Chapter 10: The Star-Telegram -- And So It Begins

All my life, I've been a morning person. Wake up and let's get this party started. But adjusting to reporting to work at 6 am was even a bit of a stretch for me. That was the time the afternoon Star-Telegram copy editors started their day.

Still, it was hard to contain my excitement. After years of reading the paper at home (my parents were subscribers for 63 years), aspiring to enter journalism since high school, years of study at the University of Texas, Arlington and Austin campuses, I was now a full-fledged employee of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, proudly touted by legendary owner Amon G. Carter as "Where the West Begins."

It was the start of a career at the newspaper that would span almost three decades and take me places I could have never imagined. But let's not get ahead of the story.

Taking my place on the horseshoe-shaped copy desk seemed surreal. Why a horseshoe? The horseshoe copy desk in newsrooms has been around since the 1920s. Essentially, a half-dozen or so copy editors, also called "rimmers" since they are seated around the table's rim, edit stories handed out by the "slot man" -- the copy desk chief who sat in the middle. While each of us worked in silence, the close quarters created an almost instant camaraderie.

Remember this was 1970, a few years before computers would begin to enter the picture. So the whole process was very hands-on and mostly low-tech. It worked like this:

The slot man would hand us a story, either from one of the Star-Telegram reporters or from one of the wire services, like Associated Press. We would read it, make any necessary edits, write the required-size headline and hand it back to the slot man for a final check. If it passed muster, he would insert it into a clear pneumatic tube, where it was whisked away to the fourth floor composing room to be typeset in hot lead and placed on the page by the printers.

While the job required creativity (a good headline draws readers into the story), it also tested how well we performed under pressure. There's this thing that overhangs virtually every department and every person at a newspaper. It's called a "deadline." As one wise person said, "Nothing happens at a newspaper without a deadline."

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Both the morning and the afternoon newspapers published multiple editions. First was usually the State Edition, which had to readied early for delivery to areas outside of Fort Worth. Next would be the One-Star City Edition, followed by a Two-Star, a Three-Star and a Final Edition. In rare cases, there could an "Extra Edition" as well, if news events warranted.

Missing a deadline was almost unthinkable. It would create a domino effect for printers waiting to finish pages, pressmen waiting to start the presses and delivery boys waiting to throw them on doorsteps or place them in newspaper racks around town. As the deadline ticked nearer, we were under the gun to get stories edited and headlines written. Tick-tick-tick.

Fortunately, I joined a crew that not only handled pressure well, but also could find humor in what we did. The latter is especially important when so much of the stories you encounter are life's tragedies: Violent deaths, gruesome accidents, natural disasters and the heart-breaking misfortunes Fate deals out indiscriminately. Much  I would imagine like being a policeman, dark humor gets you through.

Our crew was a great mix of longtime experience and newcomers like myself. There was Alf Evans, a veteran journalist; Jerry Zenick, Lyn Wilson, Tony Clarke (with his omnipresent pipe), Kara Rogge and Mike McCorstin. Our boss, the slotman, was Bill McAllister, a veteran of the Korean War who joined the Star-Telegram after a stint at the Pine Bluff, AK. newspaper.

In many ways, Bill had the perfect temperament for handling the slot man duties, where the pressure of deadlines can really rachet up. He served as a buffer zone between the copy editors and the reporters, and wasn't afraid to challenge or back us up when a reporter didn't agree with how their work of journalistic art was edited. He had a great sense of humor, and knew what buttons to push to get most from us.

I soon learned Jerry and I had a common interest: Music. For several years, Jerry authored a weekly music column for the newspaper's weekly youth supplement, Tempo, called "Disc N' Data." In it he reviewed albums, concerts and offered updates on artists and the latest music happenings. While Jerry's interest leaned toward pop rock and more traditional artists, I was into the emerging hard rock and counter-culture scene.

Keep in mind this was the early Seventies, widely considered the Golden Age of rock music, which produced some of the greatest albums of all time from groups like Led Zeppelin, The Band, Pink Floyd and The Who. With several pages to fill every week, the Tempo editor was open to staff contributions, and I eagerly volunteered.  But my first foray into writing had nothing to do with music.

As you might recall from previous chapters, my initial interest in writing was poetry, and one of my favorite poets at the time was Rod McKuen. Both a poet and a singer/songwriter, McKuen single-handedly brought poetry into the mainstream, becoming the best-selling poet in American history, selling 60 million books and 100 million albums. His " The Sea, The Earth, The Sky" with the San Sebastian Strings is still in our collection today.

McKuen was in Fort Worth for a show, and I garnered my first assignment: An interview. Not only did it kick-start my writing career at the Star-Telegram, but also gave me a chance to meet an idol. The story was published Nov. 17, 1970, along with photos that I took (photography was also one of mainstay interests). Two months after joining the paper as a copy editor, I saw my name in print. It was a little surreal.

​But that was just the beginning.

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