Killer Instinct

  I still have it, the killer instinct. It’s not really dangerous, I’m not a threat to anything living or imaginary, but when you get older and you learn you still have it, it makes you feel good.

  On Monday, cameraman Tony Clark and I are tooting around in his camera van looking for something, as is done every day. Now Tony is a very bright guy who wasn’t born when I was sharpening pencils in a newspaper office. But he is a superb photographer and a kind guy.

   “What are you doing?” I ask when I see him using an electronic pencil on some gadget sticking out of his dashboard. “Is that a GPS? Which I don’t think we need because I don’t know where we are going.”

    “No, I am trying to find some music that you might like.”

     Well this is very thoughtful of him because between police and fire radios and the office radio some of the younger cameramen listen to music which is very strange to me and which I do not consider music, because it does not have a nice, soft melody and words I can hear and understand.

    He tunes in the equivalent of 600 AM, which is the only station I listen to because Frank Sinatra and the early Elvis were the only people who sang songs that entered my ears without resistance.

    He says that should keep me mellow.

    Mellow old men do not have killer instinct.

   We drive over the Georgia viaduct and he says, “there’s a guy down there and it looks like he has flowers.”

   That is good enough for me. A guy, flowers, and the guy is vertical, what more would you want to check out a possible story?

   As we approach Tony, the kind cameraman says, “I saw him on television yesterday. He was in a promo for CTV. They’re doing a story on him tonight.”

   “Tonight?!,” I almost shout. “Tonight? It hasn’t run yet?”

   “No, that’s why I said ‘tonight,’ Tony says, being very gentle with my slow grasp of reality.

    “You mean we can do the story on the same night that they promo it for their special of the night?”

     Again Tony the insightful cameraman nods. He is dealing with someone who likes music from distant age.

    What I am thinking is beating or at least going nose to nose against the competition.

   This is like the old days when I was young and doing police stories and the most important thing in the world for holding onto your job was getting the story before anyone else. That was newspaper competition when you would be at a crime scene and sucking in the facts like a reporting sponge and then running, literally, running, to a pay phone and jamming in a dime and dialing the number with a shaking finger, calling the city desk and praying that you are the first one to tell the city editor what’s happening.

    News is only news when it is new.

    John Daly still does that. I swear he prowls the city at night looking for crime. I don’t think he sleeps. And I know he is on the phone to the news editor pumping in hot tips like he was a fresh young reporter and he is almost as old as me.

   But I chose the gentler side of reporting long ago and competition was left behind. I am not going head to head with another station with stories of old men fishing in Como Lake.

  But wait a minute. CTV is doing a story on the homeless guy selling flowers. And here I am standing in front of the same homeless guy selling flowers. And CTV hasn’t run their story yet.

   I can taste the instinct. And it takes away the years.

   “We are doing the best story this side of the moon on this guy,” I say to Tony.

   Of course, with Tony taking the pictures it will be fairly easy, since he takes such good pictures.

   The homeless guy, TJ, is wonderful and warm, and is wearing socks over his hands because he has no gloves and he is thankful that he has these rejected flowers to sell.

   A delivery guy buys a bunch, but doesn’t have any money. TJ lets him have the flowers. A cop passes on a motorcycle and says TJ’s not hurting anyone and not breaking any laws. The delivery guy comes back and give TJ $20. This almost makes the flower man cry.

  It is an absolutely beautiful story. Check it out on my web page next to the blog.

  If you want to learn more about how rejected flowers are making some lives better look up Flowers for Food on the internet. It is a great idea.

  And not only did we get a chance to tell you about it, and to meet TJ, but we also had our story on one minute before CTV’s. Now that is what a killer instinct can produce.

 Mike

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