Insight: A cautionary tale for would-be journalists

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

The Hollywood portrayal of journalists is often far from reality and despite the glamorous image and stylish depictions in movies and on television, many reporters, editors and sportswriters lead simple and unassuming lives but sometimes are targets because of their careers.

Here's an example from my own life to prove my point.

In the late 1980s I was working as a reporter for a newspaper in New Mexico. A man came to the newspaper office on a November afternoon and asked if he could speak to a reporter about a possible story. I happened to be sitting at my desk at work that day when my editor called me over and instructed me to find out what potential story this man wanted to share with us.

I introduced myself and the man said his name was Gene and that he had a "tremendous" article for me. I sat and listened as he told me that he had been wrongly convicted of shooting at one of his neighbors in Decatur, Georgia and had then served a 10-year sentence on a Georgia chain gang reconstructing highways and moving boulders and rocks by hand.

Gene said he had taken his appeal to the governor's office in Georgia, the attorney general's office there and had paid a family member who was a lawyer a large sum of money to prove his innocence and have his conviction overturned. Apparently, nothing had worked and once he was released from the Georgia chain gang, he had moved 1,400 miles west to New Mexico and was now working in construction.

He told me during his time on the chain gang, his wife had divorced him and married his family member, the lawyer who was handling his appeal in the court system. His mother had also died since his arrest, and he was planning on exposing everyone who had testified against him resulting in what he said was a wrongful firearm conviction.

After hearing his story, I told him I would speak to my editor about it, but I doubted he would have me write a story about this because it had occurred so far away and had little news value to the readers of our newspaper in New Mexico. I then returned to the newsroom, pitched Gene’s article idea to the editor, and I was right, he instructed me to tell Gene it was not something the newspaper was interested in writing about. Gene didn't take my response well and called me a 'phony" and said it was a "typical" reply that he had heard from other newspapers that he had presented the story to.

The very next afternoon, a Friday, I was back at my desk at work when the receptionist informed me that Gene was back and asked to speak to me. I walked out to the lobby and Gene apologized for calling me a "phony" and asked if I'd be interested in writing a book with him about his case. I told him no, I had little free time and was barely keeping my head above water with all my newspaper work. Gene politely thanked me and left, and I went on with my day and continued my work.

That Saturday evening, my wife and I were just about to sit down to supper when we heard a gunshot in our driveway outside. We lived on a remote farm on a dirt road about 17 miles south of the city where I worked. The time had changed the weekend before and it was dark at 5:30 p.m. when we heard the shot and someone hollering for me outside.

My wife pleaded with me to stay inside, but in looking out the window I saw Gene standing in my driveway holding a pistol. I told her to call the police and I thought I could speak to him out there, calm him down and prevent him from shooting out the windows in our home.

I stepped outside and discovered that Gene was quite drunk, and he was also very angry. He called me a “hypocrite” and said I was like everyone else who had not believed his story. He said he was going to show me what it was like to be humiliated and pointed his pistol at me and told me to get down on my knees.

At that point, I thought I was a goner until two sheriff's cruisers pulled in behind Gene's truck and the deputies shouted to him to drop the gun and walk backward to them. He did and Gene was arrested for violating the terms of his probation. The deputies asked him how he knew where I lived, and he told them he looked up my address in the telephone book.

From that point on, we kept the driveway gate locked and removed our listing from the next phone book. It was very scary and difficult to talk about afterward.

Almost four decades later, journalists everywhere face risks and threats every day for just doing their job. I was fortunate to have survived my brush with an unhappy person and can attest to the inherent dangers of this career. <   

Insight: Fashion trends to fashion outcasts

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

It may seem mundane to many but cleaning out my closet this past week and sending clothing items no longer wanted to the thrift store may show my lack of regard for fashion, but I’ve never really been overly trendy. 

As a child growing up, I watched my father rotate the three suits he wore to work each day. He owned a dark blue suit, a black suit and a brown suit and combined them with a white shirt and either brown or black wingtip shoes.  

If there was one area where my father chose to explore fashion more extensively, it was in neckties. He had a friend who worked for a necktie company in New Jersey and twice a year, a large box would arrive containing about 75 different and colorful neckties of varying widths, fabrics and patterns.

I determined about the age of 17 that I was never going to become a model and had little time or money to pursue costly apparel that stood out from the crowd. I preferred simplicity and owned several pairs of denim bib overalls that I found comfortable when paired with an old t-shirt and Addidas sneakers.  

After high school, I came to loathe the men’s fashion trends of the 1970s. I detested patterned polyester shirts with long overextended pointed collars and belts so wide they wouldn’t fit through the belt loops on your pants. I rejected the “Super Fly” pimp-style hats and blinding orange, bright yellow or lime green colors popular for men’s fashion during Watergate.  

I hated wearing men’s satin shirts, anything with ruffles, crushed velvet, tunics and nearly broke my ankles trying to walk around after buying a pair of boots with Cuban heels during the Disco Era. I wasn’t into jackets with fringe at the bottom and on the sleeves as they always seem to get stuck in the car door during cold weather. I also gave up trying to stay warm in winter wearing sleeveless sweater vests of the day.

By the end of the 1970s, I threw out all my shirts with oversized collars, scarves, velour shirts, tuxedo jacket, Madras plaid shirts and a hideous ascot that I bought once to wear to a wedding.

For full disclosure, I did retain a pair of red platform shoes I wore once on the floor of my closet with the hope that someday they would come back into style. They did not and those went to the thrift store 30 years later before the onset of eBay and nostalgia collectors.

When the 1980s rolled around, I tried my best to keep up with trends and loved my denim jackets, preppy sweaters, Hawaiian shirts (ala Tom Selleck’s Magnum PI), tube socks and chunky sneakers. I had a closet filled with colorful rib-knit shirts and turtlenecks, pleated plaid pants with suspenders, colorful painter-style pants, and shaker-knit sweaters.

When the pastel shades of Miami Vice on television were all the rage, I found a light pink suitcoat I would wear when my wife and I would go out dancing on Friday nights. But by 1989, the pink suitcoat met its untimely demise when it got motor oil dripped on it in the trunk of my car and my abstract print shirts became obsolete as I abandoned them for more practical and less controversial dress shirts to wear to work.

For a while in the 1990s, I bought into the whole trendy men’s fashion scene, owning several crop-top shirts, a Members Only jacket, MC Hammer parachute pants and had both a puka necklace and a chunky turquoise necklace. Of course, that was when my waist size was still a 30 and I had the energy to peruse department stores on Saturdays looking for exceptional bargains.

I still have and wear the Members Only jacket but thankfully there are no remaining photos of me wearing parachute pants. The turquoise necklace was banished to the bottom of my jewelry box permanently when I met the current Mrs. Pierce. I also wound up giving away my pairs of green, blue, and red Reebok high-top basketball sneakers as I moved firmly into middle age.

As the dress code relaxed for the newsroom that I worked in during the 2000s, my own collection of neckties and suits dwindled down to only a handful. And as my waistline expanded over the age of 50, those suits became unwearable and were donated to thinner thrift store shoppers.

My last fashionable purchase, so to speak, would have been a new suit to wear to an event where I was asked to be the Keynote Speaker. I spent a few hours at stores in the mall looking at suits but couldn’t find my correct size. I then went online and ordered several that I liked but I had to wait for several weeks to have them altered.

Now that I’m heading into the golden years, I have little desire to return to the pursuit of anything trendy and am thrilled to receive a fleece zip-up at Christmas.

The world of men’s fashion passed me up a long time ago and it can continue by on its merry way without me. <