notebook I keep for such things, but it needs to get done.

As does the daily work of adding to the manuscript, which got done even on the road. It’s now been worked on in three states. By the time this project is finished, I wonder how many different locations I’ll have written it in. All I can say is that laptop computers are splendid things for writers.

Yesterday morning as I was scouring the stacks at a large university library, I was reminded again that the real fun in the process is in the discovery. It’s a feeling I’ve had any time I am lost in the stacks, and especially when the stacks are deep and the library is quiet. Before you and around you are what seem like miles of bound volumes, millions of pages from the past, and you can’t even begin to wonder what stories lie between those covers and what knowledge lies there waiting for somebody’s mind. To think about that vastness is to instantly boggle yourself. There’s just so much there in wait. And it’s yours, if you want it. All you have to do is reach out and take down a volume or two and sit at a table, and take it in. Voices of those long gone still carry on. Minds long dormant come back to life. Eras leap out of history books and sing electric, bringing you along for the ride.

Libraries are treasures. A good library needs to be cherished. It’s why I have what borders on an emotional reaction when I’m in a big library that keeps so much available, that’s held out against the ongoing movement to move material off-site or, worse, gut the holdings. Three libraries close to my life – one of them at my undergraduate institution, one at my graduate institution, stacks where I spent many an hour back in the day; the other at the institution where I now work – have had this happen. Now research at my grad school’s library is a complicated process that requires me to request material in advance, because material I once could go down to the stacks and get now needs to be brought over from an off-site storage facility. (But, hey, you can now get an expensive cup of trendy coffee at the big coffee shop on the main floor.) The other libraries? They are shadows of what they once were, and I can’t think about them too much lest I weep.

I love a good library. I worry about what’s going to become of them. I wonder how much longer I’ll be able to find a library like the one I was in yesterday, where I can go into these huge, endless stacks and feel lost in the most wonderful way possible. It’s so much of what drew me into the historian’s trade, and a feeling I can’t get enough of. I hope it’s a feeling that future generations will get to experience, too. But my fear is that feeling may itself become a part of history.

I sure do hope I’m wrong.

Inside the historian’s craft

I’m not sure how many of you reading this have ever tried to write anything of significant length, let alone anything like a book. What’s it like to write one? My first inclination if you ask that question is to recommend you see a doctor, or at least lie down until the urge to write a book passes. But if you really want to know what it’s like, let me see if I can provide some insight from my own experiences writing about history and the people who made it.

First off, do you need any specialized training? Not necessarily. Some people benefit from a degree program or courses in writing history. But I’ve read some really well-done pieces of history written by people who had no formal training in the historian’s trade, and in some cases they didn’t have a degree. By the time I got into a degree program, all it did was help me refine what I’d learned from years of reading the works of historians I admired. If you look at what the pros do and learn from their methods, that’s an education in itself.

Before any of it begins, you have to figure out if your subject is something you can live with for a long time. You may not realize it, but the subject, be it a person or something else, will become your constant companion in a way you may not appreciate at first. It’ll happen not just in the interviews you conduct or the research you do through old newspaper files or in archives, but in the quiet moments. You’ll be driving somewhere, for instance, or out mowing the yard, and in those moments when your brain is sort of freewheeling you’ll catch yourself thinking about your subject, fitting together the pieces in your head or making sense of something. I drove to the supermarket a couple hours ago and, sure enough, at some point came thoughts of the writing I was doing earlier this morning about Garroway’s role during the run-up to the first Today program.

That’s why your choice of subject has to be done with care. In a sense, you’re adopting a new friend or family member for the next few months or years. Is it a good fit for you? There are stories of biographers who get all excited about the subject of their next work, only to get 50 or 100 pages in and realize they can’t stand the person they’re writing about. You’re talking about a major investment of your time, money and effort into a project, so why make it something you’ll dread?

