Casualties of war: From the first to the 41st

You know who George Buggs is, though you probably don't remember. But I remember.
In 2003, I was the managing editor of The People-Sentinel in Barnwell. When the war broke out, the publisher said we had to do something for the troops. that's it. Something. No explanation or ideas.
i brainstormed with my lone reporter, and we came up with an idea.
Just days into the war in Iraq, a story was foisted on the American public about a little girl from West Virginia in a military convoy gone astray who bravely fought off swarming Iraqis until she ran out of ammo. She was later rescued by a special ops team.
Turned out it wasn't quite true. She was captured, but never fired a shot. She had broken legs It was a cynical attempt to manufacture a heroic symbol. The worst part of it was others were killed in that convoy, but they were ignored, and are, in many ways, still forgotten.
George Edward Buggs was in that same convoy with Jessica Lynch. He might have been in the same vehicle. We'll never know for sure what really happened. But while Jessica Lynch survived and was rescued, George Buggs was one of eight soldiers killed in that action, the first soldier from South Carolina to be killed in either of these latest wars.
Because of what we had done in our paper, we should have been prepared. But Buggs' family had not filled out a little slip of paper nor given us his photo. We had to go find them to get their story.
Over the course of two weeks and three papers, we covered the story of his life and death as well as any paper.
Like a good community paper, we not only wrote stories, but we helped the funeral home with some of the things they needed. We enlarged the few, poor Polaroids the family had, for one thing.
Because he was the first Palmetto State casualty, S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford attended his funeral and spoke at it, hopping down from a stage to give a Palmetto State flag to George Buggs' son.
It was a big event. The death scarred the community a little.
When the war is over, they are supposed to do something special for him and all the men who served.
When the war is over. Some now might call that a cruel joke.
George Buggs was career military. He left behind a wife and a son.
When I heard how Buggs used to love to take his son to the movies, I was tempted, so tempted, to fill that void. I love movies, after all.
I wasn't to stay much longer in Barnwell, it turned out. But my heart went out to the son, the wife, Buggs' parents, and the community.
At that time, I didn't understand why a boy was left without a father, a mother without a son, a wife without a husband. A few months later, another young man died, an Allendale County native.
Orenthal Smith was his name. He was the fourth South Carolinian killed in the war. I sat down in my office and talked for a while with his mother and sister. We got the reaction of friends, family,
I remember having again the thoughts. Why?
It is more than three years later. I'm in another community, and I have to retrace some of my old steps to tell a story that I've told in some ways before.
Spc. D. Logan Tinsley is apparently the 41st person from South Carolina to die in this war. But he is the first from Chester County.
He is the first war zone casualty involving a Chester County man since the Vietnam War, his ROTC instructor said. So the county might not fully be prepared for this. We don't know what will happen to the community. His mother doesn't even know for sure when his body will be brought home.
I talked to my mother the other day. It was Christmas after all. I don't know in what context it came up, but at one point, she said she believes in miracles. Her faith is a tower. Mine isn't even the straw hut blown down by the big bad wolf.
But I flash back, sitting in a crowded school gym and at the graveside with the family of the first man from our state killed in this war, I remember sitting there with the family of the fourth, in my office, talking about a lost loved one. And here I am again, sitting in the home of the 41st young man killed in this war.
I don't know why and can't fathom why this happens.
But I hope my mother is right, that there are miracles. I pray Logan Tinsley will be the last from South Carolina to die in this war.
But it will take a miracle.

USC 31- Clemmons 28, Team Good Luck Charm

No comment, other than, "Ain't he cute?"

D is for Dad, D is also for ????

(Click on the title for a link to pics.)

D is for Daddy, but D is also for ????

