Calling a Dead Man ... Collect

     I just read the news that a 78-year-old Mississippi farmer named Walter Williams has died for the second time in two weeks. The first time, he miraculously woke up in a body bag as he was about to be embalmed. The second time, his nephew said, "I think he's gone this time." 

Our immortal Walter Williams:
Founder of the Missouri
 School of Journalism

     He's not the first Walter Williams to flirt with immortality. When I was in college, I regularly made long-distance calls to another Walter Williams who died 20 years before I was born. He was the founder of the Missouri School of Journalism, and his academic heirs taught us not only AP style and press law but also how to use the good name of our patriarch to scam the phone company.

     My senior-year assignment was to cover the Mizzou basketball team for the Missourian, the morning newspaper produced by the journalism school for the town of Columbia. This was before cell phones and portable computers, so I would type out my game stories and send them by dictation or telecopier—a crude fax that took six minutes per page. Either way, I had to make half-hour long-distance calls from places like Lawrence, Kansas; and Stillwater, Oklahoma.

     Long distance was prohibitively expensive back then, especially when you had to go through the operator to make a third-party billing. So we improvised. In our dorm, for example, it was possible to pick the lock into the utility closet and jump wires so that your call would be billed to a vacant room. (Not that any aspiring journalist in the Woodward-Bernstein era would ever pull such a stunt!) Long-distance charges were such a deterrent that instead of calling home, we actually wrote letters. 
     When reporters needed to call the Missourian from the road, we were instructed to make a person-to-person collect call to Walter Williams. If Walter answered, he could choose whether to accept the long-distance charges. 
     Of course, Walter died back in 1935.
     So the phone would ring at the Missourian, and the operator would announce that she had a collect call for Walter Williams. "Mr. Williams is not in the office," someone in the newsroom would reply. "May I have the number so he can return the call?"

     The operator never wised up to that fib, and she would obligingly recite the number I was calling from. Then we would hang up, and the Missourian would promptly call me back on the university's outbound WATS line, avoiding the cost of the collect call.

     We were so clever, or so we thought. None of us could have imagined that within 30 years, our careers would be undone by our readers using their phones to get the news for free.

———

     So where is old Walter Williams now that journalists really need him? Not only is our patron saint out of the office, but his beloved newspapers are going out of business. Even the venerable Missourian may be vulnerable—bleeding thousands of university dollars every week as it struggles to compete in one of America's last two-paper towns. 
     At The Greenville News, where I worked for nearly 20 years, the iconic Main Street office is for sale, and they will soon stop the presses forever. (See Ron Barnett's video: Oh, the stories this machine has told.) For the dying generation of devoted readers, they can print the paper in Gastonia (which might as well be Estonia) and fold it into USA TODAY. Developers plan to tear down the newspaper building and replace it with an "entertainment district" that will include high-rise condos, high-end shops, and a dine-in movie theater. 
     I understand, but I grieve. Even Walter Williams can't live forever. And this time, I'm afraid that he's really gone. 

 ———

FOOTNOTE: I've encountered yet another Walter Williams who found fame in death. Walter Washington Green Williams's death 1959 was an occasion for national mourning, acccording to none other than Ulysses S. Grant III, grandson of the 18th President. Williams claimed to be the last survivor of the Civil War and said he was born in 1842, which would have made him 119, but census records indicate he was actually born in 1855 and was far too young to have served in the war. 

In more optimistic times, the Peace family who owned The Greenville News designed this building with reinforced foundations to support a 25-story skyscraper (below). They envisioned Greenville becoming a boomtown, and their investment in the Peace Center across the street was the first step in transforming South Main into a swank destination. But times and owners changed, and the newspaper building turned out to be expendable rather than expandable.