In my own case I’ve written one biography already and am currently working on this one, and in both instances I’ve been fortunate to discover subjects who have worn easily and with whom I have shared some common elements. Ben Robertson was a fellow South Carolinian who had a hundred interests and whose circle included several people with whom I was already familiar, notably Ed Murrow. The more I got into his work, the more I felt I understood him, and it became easy for me to explain him. As for Dave Garroway, my almost-lifelong fascination with him has driven me to find out more about him, to go past the droll figure you see in the kinescopes and try to find the man himself. I have found things that are disturbing, certainly, and other things that made me sad. But I have also found a man of a hundred interests, a man with whom I would love to have had a conversation, and a man who was something other than what some of the cartoonish accounts would have you believe. And, again, the more I get into his story, the more I feel I understand him somehow.

Now that you have a topic…is there material? Google may well be your first friend, or even Wikipedia (although, as always, use that with caution). If you find an article on your subject, look at the endnotes. Sometimes a source note will tip you off about the availability of archives, or where that person’s papers might be. For Garroway I not only located two archives that had some of his papers (both of which had versions of his uncompleted autobiography project), but I also happened across the NBC papers at Wisconsin, which are vital.

If you’re fortunate, you can find some people to interview. With this I’ve had only limited success. Many people who worked with Garroway are now gone. Others may not want to talk (I’ve thus far had no success making contact with his family, for instance). But some television pioneers have given extensive interviews. The most notable (and valuable in my case) has been the Archive of American Television. I’ve located close to a dozen interviews with people who knew Garroway and worked with him, and they lend priceless insight into the man.

Another resource that’s been invaluable has been online newspaper databases and publication collections. This includes free resources like Google Newspapers and paid databases such as Newspapers.com. In those you can find all manner of items large and small, from obituaries and news stories to daily television listings, and everything in between. Even the gossip columns are useful, even if they’re not quite reliable, because you can get a feel for the moment. As always, you must treat newspapers as the rough first draft of history, but with care you can find items you wouldn’t find anywhere else, and sometimes you’ll find a key piece of evidence to debunk a myth or two.

If you have a good library nearby, spend some time there. Even a local library will have a few books that will provide some information on your subject area, and larger libraries may have periodicals that go back a ways. A large university library is a potential gold mine. With many libraries freeing up space by moving some material to off-site storage, this may require some advance coordination. But libraries have helped me find many articles, some of them obscure, that have lent a ton of insight.

The most expensive option is to buy whatever materials you can find – books, recordings, old magazines, artifacts, and so forth. Used copies of books can be had fairly inexpensively (unless it’s something truly rare). And even eBay can surprise you, not only with books and magazines and wire service photos, but occasionally there’s a true surprise or two (for instance, it’s how I found my “11:60 Club” membership card, along with four letters Garroway sent the fan whose name was on the card).

Once you’ve gathered your material, what do you do? To some extent, you have to sift through it and let things ferment. You also have to make sure you understand the documents and fill in the information you need to understand the information in context – in context of the times, in context of the larger picture. For instance, you can’t really write about Today unless you understand something about how television programming worked in the immediate postwar era, or unless you understand about Pat Weaver’s concept of “Operation Frontal Lobes,” or so forth. The same is true for personal matters; to write about Dave’s mental health struggles, you have to make sure you’ve sought good sources to help you understand depression and addiction and so forth. You have to be careful to let the information help you build a conclusion, not start with your conclusion and work backwards from there. You’re writing a history, not a tract.

And then at some point, you have to get started. I have found the best thing to do is take the task in bite-size servings. For instance, I’ve set myself a goal of writing about 200 words each day. Each day I’ll choose a document or two from the files, read through it, and try to write something from that. I then place that day’s writing into an appropriate point in the narrative. If you do 200 words a day, after 30 days you’ve written 6000 words. I’ll let you do the math, but you can see how it adds up.

(Note that the above paragraph does not really apply if you’re on a tight deadline. In that case, my approach is “type up all your notes as quickly as possible, cut-and-paste them into order, and then write the connecting words you need to string them together.” That’s how I wrote a doctoral dissertation in a big hurry when I was told “your next job depends on defending by X date” and “your committee chairman is about to retire and really wants to finish this up.” Deadlines are incredible motivators.)

Now, how much to write? That’ll vary depending on your subject and how much information you can get, but you also have to remember that not everything you come across needs to be in the book. It’s better to overwrite and edit things out than end up with a manuscript that’s too brief. For the Garroway book I’m looking at the 85,000-word range: long enough to provide a detailed portrait, but not so long that it overstays its welcome.