There aren't too many books about being a Dad. They have plenty about the baby, plenty about motherhood, pregnancy galore. Breast-feeding, etc.
But they don't give you the secrets, if there are any, to being a dad.
My son was born Friday, Sept. 22. I was expecting a girl, and when they held him up for me to see, I kept waiting for them to say what it is, so I could "announce it."
My wife signed the birth plan and assigned me the task of announcing the sex and cutting the cord. I actually would have liked to pass on the latter, but after the entire delivery process, cutting the cord was a piece of pie.
While the doctor holds up the baby, I realize she was waiting for me to say what I was looking at. Announcing the sex means announcing it, apparently, to the doctor and nurses, who, having seen more of these things than I ever have or will, ought to know better and not need my help.
To be honest, though they said my son came out pretty clean, I wasn't sure what I was looking at. I was thinking that might be part of the umbilical chord, because it was a little darker than the rest of his skin.
"It's a boy," I said. But it was more of a question than an announcement.
I had been expecting a girl. Why, I don't know. Just some feelings here and there. We had a boy's name picked out from the get go, but I thought for sure when we decided to name her, in part, and call her after my Aunt Kathleen, that a girl was coming.
I read Bill Cosby's "Fatherhood." It's some of his routines, watered down substantially, and the lessons, at least so far, aren't all that revealing. Not bad. Just not a sermon on the mount or the wisdom of Solomon.
The only thing that has surprised me so far was the amount of driving.
When Patricia went into labor, she decided to stay home about five hours past the point where I was ready to go. We drove to CMC-Pineville at 4 a.m.
Patricia told me after I drove great, calmly, coolly. Not my usual style at all.
She did say at one point during the drive, as a contraction hit, "Could you at least drive the speed limit?"
I was, at the time, at the limit.
I punched it.
I had worried about going to the hospital on 485 at around 4 of the clock, concerned about traffic.
In the afternoon, that is. If you are having a baby, 4 in the morning is a much better drive time on the Outer Loop. It was so clear that, I didn't have to stay between the lines, technically.
I drove out to get her a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger the day after the delivery.
Drove the baby home the day after that.
That night, we needed the proper kind of bottle, one with a low-flow nipple. They said Target carried them, so I assumed that Wal-Mart would have the brand. No such luck.
They used to have them, but no longer.
Timing is the family curse.
So after driving to Wal-Mart in Rock Hill, I head on out to Super Target in Lake Wylie. They had just closed. A store worker outside said to try, they were closing, not closed. I went in, but the security guard told me they were closed.
Timing is the family curse.
I tried the Super Wal-Mart on 49 and 485. No such luck.
My wife called. They had the brand at the CVS a half mile from our house. When I get there, it wasn't the right size/age nipple. But I got it anyway. About 50 miles right there.
The following Monday, I drove to go shopping. The following Tuesday, I drove to the pediatrician. The following Wednesday, drove to the lactation consultant.
The following Thursday, drove with my brother to get a late lunch for the visiting family.
My lovely bride is not allowed to pick up anything heavier than the baby, so the car seat and the baby are, by definition, heavier. So I have to take them everywhere.
The following Friday, and I went to get a new phone because our old one burned out and we need something that works. Can't have just two phones in the house with people sometimes calling around the clock.
It's a good thing I filled up the tank in my car when I went to the first Wal-Mart.
But the price of gas had not yet dipped below $2 a gallon.
Timing.
So I'm a Dad, trying to figure it out.
I knew the D would be for Dad.
But D is also, apparently, for driving.

Saw 'World Trade Center'

You can click above or click here to read about my reaction.
I'm trying to get a photo into the column, but it's giving me fits.