Columbia's unforgettable brick mimes

     Watching that blockbuster LEGO movie reminded me of just how much silly fun you can have riffing on bricks.
     You thought bricks were just a bland facade of suburban affluence? Bricks never made you laugh? Then you must not have driven across South Carolina toward Myrtle Brick, back in the days when you might play a golf course designed by Jack Bricklaus, sing along with Brickney Spears, or go deep-sea fishing for Moby Brick.
     Those were the kind of visual puns portrayed by cartoon bricks we used to enjoy on one perpetually clever billboard along I-20 near Columbia. On the long drive from Greenville to Myrtle, it was a welcome sign of comic relief that could keep our family entertained for miles.
     Bricks can't talk, but they sure can mime. On that billboard in Columbia, a brickture could be worth a thousand words.
     Like this one from the 1980s:

     Once you take time to study the details, it's not hard to figure out that this is brick-dancing. But try to decode it with a quick glance at 70 mph.
     The billboard advertised the Richtex Brick factory near the Broad River Road exit. The signs were never sales pitches, and the Richtex logo was the only wording I ever saw. Yet that solitary billboard did its job so well that the Richtex brand remains engrained in my mind long after Brits bought the brickyard.
      That campaign must have been a marketing challenge. How do you advertise bricks—a once-in-a-lifetime purchase that involves no customer loyalty, no price breaks, no free installation, no sentimental values, and no distinctive qualities? Has anybody ever built or bought a house based on the brand name of the brick?
     What's an ad agency to do?
     "Exit here for bricks"? I don't think so.  
     "Lifetime warranty"? That goes without saying. 
     When all else fails, drop back and pun.
     Hey, we're all groan-ups here.
     Stop, you're kiln me. 

     Here comes another one: 

     When I searched for these masterpieces on the Internet, I hit a brick wall. All Google could find were a few old chats and a 1987 newspaper clipping.* That's not surprising, since the brick ads date way back to the 20th century, long before Picasa and camera phones became so ubriquitous. 
     It's a rare treat when you get to discover something that Google didn't know and couldn't find—something a newspaperman could declare "Scoop!" The last time this happened, I was searching for Alfred Adams' long-lost biblical proof that Boone is the second Garden of Eden. That one I eventually found offline through the Boone Chamber of Commerce.
     This time, I found a clue on LinkedIn that led me to Cynthia Gilliam, the advertising artist with Columbia's Semaphore agency who developed the campaign for Richtex. She directed me to an old Facebook wall where a few of the billboard images survive. I am reposting these here with all due credit and gratitude.
     Gilliam obviously took delight in that campaign, and she shared how it "went viral" way before social media, sparking discussion on morning radio shows and hometown newspapers across South Carolina. I wonder if all that spontaneous buzz/free advertising might be one of the reasons why brick houses are so popular in the heart of Brixie. 

"Tunnelvision" on brick. Marion Street, Columbia

     Personally, I think the brick ads might be the best thing to come out of Columbia since my dear wife. In fact, bricks and billboards may represent the pinnacle of Columbia's creativity, considering Blue Sky's "Tunnelvision" mural, along with the recent tourism billboards with the self-depbrickating slogan, "Famously Hot, Surprisingly Cool."
     Mary and I were headline writers when we met, so you can understand why we still enjoy twisting phrases and playing with words. Our kids ought to be thankful we didn't name them Ben Joe and Amanda Lynn. They might cringe at our hee-haw humor, but they can't deny that they are ...

     I think this one is more idiom than pun. However, you get bonus points if you bricognized a bricket fence or brickberry cobbler. Shame on you if you guessed son of a brick.
     By the way, did you know that the holes in bricks are called frogs? (Google knew.) I think this goes back to the Bible. The endless demand for bricks was the last straw for the Israelites enslaved in Egypt, so to leverage their freedom, Moses called down a series of plagues, including a plague of frogs. And the Lord said to Pharaoh, "No more mason with My peeps." 

     And that, dear children, is where holy bricks come from. Behold!

