After I write one I record my voice track and then hand the script to Andy. Andy edits it from the raw tapes he shot. When he’s done we sit down and watch it together and decide if we got it right. If not we make changes until it feels like we captured the story as best we can.

And frankly sometimes I can’t tell. It looked good on paper. It felt fine when I watched it with Andy. But maybe I’m crazy. I can’t speak for Andy but I’m kind of thick at times.

So we have an emergency fall back position… our show mom. Yes. Carolina Traveler has a Show Mom! She makes sure Andy and I (but mostly me) stay out of trouble. She helps us stay organized. When we scrape a knee, bruise an ego, she’s there with Bactine or an encouraging word. Her name is Allison Andrews and she’s a consummate professional in the world of local television producing.

And even though she’s younger than me by a long shot, I still call her our show mom.

So when Andy and I watch a story together and we both shrug… we call Allison up to our hi-def edit suite and roll the story for her.

She sits right in front of the monitor and watches and we sit or stand in the back and watch her. Does she laugh at the right lines? Does she sigh in the right places? If not we know we missed it somehow. And usually that’s my fault.

The Carolina Traveler show this coming Saturday night has one of these types of stories in it. It’s a complicated tale about three children and questions about their father that went unanswered for 60 plus years. This story starts in a farmhouse in Ashe County, North Carolina, goes all the way to the battlefields of Germany in WW2 and ends on a hillside in Jefferson, NC, 63 years later.

There are unusual dynamics within the story. A son who hasn’t seen his dad since the son was a baby, only five days old. That baby boy is now in his 60s. His older sisters lived their whole lives wondering what had happened to their father? Their mother used to stand at the front window of the farmhouse and stare into the distance… hoping at any moment her lover would come walking up the road again.

It’s an amazing and beautiful story of love and hope and reality. But telling that kind of story on TV is walking tightrope. A little this way or that and splat!

When I got done writing it I thought, “Well it reads great!” (Yes. I have that big of an ego.) “But maybe it won’t play on TV like it reads.”

So Andy labored over it for a couple days trying to get it just right… and then we watched it… and I shrugged. We made a couple small changes. And then…

Allison to the rescue!

I wasn’t there when she watched it.

But Andy told me we had her 30 seconds in. Tears, the whole works! Later she told me she thought it was one of my best writing jobs. Naturally, I blushed. I’m so modest (cough). And that from a woman who has seen ALL of my stories. Lordie have there been some stinkers.

Andy also knocked it out of the park. With every picture and sound he added the flesh and blood to the skeleton I handed him. He did great work.

Generally if I’m making a woman cry it’s a bad thing. Just ask my wife. But when I make Allison cry well then Andy and I pat each other on the back. A job well done.

Tune in Saturday night and watch a Carolina family become whole again.

Not in the way they had always hoped. Sometimes the answers to our deepest questions are painful and not what we wanted to hear. But the truth, whether we like it or not, always brings freedom… if you can accept it.

Okay, I’m off to meet the Juan Valdez of the Carolinas.

See you Saturday night,
Mike