THAT Day

Everyone has to talk about it today, 9/11.
Where were you on 9/11.
I saw it happen. The second plane that is. I wasn't there, but I was watching on television when the second plane hit.
I heard about the first plane from a radio show in on WDOG in Allendale, S.C.
I was actually going to be to work on that day early. I was out the door, almost, when I heard Carl talk about the first plane.
I had Dish Network then. Instead of local network channels, I lived in the coolest of the cool, network feeds from New York City AND the West Coast.
I happened to have CNN on when it hit.
We are at war, I thought to myself. I didn't have a clue with whom, and I didn't think it would be particularly a wise thought thunk only by me. But I said it that second.
Then i started worrying about my cousins who lived in New York City. They were in the Bronx and Yonkers and generally didn't get that far down into Manhattan, but they were close and I was not.
So I worried.
The worry kind of created one of the stupidest thoughts I ever had in my career as a newspaper. I wasn't thinking straight. I went into work, got down to doing the paper, but actually said, at one point, this isn't a local story.
I was given a virtual kick in the butt. On top of a lot of other things, my editor was leaving that week, so I knew my news staff was going from three, with me and him, to two, with me and one other. My work load was going up in a week anyway, but I had a lot of distractions.
Add in the fact that the World Trade Center was my favorite place to go to in the city. No, I wasn't thinking straight for a second.
By the time the towers started falling, I was in high gear. I actually got a tip from a source in the National Guard that they were planning to mobilize, and I think we had a great lead.
I went home, got my own pictures of the towers and Lower Manhattan and used them to illustrate our coverage. Another paper in our company had an AP picture on its front page.
I considered it theft. I had my own pictures, a scoop. I used a picture my father had once bought of Lower Manhattan and used it to make a cartoon. I wrote an editorial cribbing from FDR's Pearl Harbor declaration of war. We had a picture of people watching the coverage at a local restaurant, my favorite hangout in Barnwell, Anthony's. I didn't even mind, as I normally might have, that our ad manager was there in the shot, from the back.
We got our paper out on time, as we did, most of the time.
And I went home. I talked to my girlfriend, now my wife. Talked to my folks throughout the day.
But on that day, I knew how it would end. Me, in front of the television, watching too too much coverage, and wondering what had happened and who had done this.
In my editortal, I warned against making leaps to judgment. When the federal building in Oklahoma had been bombed, people remembering the first strike at the World Trade Center, had assumed it was again Arab terrorists. How wrong they were then. I didn't say it wasn't, but I just wanted Americans to wait until we knew who had done it before we started unleashing what I call a righteous rage.
Some who took that to mean I thought it wasn't Arab terrorists were wrong to assume I said that. But, if so, how wrong I was.
I was flipping back from the major networks to the local news feeds and I was amazed how some of the local New York stations were doing what I thought was better jobs than the major networks.
Chuck Scarborough, an anchor who had been in New York City when I moved to South Carolina, was one I remember watching. The local New York Superstations had some amazing stuff.
One station, I don't remember which, had a scoop citing unnamed FBI sources. Another had something about the airports remaining closed. I can't remember it all, I just remember the local guys were doing a better job covering the disaster than the big boys.
Granted, a "local" station in New York City is a different animal than a local affiliate newscast in Charlotte or Columbia or Greenville-Spartanburg. But it was what it was.
I had rage, but nowhere to direct it.
I went to bed, eventually. There was nothing else to be done.
I woke up into a different world. The one we are in now.
Some would say it is a more frightening world, but they aren't as right as they intend.
Hate is rampant. Some of it is hate directed at us by what is now called "Islamo-fascists." I know the people that term refers to, but I think the term is meaningless.
Since 9/11, however, the hate that frightens me has been in this country, with our own people directing it at others among us. Hearing a call for profiling and how "profiling" is a good thing is just part of it.
The partisan rancor in our halls of government to me says this isn't the same country I grew up in. American people condoning torture, that's just not the America I grew up in. A person I considered a friend believes, apparently, that we ought to be cutting off as many heads as our enemy. More.
I don't want to be the person who gives that command to our troops.
I still have faith that we can win this war. But not if we adopt the ways of our enemy.
A principle that is discarded when times get tough was never a principle. It was just an empty platitude to make one think he or she is better than he or she is in reality.
I do not want to lose this war. We can win it by being the great people we have always been. We can fight the war as strongly as we need to fight it, without succumbing to the temptation to do evil ourselves.
But I do not want to win by bcoming less than we were. So I'm willing to risk losing this war on that score.
It is the eve of 9/11's fifth anniversary. Some day, I hope to remember that it united us a second time. It united us then. But we are divided now.
I can't think any more on it.
My wife and I are about two weeks away from bringing a child into this dangerous world. I pray to God that we are bringing him, her, into a world where being an American means you are thought of as the good guys.
God bless those who died, and God bless America.

A Deb, A Dad -- Li'l ole me?

It's about three months ahead of the real important date.

It didn't happen at a ball or a cotillion.

And I'm a dude.

But I had my public "debut" last week.

As a Dad, not a deb.

I got "father-to-be" cards and some stuff for Father's Day. I was told I had to wear one gift from my mom and dad and sister Catherine for my "debut."

No, it was not a dress. But outerwear, to be sure. A package deal -- baseball cap, T-shirt and thick elastic wristband band that all say, "All-American Dad."

It is a bit unfortunate that my public "debut" as a dad comes three months and some change before the birth of Baby Guilfoyle, but I don't control my sisters, sister-in-law and mother, and they had a shower for my wife and me and baby-to-be.

Dutiful me, hen-pecked me, pistol-whipped-if-I-don't-play-along me showed up in "costume" and there I was, for the social circle of Mom and my sisters in the necropolis of Spartanburg, full on display.