     Speaking of peeps, puns sometimes hit you out of the blue. This one is from the Reagan era, when some of us were convinced the sky was falling:

     I assume that's Henny Penny with the pink purse, aka Mrs. Cocky Locky. (That reminds me of another Columbia icon, the Troll Ball Coach, who once was a pun-ter as well as a quarterback and has now mastered the faked pun and the brick-handed compliment. Lots of orange-clad folks around Clemson and Knoxville have other sobriquets for him, some that rhyme with brick.)
     When budgets are tight, an agency may be able to squeeze multiple messages out of the same scene. These two holiday billboards feature the same silhouetted house, presumably made of brick, as well as the same moon, presumably made of bricotta cheese. I see five or six more briquettes, depending on whether those fluttering hallowingers are really brickbats. How about you? 

 

      Puns have an undeservedly bad reputation. Some snobs say they are the lowest form of humor. Yet Shakespeare and Jesus dabbled in puns, and Hitchcock called them the highest form of literature. 
     I will admit that too many puns may spoil the blog. And if you haven't had too many already, you soon will. Before you censor me, just remember: If puns are outlawed, only outlaws will have puns. 
     As far as I'm concerned, the only thing wrong with a pun is when the author writes, "No pun intended." If you didn't intend it, then backspace and change it. More often, "No pun intended" means exactly the opposite—I not only intended it, but I want to call it to your attention because you might be too brick-headed to get it on your own.
     No such intent here on my blog. 
     Nope, unintended.

_______________________

THE BRICKS START HERE
*The Richtex billboards begin in 1979, according to a clipping of a 1987 AP story that Google found in the archives of the Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News. (Gilliam's Semaphore Agency took the account in 1982, and all the examples I posted are from Semaphore.) The AP story included a wirephoto of Chip off the Old Brick, so we can confidently date that one to 1987. Other first-generation illustrations mentioned in that story were Brick Dancing, Bricken Little, Aerobricks, Brick of the Litter, and Brickfast of Champions.

Olympic peakbagging? Why not?

    Should the Olympics give medals for a competition set to music, performed in sequins, and often decided by geopolitics or whim? Commentator Frank Deford mulled on his weekly NPR broadcast whether events like ice dancing are really sports: 

See, it's not easy to qualify what makes a sport a sport. My broad, more inclusive definition would simply be that any time you compete in a physical activity, you have a sport. The key words to me are physical and compete. I think, for example, that perhaps the greatest athletic feat of the 20th century was Sir Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norkay conquering Mount Everest. But however rigorous, is mountain climbing competitive?

    Well, now that you raise the question ... yes, it can be. And not just at the level of Everest. For quite a few of us, mountain climbing is obsessively competitive.
    We call it "peakbagging." Peakbaggers appreciate the mountainside journeys and mountaintop views as much as anybody, but what motivates us are the races to complete the computerized to-do lists. We keep score.
     Like other sports, peakbaggers have rules, records, and rankings—including global, national, state, and county categories. For example, the Highpointers Club keeps a running list of people who have reached the highest point in all 50 states (at last count, 241 ranging in age from 12 to 77). Among my friends, Charlie Zerphey has stood atop 49 states since turning 65, Rick Shortt has climbed all 106 Virginia peaks over 4,000 feet, and Peter Barr has bagged all 200 mountains in the Southeast over 5,000 feet. The lists are as endless as the horizon.
    I'm no great mountaineer, but I take pride in being one of the few people on record to climb all 13 mountains in Virginia over 4,500 feet. Maybe I could be the first to bag all 43 ranked mountains in Watauga County or reach the highest points in all 146 counties in the Carolinas.
     That brings us to the subculture of "county high-pointers"—peakbaggers who can make mountains out of molehills. We have to find the precise highest point in places like Tyrrell County, N.C., which lies so low and flat that it could disappear in a 17-foot tidal surge. I doubt that Deford would call that a sport. It's more like a cross between trivial pursuit and trespassing.
     But on the top end, I'm willing to bet there are more world-class peakbaggers than Olympic curlers.
     So why not mountain-climbing as an Olympic sport? We have downhill skiing—why not the opposite? Why not an Olympic version of king-of-the-hill, with climbers wearing Go-Pro cameras for the rest of us to glimpse the cliff-hanging danger? Why not a true cross-country race—a bushwhacking marathon? 
     Why not race up the highest mountain in the host country? In the case of Sochi, it is just 150 miles to Mount Elbrus, the highest point not only in Russia but in all of Europe. Even better from a peakbagging perspective, Elbrus has twin summits, so climb them both. And don't come back until you find the benchmark.
     On the other hand, Olympic peakbagging doesn't have to be a race. Judges could give bonus points if you attempt a particularly difficult couloir, crawl through a bear cave, or just rock your gaiters. 
     Or would that make it too much like halfpipe or figure skating? 

