Managing Editor
When you meet as many people as I do in my profession, it’s hard to gauge what they are all about during a brief interview. Through the years I’ve relied on first impressions to help guide me in any future interactions after meeting someone initially.
On my first evening at the unit that I was assigned to while serving in the U.S. Air Force in Germany in 1977, I was taken around to rooms in the barracks and introduced to my new co-workers and colleagues. Some became my friends and some I avoided like the plague.
My unit sponsor knocked on one barracks door, and an Airman First Class named Greg Nelson answered. He had a Budweiser beer in one hand and the stereo system in his room was blaring Johnny Horton’s “The Battle of New Orleans” at a high volume. I shook Greg’s hand and noticed that just about every inch of Greg’s room was covered in empty Budweiser bottles.
When I asked him if he ever drank German beer, he shook his head and answered, “Never, a million times no. I prefer Bud.”
He said he would drive about 45 minutes one way just to buy Budweiser at the Base Exchange Store at Rhein-Mein Air Base and he loved 1950s hillbilly music.
My first impression of Greg Nelson, who was a fuel specialist, was here we were in Germany, renowned for brewing many different types of beer and he insisted on drinking Budweiser. I didn’t come away with a great first impression of Greg when I realized that he had consumed too many Budweisers that evening and was obviously drunk. About a year later, I learned that Greg had been drinking one night and tried to take a corner in a military Jeep too sharply and had crashed injuring himself and two other airmen riding with him near our unit. Not long thereafter he was reassigned to a base in the United States and I never heard from him again.
That same first evening I was in Germany, I was introduced to another unit colleague who lived right across the hallway from me in the barracks. His name was Sergeant Daryl Green, and he told me that he was from Brooklyn, New York and was a journalist like me. He invited me into his room and showed me his stereo system and a new turntable that he had recently purchased.
He asked me if I liked jazz, and I told him I didn’t listen to it much. Daryl showed me some of his record albums and said he loved jazz music and pointed out that many of the same jazz artists such as the Brecker Brothers, Idris Muhammad and Herbie Hancock would appear on each other’s albums.
Daryl and I became great friends and when he was transferred to be the editor of the base newspaper at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., I didn’t know if I would ever see him again. That notion was proven wrong the next year when I was transferred to The Pentagon and many of the stories that I was writing there for my job were published in the base newspaper that Daryl was the editor of called the Bolling Beam.
We stayed friends through the years but unfortunately this past summer I heard from Daryl’s brother, who is a firefighter in New York City, that he had passed away. I had to inform several old friends from our unit in Germany about his death and that wasn’t easy.
My first impression of meeting a television actor in person was also favorable. I was assigned to interview Fred “Rerun” Berry from the old TV show “What’s Happening?” in the late 1980s. On television, Berry came across as a jovial comic actor who was overweight and would often poke fun at his physical appearance. Yet I found out that Berry was highly intelligent, very serious and deeply cared about keeping children away from using drugs.
He was touring the country visiting elementary schools and giving a presentation to young students that involved rap music, break dancing and Super Soaker giant squirt guns. His message to children was that there are many ways to feel good about yourself without taking drugs and it was powerful and effective.
When I shook Berry’s hand when I first met him, it was like I was suddenly drawn into his larger-than-life persona. I instantly felt welcomed by him and believed that I could ask him any question for my newspaper interview and that he would give me an honest answer. I was shocked and saddened to hear the news that Berry had died of complications from a stroke at the age of 52 in 2003.
I don’t know about you, but over my lifetime I’ve come to trust my first impressions and although they may sometimes be wrong, I’ve learned that my first impressions are instinctive and can be spot on target. <
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