I know how to wear a hat and T-shirt. After a couple of goes, I even put on the rubber band correctly.

I've got that down. I think I've also got it down how to be a "daddy."

That's the easy part. But as it gets closer and closer (you can track it here, btw) I begin to wonder if I can be a father. There's a difference, a big one, in my book.

A dad can be fun to have around. He'll play and tickle and make a baby laugh. A father is someone who from the beginning can mold a child into a good person.

My dad, Bud, is a role model for my aspirations here. Both a dad and a father to me.

Sometimes I think I can't take care of myself, let alone my wife, let alone our two dogs.

But Patricia fell in the tub the other day. I heard a thump and a bit of a screech. All who know me would be surprised at how fast I got up the stairs. She's got a bruise on her arm and had a few sniffles I couldn't do much about.

But I got there.

I do know I'm more likely to be the one who will wake up if the baby cries at night. When the doggies bark their heads off with a sudden urge to go outside , it's me who almost always hears it first, and usually me who does the nightly duty there.

She, on the other hand, can sleep through anything. I remember she planned a romantic Valentine's Day. And it started out romantic. Our movie and dinner date she booked included a stay at a hotel room.

But I had somehow caught a NASTY bug. At about 9 a.m. the next day, she woke up and found me in the bathroom.

She was a trifle shocked to learn I had been up all night, erupting like Mount St. Helens. I'm not sure. I got drunk enough that I know you can puke out your nose. I didn't know you could puke out your ears until that hell night.

I actually whimpered for help once or twice while she slept on. I know it was a bug because I got a call later the next day to come take care of her. She was having the same symptoms.

I am sure I'll be the one to wake up for our child. I know that I'll probably have to poke her ribs to get her up to handle the serious stuff, and in the early stages, probably the routine stuff. I hope it isn't always the case.

But I'll be the one who wakes up (if I'm not already awake).

If that sounds like not much, and possibly petty, please understand. It's the only thing I've got to go on with some certainty that says I'm going to play an important part in the early care of this child.

I'm old-fashioned enough that I don't think I should take the "courses" they have for parents these days. Nurse sister Catherine demands I sign up for baby CPR. I see the value in that.

But as for the more intangible part of being a father. no course at a hospital is going to be better than the 40 years I've spent watching Bud be Bud.

Since I am, as described above, dutiful me, hen-pecked me, pistol-whipped-if-I-don't-play-along me, I imagine there's a course or two that I'll be taking anyway, with the wife. But I log my formal objection herewith, and I'll probably treat them like kindergarten through my second year of college.

Wake me when it's over.

Anyway, I had my debut. Three months before Baby Guilfoyle is due to arrive, people know I'm on the verge of daddyhood.

Li'l ole me. Who'd have ever thought I had it in me?

Everything I needed to know about Journalism, I learned watching Superman, Part II

I have negotiated with my wife that we will go see Superman Returns on Saturday at some point. I do get like a kid when some link to my youth shows up.

This is like an itch I can't scratch until Saturday night.

But while I wait, I will probably watch Superman: The Movie on DVD tonight.

I'm listening to the soundtrack to the new movie now -- $9.99 on iTunes. Loves my iTunes.

Driving back home from work tonight, after getting on our Web site LAST night a scoop about the firing of a city administrator and after getting a breaking story on our Web site, very detailed, about the same time as our "competition" about the resignation of a county council chairman today, I listened to the soundtrack to the original and it reminded me of another journalism rule I learned watching the original.

Keep your cool
During the scene where Superman makes his debut, Lois is involved in helicopter crash. It's full of beautiful little moments. The most priceless for "civilian" watchers is probably a tie between Clark running down the street looking for a phone booth to undress in, and gazing up and down at the "new style" phone booth, with no door, only three walls; and Superman emerging from a superspeeding spinning revolving door in costume for the first time, to be greeted with fashion approval -- from an apparent pimp.

"Say Jim, that is a BAD outfit!" the pimp says.

Ever polite, Kal-el of Krypton says, "Excuse me," and flies off.

The scenes add a little humor to the whole deal, defusing the tension a bit.

But there is a priceless journalism gag to me, and a valuable lesson.

A TV reporter taping the whole thing says, "I cannot believe it -- he got her."

Always masters of the obvious, the TV folk. I laughed then, and laugh my butt off now.

And the lesson.