When you get your first draft done, it will need review. What works for me after the first couple of on-screen reviews is to get a paper copy of the manuscript (I send out for this, since paper and ink cartridges can get pricey) and then mark it up with a pencil. There’s something about a physical copy of the manuscript that gives me a different perspective, and lets me find little things I missed the first few times around.

Having a good editorial assistant is important. (Photo by the author)

After that initial revision, it’s important to get some outside views. If you have a couple people you really trust, let them look through it. You don’t want people who will automatically say “oh, that’s great!” – you want somebody who will look at it impartially, who will not be afraid to call out inconsistencies or errors or other areas where you fell a little short. Remember, the goal is to make the manuscript stronger.

Once all that’s done and you’ve polished it? Then it becomes a matter of getting it published. If there’s an academic angle or an alumni-related tie-in, sometimes a university press might be interested. Other times, a small specialty publisher is your best hope. You can even go the self-publishing route. But unless you’re extremely lucky, or motivated, or have a good agent, don’t count on the big publishers beating a path to your door.

Sure, on occasion I have dreams of a major publisher picking up the Garroway manuscript, of getting some kind of really good contract and having a full publicity push and maybe even ending up on some morning programs talking about the Dave Garroway story. But I am just as quickly reminded of how unlikely this is. Besides, what’s the real motivation behind this project? It’s not fame, and it’s certainly not money (although I do hope to at least recoup a little of what I’ve invested in all this). It all comes down to telling a story that needs to be told. Somehow, this story went untold for so long, and through circumstance it’s ended up in these hands. My goal is to tell it. And if we can tell it honestly, with insight and compassion, then that will be a reward in itself.

My Own Sentimental Journey

Hey, there. I’m a research partner on the Dave Garroway biography project. I’m pleased to begin as a contributor here (my colleague has been killing it since “Garroway at Large” launched), and I hope I can give you some interesting items and stories from my own research into Dave’s life.

I was born three years after Dave took his own life, so I have no living memory of the man. At no point did I switch on the black-and-white Philco in the kitchen to watch J. Fred Muggs drag Jack Lescoulie’s flimsy desk across the newsroom. I grew up with Today in the ’90s. I have memories of Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric, and Fred Facey’s authoritative “LIVE from Studio 1A!” voiceover. Like many viewers, I counted on Today to be on television each morning, but I gave nary a thought to what came before.

That changed, dramatically, in January 2002. TV Guide told me Today was turning fifty. Fifty! Impossible! (And Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters were once young and non-ABC anchors?)

I was sufficiently interested that on Monday, January 14, I handed a VHS tape to my grandmother and asked her to record the whole show. I wanted to see what this was all about. When I got home from school, I rewound the tape and started watching.

I was mesmerized. The clocks, maps, teletypes and microphones were a true delight. But I was particularly struck by this monochrome fellow in the bow tie and glasses. He was bookish and erudite, unafraid of polysyllabic words or arcane musings. He seemed to exude class and unflappability.

For whatever reason, this deeply impressed me. I started wearing argyle socks and picking up a few jazz records. There’s no doubt that in Dave Garroway, I saw a kind of masterclass in How to Be Interesting and Cool. I confess; to some degree, I still do.

In the ensuing sixteen years, I learned much more about Dave’s darker sides, his struggles and his untimely end. But instead of pushing me away, the complexity and nuance held my fascination. Here was his reality, beyond the fond, gray-tinted viewer memories.

Now for the last year or so, your main author and I have been trading notes, mulling, speculating, harnessing information and otherwise trying to make sense of Dave’s narrative in a way that can be published and enjoyed. It’s beyond time for the Communicator’s story to be told. I look forward to helping tell it.

Convention report!

I’m happy to say the Garroway at Large delegation to the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention is now home after a successful and fun visit. While it was an intense two days or so, and while it was much less time than I’d have liked to spend there, it was well worth the effort.

The journey started for me at the nearest airport providing direct flights to Baltimore. It was a brief but pleasant flight up. Then at the Baltimore airport, it was off to the light rail station for what turned out to be a long ride out to Hunt Valley. As it happened, the light rail trip was longer than the flight up. At Hunt Valley itself, I found that my estimate of the place via Google Maps was mistaken, and that walking from the light rail station to the hotel took some inventiveness. A couple times I crossed myself up. But, eventually, I got there.