Happy 80th, Hank Aaron

When this 1958 Topps card came out,

Aaron was just 24 and the reigning MVP.

I was just 3 and not yet a card-bagger.

     I listened to hundreds of Henry Aaron's home runs on the radio when I was growing up but never really got to know him until I read a friend's book.
     Lonnie Wheeler was among a crop of Missouri journalism graduates hired by my hometown newspaper in 1974, the same year that the 40-year-old Aaron broke Babe Ruth's 39-year-old home-run record.
     Wheeler was to the Anderson Independent what Aaron once was to the Eau Claire Bears—paying his dues in a minor-league town but destined for big-league headlines. 
     Working with Lonnie when I was fresh out of high school was the kind of opportunity that you enjoy in the moment and appreciate in hindsight. He wrote sports like nobody I had ever read. 
     Once we took a spring-break trip up to New England, where Lonnie interviewed for a job or two along the way. We broke down the road atlas to figure out the most common town name in America (Springfield or Franklin, as I recall) and stopped at the Blue Ball Bowl near Intercourse, Pennsylvania, to watch Willie Smith and Missouri play an NCAA basketball playoff. Meanwhile, I embarrassed myself by trying to order sweet ice tea in frost-heaven New Hampshire. I was just along for the ride. 
     Lonnie and Mickey Spagnola were the main reasons I went from Anderson to Mizzou, sight unseen.
     Anderson being two hours from Atlanta, we considered ourselves Braves Country. Lonnie went down to Atlanta one weekend and came back with a three-part series on Hank Aaron that was way above the reading level of most of us in Anderson. Soon after that, Lonnie was on his way to becoming a star columnist in Cincinnati and an acclaimed author. 

Is this the best Christmas present ever?!?!?!?! Thanks, Mama.

     I was reminded of Lonnie this week when I heard that Hank Aaron, my boyhood hero, has turned 80.
     In 1991, fifteen years after Lonnie left Anderson, he collaborated with Aaron to write "I Had A Hammer." One of my prized possessions is a copy that my mom gave me for Christmas, signed by Lonnie and Hank. 
     Gifted writer that he is, Lonnie taps into Hank's eloquence even as he lets him tell his own story. Here is a passage from Wheeler's introduction as Aaron, then 57, pondered his legacy:

He commented that he envied musicians because musicians never die--their music is preserved and played for eternity. Aaron is immortal in the baseball sense, but none of his 755 home runs will ever happen again, and the question of his legacy is one that he has not subdued. He has no self-doubts about his enduring qualifications as a ballplayer, but wonders where ballplaying fits in the greater scheme--in effect, where he fits in the greater scheme.

      The greater scheme was the American civil-rights era that harmonized with Aaron's baseball career. For a southerner who admired Aaron but blithely tolerated too much of the sweet-tea status quo, the book was eye-opening and soul-wrenching. Here's Lonnie:

It's a delicate book, because it attempts to deal with a man's complaint without complaining. Aaron is compelled to file his grievances against baseball but has no urge to lash out at the game he loves and owes. He wishes to get his message across without the graceless effect of a soapbox or sandwich board. What he wishes, really, is to speak his piece and think out loud about where he's been that others haven't, what he's seen that others couldn't, and how it all adds up. 