Superman swoops in, scoops up Lois and keeps on flying up.

"Don't worry miss. I've got you."

"You've got me? WHO'S GOT YOU?" Lois asks.

It is NOT an obvious response on her part. She's totally in character -- Journalists should not lose their cool. She's asking a question, trying to get an answer.

She is in a horrific situation, but she tries to get the story. She's trying to keep her cool.

The culmination of the scene bears this out. She's as flustered as flustered can be. But when he snags the helicopter and drops both it and Lois off at the top of The Daily Planet roof, what does she do?

She asks a question.

"Who are you?" It comes out in spurts, but what is she doing? Her job.

Superman has reassured her that flying is still "statistically speaking," the safest form of travel. He flies away.

THEN she faints. Only after she's tried to do her job.

Keep your cool.

This trait of an always on the go Lois Lane is consistent throughout the movie. When he has reversed time and saved her life, after she had in fact, died, what does Lois do?

She screams at him. But like a reporter might. "WHERE WERE YOU? DO YOU KNOW HOW I SPENT MY DAY?"

Things like that. Knowing she's probably broken the journalistic rule about having feelings for her subject, she still is, at her core, wanting questions answered.

If he had spelled it all out, saying I went to Jersey to stop one a-bomb, San Andreas to fix the fault, fixed the train trestle in the Rockies and built a makeshift Hoover Dam to stop a flood, sure, it might have placated her anger.

But it also would have been A-1 above the folder with a banner hed in an extra edition of The Planet that night.

Lois, you GO girl.

Everything I needed to know about journalism, I learned by watching Superman

When I was 13, I heard a promise, repeated and repeated and repeated.

“You will believe a man can fly.”

Superman: The Movie, I know now, was being hyped and marketed and it had a catchphrase that stuck.

Unlike a lot of marketing moves, this one was 100 percent successful. When the movie came out, I saw it, and I believed a man could fly.

Flash forward a bit. It is 2003 or ‘04. Having just completed a round of tailgating with friends before a football, I get my sideline photo pass, grab up my cameras and head to Williams-Brice Stadium to cover a USC football game. As a graduate, but a journalist as well, I had to tread the line and not show any partiality. I had so many USC hats, I had to leave them all behind.

I grabbed a blue hat given me for Christmas or my birthday one year, from thorn-in-my-side oldest sister Anne.

I thought nothing about the hat that day, just that it was not a USC hat, so I’d be safely innocuous. If there was a too-loud cheer in the press box for a good play, suspicion would immediately fall on me if I wore the garnet and black of my beloved Gamecocks.

So it was, I thought, going to make me safe.

But it stood out in another way. It must have struck a chord with one of the Richland County deputies guarding the gates.

“Are you Superman?” he asked. I blinked, having forgotten what hat I was wearing. It was a blue hat, but with the stylized red and yellow 'S" shield of Superman.

“No,” I said. “But I am Clark Kent."

The beginning bit about the movie does lead to the latter bit about the football game. I write for a lot of reasons, but most were set well in stone when my main career goals were to be a Jedi Knight or at least a pilot.
Another movie put me on the road to being a writer.

But when the decision was made to be a writer, it was Superman: The Movie that set in stone for me what kind of writer I was going to be.

Everything I needed to know about journalism, I learned by watching Superman.

You quiz most journalists my age, and they’ll say All The President’s Men is their favorite journalism movie. More artsy types will throw Citizen Kane out there.

There was a movie way back in which Humphrey Bogart plays a reporter or an editor. Can’t remember. Just caught the tail end of it.

“This ain’t the oldest profession in the world, kid,” he tells a flunky. “But it’s the best.”

Still holds true today.

Superman: The Movie is about criminal masterminds and earthquakes and a certain son of Krypton. But you could pull out all the special effects and still have a GREAT newspaper movie. And any reporter around 40 years old who doesn't list Superman: The Movie as an influence is lying.

The fastest typist I’ve ever seen

When I “matriculated” to the University of South Carolina’s College of Journalism, the dean doing my advising was clear. I either had to pass a typing test registering me at 35 words per
minute, or I’d have to take a typing course.

Because something so mundane as a typing course was actually listed on our degree requirements, some dismissed journalism as a trade, a craft, not worthy of being taught like professions at colleges or universities.

Jerks.

It was a practical thing we needed. We had to make the choice.