The Hunt Valley Delta Hotel is a sprawling hotel. It reminds me a lot of the Doubletree across from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport: a lot of jogs and doglegs connecting various wings. But, like my memories of countless nights at the SeaTac Doubletree, if you’re fortunate in which room you draw, you feel like you’re staying in a nicely secluded place, and the rooms are pretty nice. I was very happy with my room, which was at the end of a corridor and had a view of a peaceful courtyard. It was certainly a nice place to unwind after a busy and slightly weird day of travel.

The next morning I headed downstairs to the convention. Now, having recently helped plan and run a large national convention, I know what the organizers of something like this are up against. And if anything went wrong while I was there, I certainly could not tell. There were plenty of volunteers on hand, all wearing bright shirts, ready to help (and staying busy helping in a hundred ways large and small). I encountered no difficulties of my own, and I didn’t see anything go off the rails in the time I spent on the convention floor. This convention was competently run and everyone I encountered seemed happy.

The hallways and one ballroom were given over to the vendors. I’ll show you a few photos, and perhaps your billfold will run in the corner and hide when you see it’s possible to find just about anything and everything there:

Here’s one of the hallways. Many vendors emphasized items related to the many celebrity guests; you could buy, for instance, that Annie poster and have Aileen Quinn sign it. (Wasn’t it only yesterday, by the way, it was 1982 and the film version of Annie was everywhere? Aileen Quinn was all over just about every magazine cover when I was a kid. And all of a sudden I’m in a vendor room and I look over and there’s a grown-up Aileen Quinn signing autographs, and I’m reminded again how time flies in this small world of ours.)

Entering the ballroom where more vendors were set up. Some of the guest celebrities were signing in here; other tables hosted some of the most amazing collections of this-and-that you could find. My wallet was not immune.

Here’s another view. Wouldn’t you just enjoy trying to get that framed art on the airplane back home? Heh.

And, this being a convention for fans of pop culture, there’s no shortage of opportunities to indulge your geekery. This particular display had a steady stream of takers.

Here’s a few wares that I found particularly interesting:

Some of those caricatures are better than others. But that one of Ray Bradbury is truly for the ages.

I grew up a Twilight Zone fan and understood what these were supposed to be. But, so help me, the only thing I could think of was a certain stanza of this song.

I’m still kicking myself for not buying this.

But the convention isn’t just about the merchandise. (It isn’t?) Nope. There are panels, presentations, movies and rare programs for the viewing, re-enactments of radio programs. Here, for instance, is a presentation by author Johnny Ray Miller about his research into The Partridge Family.

Another session featured Jeremy Ambler, Cindy Williams, Gary Conway and Dawn Wells discussing their experiences on iconic television series:

(Forgive the pixelation on this; I was at the back of the room when I took this and the next one, and the zoom on the iPhone was screaming for mercy.) This session was particularly fun. Cindy Williams shared a couple of very sweet stories about working with Robin Williams. And Dawn Wells is a hoot. If you ever get to see her, do so.

That collection of pixels depicts Shirley Jones about to take questions from the audience. I didn’t have any interactions with any of the celebrities and really wasn’t around them – the most I did was pull myself to one side in a crowded hallway to let one of them through – but from everything I saw at the signing tables and in the seminars, all the celebrity guests were grateful for the fans’ interest and interacted with them kindly.

While it was neat seeing a few famous faces, the real reason I was there was to meet people and make connections. And I met some nice folks along the way. Novelist John French was very generous with his advice on getting started in fiction, crime writing in particular, and I had him sign a couple books for me (and yes, I bought them when he signed them. Look, make your own jokes on your own blog, will you?).