     It's interesting how the "N" word has become an issue today, just as it was 40 years ago when Aaron was closing in on Ruth. Back then, it was associated with death threats. Today, it's a 15-yard penalty or a technical foul. 
     "Hammer" helps me to appreciate how far America has come—and see how far we still have to go. Thanks, Lonnie. 

Worth his weight in goad

     Steve Spurrier and Dabo Swinney have so much fun coaching football that they would probably do it for free. But because they take their rivalry so doggone personally, they won't do it for less than $7 million.

Defending national champions are 0-3 in Death

Valley, as my son-in-law Pat and son Hall

witnessed in 2011 against Auburn. Here's

hoping that USC will make it 0-4 in 2016. First,

Spurrier has to win the 2015 national title.

     The stakes were raised after South Carolina and Clemson decimated the Big Ten in their recent bowl games. In a poll of their coaching peers, Spurrier's Gamecocks wound up ranked fourth in the nation, their highest finish ever. Swinney's Tigers were seventh, their best since 1981.

     Even in the nationally televised glow of their crowning victories, the coaches couldn't leave each other alone. 
     "Two Capital One bowls are pretty nice," Spurrier told Gamecock fans, "but the state championship ain't bad, either." 

     Two days later at the Orange Bowl, Dabo had his say: “We’re the first team from the state of South Carolina to ever win a BCS game."

     Dabo should know by now: Never try to outwit Spurrier. He unwittingly walked right into the Old Ball Coach's trap—the same way his teams have for the last five years.
     “I called Danny Ford," Spurrier responded, "and said, ‘Danny, does Dabo forget that Clemson in 1981 went down to the Orange Bowl, won the national championship and went undefeated?’ They didn’t call it a BCS bowl back then, but it was the same bowl, the Orange Bowl, and the Orange Bowl has always been a major bowl.”

     So the Old Ball Coach goaded Dabo into dissing Danny.
     Well played, sir.
     Two weeks later, they made headlines again. On Jan. 16, after going 11-2 for the third straight season and 6-3 against Clemson, Spurrier got a $700,000 raise to $4 million. On Jan. 18, after going 11-2 for the second straight year but 1-5 against USC, Swinney got a $1 million raise to $3.1 million. And if his paycheck doesn't beat Spurrier's, at least his contract does, eight years to five.
     Tell me those deals had nothing to do with each other.
     And tell me this: Did Spurrier just goad Clemson into a long-term commitment with a coach he knows how to beat? Or in his own wincing words: "They're a good team that continues not playing very well against us."
     We don't need to debate whether a football coach is worth all that money, compared to the 150 teachers you could hire for $7 million. This is show-business. Coaches pay for themselves. Tickets sold at one home game will pay the head coach's salary.  After that, it's almost all free money, right? 
     Nor am I here to raise doubts about the longevity of the perpetually boyish Old Ball Coach, who will be 73 when his contract is up. He is already older than Woody Hayes was at his demise or Danny Ford is on his farm. Next year, Spurrier will be as old as Bear Bryant was when he died.
     Bobby Bowden was 70 when he won his second national championship. Reckon Spurrier would like to one-up him one more time? 
     The next time he beats Clemson, Spurrier will have as many victories in the state championship as Ford did. And he already told us he has Danny's number.
     Don't misunderstand my fascination and grudging respect for Spurrier. My heart is with Clemson, where I grew up. I believe in what Dabo's doing. I admire his passion and values. Someday he will put USC in its place. But right now, Spurrier owns the stage. He has earned the last word.
     It's not like he's just picking on Clemson, of course. Spurrier still loves to needle Tennessee, where he grew up as the son of a Presbyterian preacher. Even his own players are not spared. 
     Enjoy this list of Spurrier's zingers from the past season, and these revealing comments at his daddy's funeral. 
     In the out-of-proportion world where Spurrier rules, there is never a shortage of fresh material.
     Here's some more: Over the next eight years, Clemson will pay Dabo $4 million just for the license to use his trademarked nickname on coffee mugs, poker chips, and other merchandise. That's the same price USC will pay Spurrier to coach next year.
     Tell me the Old Ball Coach won't have a field day with that.
     Tell me which is the better investment.
     Or as they say down at the Capital One Bowl: What's in your wallet? 