In Superman, Editor-in-Chief Perry White hires Clark Kent on the spot, replacing Lois Lane on the “city beat” for a variety of reasons.

“Not only does he know how to treat his editor-in-chief with the proper respect, not only does he have a snappy, punchy pro-style, but he is in my 40 years in this business, the fastest typist I’ve ever seen.”

I tried the typing test, and with mistakes, couldn’t hit that minimal mark. So I took a course that included some shorthand lessons for taking notes. I remember about three of the shorthand notes, and have made my own shortcuts to be able to keep up.

But when computers began to come along, typing programs were, early on, one of the things they started out with.

I plugged along at about 40 words per minute when I was transcribing something. Probably a little faster, but they gig you a point here and there for misspellings and typos.

But I tried my hand at a Mac typing program, on a goof. It had a nice, different test.

It had an open field and said, “Type whatever you want.”

Victory – 135 words per minute doing the kind of typing that I would really be doing. Not secretarial transcribing, but writing. I clocked a little bit faster about five years later when I bought my first computer, and it came with Mario Teaches Typing.

Speling, spealing, schpelling

“What are you writing, Miss Lane?” Jimmy Olsen asks The Daily Planet’s star reporter.

“An Ode to Spring' – how do you spell massacre?”

Later in the same exchange – “There’s only one ‘p’ in rapist,” Olsen says.

A later dig at a similar piece she’s handing in comes from Perry White.

“There’s no ‘z’ in brasierre,” he says, looking at it for like two seconds and throwing it back at her.

What a fascinating Ode to Spring that piece must have been.

Just the facts, ma’am

Journalism has changed over the years. It once existed to tell people what was happening. But now newspapers, the bigger they are, have abandoned that as a principle and are more interested in talking about trends. Some try to make people FEEL things, some try to make people think a certain way about what is being covered.

I’ve never liked that approach, and I don’t do it in my paper.

Because of Perry White.

As he read Lois’ piece on the East side murder, she pushed at him. “This could be the basis of a whole series of articles, ‘Making Sense of Senseless Killings’ by Lois Lane,” she says.

He wasn’t buying it.

“Lois, you’re pushing a bunch of rinky dink, tabloid garbage, and The Daily Planet …”

She’s not paying him much attention, however.

To me, Perry White is saying a newspaper should be about what is happening, not why it is happening. Sometimes why stuff needs to be done, but it must follow long after what has happened.

She still tries to push the series in that same conversation.

“It’s got everything,” she says. “It’s got sex, it’s got violence, it’s got the ethnic angle.”

“So’s a lady wrestler with a foreign accent,” he says, shutting her down.

Writers may think they have the elements to make a story rise above the average, but that is generally just the reporter trying to push a piece past what it is, at its essential level.

The readers won’t always get what you’re pushing.

“It’s too good to be true,” says Lex Luther, after going over Lois’ “I spent the night with Superman” story in which too much information is revealed. “It’s too good to be true.”

“It’s too good to be true,” says his gun moll, Eve Teschmacher. “He’s 6-foot-2, has black hair, blue eyes, doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke and TELLS the truth.”

Brevity is something to be desired in the industry, and it’s a goal I fail at miserably. But also, sometimes, you can boil something down too far.

The article explains why Superman is Superman, and reveals a weakness. (He can’t see through lead.)

Only Luther picks up on that. Teschmacher was just looking at what was the hunky Boy Scout she was probably thinking of tempting if the opportunity presented itself.

She missed what Lois was saying with her article.

“Some people can read ‘War and Peace,’ and come away thinking it’s a simple adventure story, while others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper, and unlock the secrets of the universe,” Luther tells her.

She still doesn’t get it. “Lex, what has chewing gum got to do with the secrets of the universe?”

He just rolls his eyes and tells her she’s right.

But he says, “Voila,” moments later. Somehow, by reading Lois’ piece, he’s figured out that a certain meteorite that landed in Africa was from Krypton, and it’s radiation is lethal to Superman. How? I guess I’m one of those who thinks War and Peace is just a simple adventure story.

But he was right. With the revelation about kryptonite and the lead weakness, it’s also clear that while some people will not get what you’re trying to say, others will get a WHOLE lot more out of it than you can imagine.

Get the story

During a corral of his reporters after Superman’s first appearance, Perry White shows a good insight into papers.

One day, the paper can be about one thing or a million regular things. But sooner or later, something so big is going to come along that all other considerations are put aside.

