8/08/06

Sometimes in the world of tv news the days are hectic and vaired.

Today photographer KC Nolen and I began by covering a news conference featuring the head of Mercy Corps. Neal Keny-Guyer talked about his trip to Lebanon last week. It proved a powerful and moving experience ... especially because he lived there for three years in the mid 1980's. Can you imagine what it would be like to return to a country under attack with 900-thousand people out of their homes because of bombing?

Keny-Guyer told one moving story of a family he met at a refugee shelter. The family dressed all in black and the women were covered head to toe. He said they had an especially hard edge about them and seemed very un friendly. He asked if they were from Southern Lebanon. They were. They asked if he was from America. He said yes. They seemed to harden even more he said. And then he asked them the name of their village...when they told him he remarked he'd had a special meat dish in their village during his earlier years in the country. The village is famous for that dish. Then he asked if they knew an old friend of his. One of the women stepped forward and said it was her cousin. The suspicion and anger faded. The family invited the Keny-Guyer to eat some of their refugee supplies and drink tea. The human connection, he reminded us, is what leads to peace and friendship.

And yet he knows nothing as simple as common experiences will solve the problems in the middle east.

So KC and I hustled back to the station and put together a couple stories about Mercy Corps.

Sometimes we get to think alot about our stories...other times its a race to get something and get it on the air.

The next thing I knew, it was 1:45pm and we were hustling out of the station two cover the fire on Mt. Hood. Specifically, our job was to drive to the road block at Highway 35...interview confused or frustrated drivers....then bust a move and get up to Timberline Lodge where the live truck needed to be to send the signal back by microwave.

We arrived at the roadblock around 3:15 pm. The news starts at five...actually it starts at 4:57:30 or some crazy time like that. The pointis we were WAY behind the eight ball.

Incredibly enough..as we made friends with the ODOT worker manning the baricades...drivers started arriving at the road block.

One car held two brothers from Tennessee and their wives. They were in a unique bind. They'd rented a house a few miles on the other side of the barracade. But when they left for a nice lunch at Timberline Lodge in the late morning there was no barracade at all. Now at 3:30pm they were trying to get back to the house and learning they faced a detour that would take them 80 to 90 miles out of their way!

The southern gentlemen could not have been cooler. They checked and re checked their maps, talked with the ODOT worker..and agreed they'd probably drive back to Gresham to go around the other way.

I pray for such patience.

Besides the brothers, we met a man from France who spoke little English, a family from Pendleton trying to get home after a week's vacation, and a man who lived in Parkdale...again...not far past the barricade.

We interviewed them all..jumped in the car...drove to Timberline...and presented our stories at 5pm and 6pm.

A nutty but interesting day in the tv news biz.

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