There were some folks I was really hoping to meet, and I met two of the most important. One of them was Mitchell Hadley, of It’s About TV. I met up with him and his wife on Thursday morning. I wish I could tell you about our conversation, but I would have trouble describing it because (a) I don’t think 90 minutes have ever elapsed so quickly in my life, (b) we all got one another’s references on even the most obscure things about so many topics – I mean, how does a conversation that starts out talking about Dave Garroway wind around to us talking about Jimmy Clark and Swede Savage? – and (c) it was just so much fun that putting that conversation into words just would not do. I think at least half of those 90 minutes were consumed by laughter. Having only known Mitchell through his blog and through e-mail, it was great not only to put a face with the name, but to have so much fun and connect so quickly on so many levels (and to find his wife is as much fun as he is)…that was a treat.

The other really good meet-up I had? That was with Carol Ford, who was there promoting her book Bob Crane: The Definitive Biography. In two really good conversations I had with her, Carol shared the lessons she’d learned while working on the book, and gave me several pointers on how to make the process less stressful for everyone involved. And I brought home a signed copy of the book, too, which I am reading and enjoying. There’s a prevailing perception about Bob Crane that’s been reinforced through the years by various stories, a motion picture, and countless tasteless jokes. Ford’s massive, incredibly well-sourced book looks at Crane as a complete human being, and works to put his story into an appropriate context. In my conversations with her, I told her I was interested in how her book handled Crane’s complex story, because we’re dealing with a complicated and sensitive story in writing about Dave Garroway. Carol was incredibly generous with her time and advice, and I am deeply grateful; as I read the book, I am learning not only how to handle such a subject, but I am also enjoying it. (Get yourself a copy, too. And now. You won’t regret doing so.)

What else did I bring home? Well, what good would it be if I spoiled the surprises now? Suffice to say that I found a few Garroway-related items; not many, but just enough to help deplete my cash supply.

Soon, it was time to get back up to the room and prepare for a really early departure. After too few hours of rest, it was out the door and waiting for the ride back to BWI. As I waited out front at 5 am, I caught a glimpse of vendor tables slumbering in the wee hours.

And all too soon, my ride was here; off to the airport, and soon I was headed home.

The world stands out on either side — no wider than the heart is wide;
Above the earth is stretched the sky — no higher than the soul is high.

It was too brief, yes, but it was too much fun. And I’ll be back soon. With some luck, it’ll be with a completed book.

Thanks to everyone who made this convention possible for everyone, and special thanks to everyone who made it extra special for me. And if you’ve never been to one of these, give it some thought. As a satisfied customer, I think you’ll be happy if you attend.

On the road again

Brief update: I’m well north and east of Irma, and well inland too. Friends and relatives in Florida report they’re safe, and that’s what matters most. We’ve had remnants range out our way, bringing a lot of rain and some wind, but nothing I haven’t seen before; we haven’t been hit the way other areas in our state have been. My husband and I are safe and dry, the power and Internet and satellite TV have all stayed on (knock wood), and our two cats have aggressively napped through it all. We are fortunate, but there have been many who have lost much, if not everything. Keep them in your thoughts, always.

Looking ahead: If all continues to go as hoped I will be headed out Wednesday morning to the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention. I’ll only be there for Thursday (you can mainly thank a tighter budget than I’d like), but I’m looking forward to making the most of my time there, making a few contacts, and putting some faces with some names I know. And, of course, scouring the vendor room for items I can’t live without – related not only to Garroway, but to any of the 17 million other things I’m interested in.

If you’re planning to be there and want to say hello, drop me a note. And if you’re not…if I get a chance, I’ll post from the convention, and if I don’t I’ll write about it when I get back. And, of course, if I find anything interesting that relates to Dave Garroway, you’ll find out about it here! Stay tuned.

Detective work

Back in June I spent a day at the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin. It’s a long story, but Wisconsin has a huge collection of papers related to broadcast history. And, as things turned out, it’s where the NBC papers ended up. For anyone needing to conduct research into broadcast history, Wisconsin is a mandatory stop. (And don’t think one day will suffice, either. I am certain that had my schedule allowed, I could have spent a week and not scratched the surface. The NBC collection is huge.)

It had been about a decade and a half since I’d last done honest-to-goodness research in archival materials. Teaching at a small college means you don’t get much time to do research, because you have a dozen other duties demanding your attention and the day only has so many hours. Research has been one of those “I’ll get around to it” things. The Wisconsin trip let me break that cycle, and getting back into the documents was as delightful as I remembered. I had missed it, and each box the archivists brought out for me contained a new treasure.