Trying to fire up his troops, Perry White says, “Whichever one of you gets it out of him, is going to end up with the single most important interview since … God talked to Moses.”

Don’t be naïve

When Superman allows Lois to interview him, he says he’s here “to fight for truth, justice and the American way.”

“You’re going to end up fighting every elected official in this country,” she says.

“I’m sure you don’t mean that, Lois,” he says. Then he tells her he never lies.

Except for that whole secret idenity thing. Sources withhold important information to protect themselves. Even the invulnerable ones have something to protect. (Clark can withstand an H-bomb, but Ma Kent? Not so much.

Even the best dump their notebook

Sometimes everything you hear shouldn’t be included in your article. I’m REAL bad about this.

But that whole, “Can’t see through lead” thing ought to give Lois pause.

She doesn’t know all the ramifications, because of the "going back in time" thing Superman did. But because she told the world that Superman can’t see through lead, Superman almost died, Lois almost died, the West Coast almost slid off into the sea, and that kid with the bad skin condition almost fell off the Golden Gate Bridge with his classmates in the school bus.

If it wasn't for Miss Teschmacher's mom living in Hackensack, who knows how many millions would have died?

We’ve got a couple of phrases for using everything. Notebook dumping is a nicer one.
Diarrhea of the typewriter is an old-style version.

Even Lois Lane does it.

The pay sucks

After her big interview/date with Superman, Lois hears the knocking at her door.

Clark shows up for the “real” date on her book.

Lois has a really nice penthouse apartment, but it’s impossible to believe that she affords it on a reporter’s salary.

Evidence Clark’s words to her as they leave.

“I was a little nervous about this, but then I decided, gosh darn it, I’ll show her the time of her life,” he says.

The good bit is fading away as the door closes behind them.

“I was figuring maybe we could go for a hamburger or whatever you like,”

The pay sucks.

There’s a whole lot more. Some bits are in Superman II.

When they find out about a nuclear bomb in Paris, Lois is sent to cover the story, not Clark.

“If Paris is going to go kablooey, I want my best reporter in the middle of it,” Perry White tells Clark.

Management appreciates your abilities, but not your life, apparently.

Also, a big story can be sitting in front of your nose and you miss it.

It takes the trip to Niagara Falls for Lois to see past the glasses at what ought to be pretty obvious.

Some reporters are willing to risk their lives for a story. Lois jumps into the Niagara River, headed to the falls. Clark does some impromptu saving without stripping down to the cape and tights.

I don’t think the potential payoff on that story is worth the risk, myself.

But the most important bit came from two characters -- the quintessential journalists in the movie. Lois and Perry both end on the same note.

"Gosh, how do you get all the great stories," Jimmy Olsen asks.

"A good reporter doesn't get great stories, Jimmy. A good reporter," she says as she walks into White's office, who's saying the same thing to Clark.

A good reporter makes them great.

I’ve gotten a nice life out of this profession, even though the pay sucks. When you get up to the editorial level, you do OK.

When you marry a beautiful publisher of the best large weekly in the state, who’s pulling down some serious bread, you find it’s much easier to have what is called “a real life." But the other rewards of the job are still the reason to do it.

There’s nothing more rewarding than a scoop, that’s for sure. Except maybe another scoop. But even if you don’t get the scoop, being allowed past police lines some of the times, looking at murder scene photos, standing next to a fire truck while a mill burns, spewing acid residue into the air, getting whipped in the face by hurricane force winds, it’s just all fun.

And come to think of it, when I cover stories like that, I can actually get hurt if something else comes along. Unlike a certain Last Son of Krypton.

But anyway, in honor of Superman starting up in a few days, I figured I’d finally get around to penning this.

I’m not Superman, but I am Clark Kent.

I’m almost 6-foot, have black hair, blue eyes, I seldom drink and never smoke, and I tell the truth.

I fight for Truth, Justice and the American Way.

With a pen.

Best weapon available.

More later, maybe.

P.S. This is 2,167 words long, and it was done in 20 minutes. That’s
108 WPM. Must be some kryptonite nearby slowing me down.

I'll remember Pop, Auntie Bridey

I've run a particular column in the counties I've lived in, at a
certain time of year. When the American Cancer Society raises money for
Relay for Life, I run this column.

I do try to make the point that news stories many times are universal.