—————————
LEST WE FORGET

• The Capital One Bowl seems a lot nicer to Spurrier now than it did back when the game was called the Citrus Bowl (the stadium still is) and Peyton Manning was playing there. You can't spell Citrus without UT? Well, the same goes for USC. I was surprised Dabo let that one pass, especially since Tennessee is a sore spot for Spurrier and ruined his shot at the SEC and BCS championship. 
• Anybody remember the last coach to beat Danny Ford at Clemson? Yes, Spurrier got the last word there, too. He was 4-2 against Ford, 1-2 while at Duke and 3-0 at Florida.
• The best record of any long-term coach in the state championship is 7-2 by Bobby Bowden's boy. Tommy Bowden went 5-1 against Lou Holtz and 2-1 against Spurrier. And it was his team (under Dabo's interim command) that owns Clemson's last victory against Spurrier. He beat the Gamecocks so often that he got taken for granted, and then he lost to Wake Forest and got fired. 
• Coaches' records in the state championship (updated through 2014 and ranked by winning percentage; counting ties the same as losses): Pell 2-0, Bowden 7-2, Hatfield 3-1, Ingram 2-1, Enright 9-4-1, Ford 7-3-1, Spurrier 6-4, West 3-2, Dietzel 4-5, Parker 2-2, Howard 12-16-2, Bass 2-3, Morrison 2-3-1, Woods 2-4, Swinney 2-5, Carlen 2-5, Scott 1-3, Giese 1-4, Holtz 1-5, Bell 0-1. 

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Frank Howard once told me the most he ever made at Clemson was $25,000. That would have been about four times what teachers like my mom earned during his final year, 1969. Coach Howard used to joke that he had a lifetime contract, but after he lost his last two to USC the administration declared him dead. We remember the Baron of Barlow Bend as an old man, but he was just 60 when he stepped aside as coach. 
—————————
Here's a bit of Tim Bourret-esque trivia: William Christopher Swinney was born just two days before Coach Howard's last game in 1969. They would have liked each other. I often heard Coach Howard refer to "dat boy," the same Alabama colloquialism that got Dabo his nickname. 

Let freedom ring!

The way history has worked out, I sometimes share a birthday with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We were actually born 26 years and 3 days apart. Today on his holiday, let's all try to honor and fulfill the dream of equality, opportunity, and freedom that he articulated so well. For those who "aim high," as in climbing mountains, here's a wild idea from a blog I wrote on the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech: 

August 28, 2013

     The dream declared by Dr. Martin Luther King on August 28, 1963 resonates today in so many ways.
     One way I'll bet he never envisioned? As a hiking guide.
     Remember the crescendo of that speech? 

So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and mole hill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

     In memory of Dr. King, wouldn't it be fun to climb the highest peaks on that list? 

     If you say yes, you might be a peakbagger. 
     To glimpse the possibilities, click on this list of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" peaks.

———————————
MOUNT PISGAH, TOO? 
     Dr. King reached another rhetorical peak on April 3, 1968 in Memphis—a terribly prophetic speech the day before he was assassinated. He alluded to Mount Pisgah (also known as Nebo) and the farewell vision of Moses in Deuteronomy 34: 
     "Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't really matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop.
     "I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will.
     "And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. 
     "So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!" 

———————————
UPDATE 2018: A few days before the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's death, I "climbed" Lookout Mountain, so I am halfway through this list. At the same time, my friend Charlie Zerphey became the 29th person to complete the list.