This was my view most of the day: a big box of folders full of documents from yesteryear, each of them its own little time machine. I had little time for reverie; as soon as I opened a folder with a worthwhile document, I had the phone on my camera going like crazy capturing pages. It got really interesting in correspondence files, for so many of those documents were file copies produced with carbon paper (anybody remember that stuff?) on onion-skin paper. I’d hoped to get a copy of one especially intriguing document, only to find about ten pages in that it was just about half a ream of onion-skin paper, and I’d expend precious time and battery life to get a document not really related to Dave Garroway. (Argh! The choices we must make!)

Sometimes, though, I’d come across a box that left me speechless. For instance, a box containing the scripts, coordination charts, and other miscellany for each installment of Wide Wide World. I’ve watched this countless times, and yet before me was this:

It was the genuine, game-used (in the coordinating studio) script from that very telecast. In my hands. It was truly a moment. (And reading the script as written really drove home to me just what Dave Garroway could do with a piece of material – that little intangible something that took plain words and made them magic.)

There were dozens upon dozens of finds during that trip, and all of them will come to play somehow in this book we’re working on. But of all of them, this is definitely one of my favorites. It reminded me why I love the historian’s craft, how much I’ve truly missed it, and why I’m so glad I get to engage in it from time to time.

Well, here we are.

Welcome to Garroway at Large, an online tribute to Dave Garroway, the original Master Communicator. And more specifically, welcome to Wide Wide Blog, where we’ll occasionally post thoughts, essays, discoveries, and other musings about Dave Garroway’s life and times. We’re especially pleased to launch this on July 13, which was Dave’s birthday. (Happy 104th birthday, Old Tiger!)

Why Dave Garroway, you ask? Well, because the man’s life and work have been sadly neglected. Chances are good you know him only from his work on Today, and that your vision of him is frozen in what little there is from that first morning, or you remember him trying to keep a certain primate within the bounds of good behavior. And while it’s important to remember Dave Garroway for his time on Today, there’s more to the man than just that, or Wide Wide World, or any one program in particular, or even his broadcasting career.

As we explore Dave Garroway’s life, we are finding a man of many interests and many layers, and the portrait that is emerging is much more nuanced than the stories and rumors and legends would have you believe. Certainly Garroway had his troubles, and we shall deal with those well-known troubles in as appropriate a manner and context as possible. But there are other stories to tell of this man who was headmaster of a new school of broadcasting, a very shy and private man who somehow had the ability to look into a camera and make millions of viewers feel he was a friend talking to them and them alone. Here was a man who somehow fit dozens of interests – broadcasting, automobiles, telescopes and astronomy, engineering, music, you name it – into his life. And, sadly, here is the story of a man who was once virtually everywhere in popular culture, then vanished into obscurity, his efforts to restart his career too often ending in a fizzle.

In telling the story of this fascinating man, the journey will be long and far-ranging, and it’s already taken us many places. It will take us to many more, scouring archival holdings and conducting interviews and doing all the other tasks necessary to reconstruct Garroway’s 69 years in accuracy and detail. But we’re doing it because it’s a story worth telling, and we think you’ll learn some neat things along the way.

Along with this, we extend an invitation. We are always looking for people who somehow had a connection with Dave Garroway, because while documents and recordings can tell us much, they only go so far in telling us what the man himself was like. That’s where you could come in handy. Perhaps you met Dave Garroway, either in passing, on business, or in connection with one of his programs. Perhaps you worked with him. Or perhaps you’re related to him. (We’d especially welcome a chance to talk to Garroway’s family, especially members of his immediate family.)

Even if you didn’t have an encounter with him, perhaps you have some item of Garroway-related memorabilia, some original photos, or some rare documents. Maybe you have a recording of one of his shows that has heretofore been thought lost forever. We’d welcome hearing from you too! Just click on the “Contact” button in the menu above to get in touch with us. We’ll get back to you soon as we can (day job permitting, of course).

We’re glad to be here, and we’re happy to have this chance to honor Dave Garroway. There’s a long journey ahead, and it may well be a sentimental one. We’re looking forward to it, and we hope you’ll join us.