I have been on two Relay for Life teams, both with different
newspapers. I helped create the team at The Cheraw Chronicle. I helped
create a team at The People-Sentinel in Barnwell County. (I have been
told that Allendale County, one of the smallest, poorest counties in
the state, has one of the best Relay events. It raises more, per
capita, than any other events in the state.)

Anyway, I ran this column a few weeks back on the News & Reporter's
editorial page. A woman came by my office Thursday. She had an English accent,
but she too was born in Ireland and emigrated to find work.

She said she thought reading this column was like reading her own life.
(I guess, except for the part about dying of cancer.)

Anyway,

I'll remember Pop, Auntie Bridey

I've got his naturalization certificate in a cruddy plastic frame, because I haven't had a chance to buy a nice frame yet.

John Patrick Guilfoyle, 41, white, fair complexioned, blue-eyed, brown gray hair, 5' 10”, that's basically all the information you can find on it, other than on Oct. 31, 1957, he became a citizen of the United States.

But it's got my grandfather's picture on it, one of the few we have in the family, and I wanted it, cruddy frame or not.

I'm still not as old as he was when he became a citizen of the United States. It's not necessarily a memory of him. It's a thought, a reminder of someone I knew a long time ago, but never really got to know at all.

He immigrated to the United States from Ireland, had a family, and worked in a repair shop of the New York City subway system.

He was the only grandparent I ever had. His wife died before I ever saw her. My mother's parents lived in Ireland and died when I was young.

The memories I have are few and rare, but all pleasant. He'd come visit every Wednesday. We'd run home just a little quicker those days, scream, “C'mon, c'mon c'mon” to make the elevator door close that much faster, so we could get up to our apartment and find him sitting on the couch, by the window. If it was summer, he'd have his radio by his side, listening to the New York Mets. No matter that he could turn on the TV and watch the game any day of the week. Better on the radio, he thought.

He had a little nonsense rhyme for each of us. For me - “Stephen, Stephen, cut the bread even.”

Sounds silly to you, I'm sure. Sweetest words I ever heard. It's been about 30 years since I heard them.

I've got her picture in my wallet, in a little memorial card. Bridget Kristine Enright Williams. My mother's sister. She was born in Ireland. Like any Irish person who wanted to work, she had to leave Ireland. She moved to England, however, and went to nursing school.

Because there were too many Irish girls named Bridget at school, the damned English turned my Auntie Bridey into Kris. I'd always hear about her in letters my Aunt Catherine wrote to my mother. I'd always smile a little, knowing I had an Auntie Bridey out there somewhere.

Aunt Kris is so generic, so basic. Auntie Bridey is so lyrical, so musical.

She moved to England, got a new name to everyone else but me, got a job, married a man and had two children.

She visited us - in 1989 I think - and I finally got to see her. I was away at college most of her visit, but I remember a long night spent at the Spartanburg Amtrak station, the heater in my old Impala working overtime as we waited and waited and waited for the train to show up so
they could head up North for a few days.

Her husband was Welsh, and she made a great Welsh pot roast at the house once. Vegetables are a communist plot, but somehow my Auntie Bridey convinced me to ask seconds on the carrot-based dinner. I saw her for just a few days, then I had to go back to college. I came back
a couple of weeks later to drive her and her husband and kids to the airport. It was a big car.

In 1990, we put Mom on a plane and got her to England. Two of her brothers also live there. Two others flew in from Australia. It was the worst kind of family reunion. They all made it, just barely, before Auntie Bridey went.

My grandfather, Pop, as we called him, died of cancer. Lung cancer possibly from the asbestos in the brakes of the subway cars he worked on his entire life. My Auntie Bridey died of cancer. This nasty little disease barked up both sides of my family tree and took something from
me that I never really had a chance to know.

One of the ways to honor people like that is by buying luminaries as part of the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life efforts. It's a way to raise money to fight cancer. I bought one for Pop and one for Auntie Bridey this year.

That's what cancer has left us. A certificate, a dog-eared memorial card. I have memories. Just pictures on paper and in my mind that fade. Nothing to hold or tell a joke to. Nothing to smile at, nothing that smiles back.

The real horror of cancer is it takes away things you don't even know you had, things you never had a chance to get. I have a million pleasant memories. I'm a millionaire in remembrance, but I'd rather be poor in memories and rich in hugs from Auntie Bridey, and “Stephen, Stephen cut the bread evens” from my Pop.