Monday, August 31, 2009 2:11 PM CDT
COLUMN: Sighing and smiling over an old editor's passing
By HERB MEEKER, Staff Writer
hmeeker@jg-tc.com
It would have been frightening if one day I had walked into the Shelbyville newspaper office and heard bagpipe music bouncing off the walls.
But last week when I read the obituary of George Frazier, a one-time employer, I learned he loved to play bagpipes.
I couldn’t help smiling after I read that.
I had known George as a workaholic boss when I worked for him 22 years ago. That’s not to say he couldn’t be fun. He loved a good joke and could see the hilarity of small-town life and politics.
His office overlooked the main street of Shelbyville. But he wasn’t lording over the town like some feudal lord, just keeping an eye on it for news.
Like any true newspaperman, George loved a good story especially when it sold newspapers. I remember when I wrote a story on a Herrick village board meeting that turned into a battle royal over a volunteer police patrol. At times the meeting was a mix of “The Andy Griffith Show” and a Civil War mini-series complete with a few Southern drawls. I took copious notes and mixed taped quotes with some background into an long story the next day.
For days, people from Herrick came in asking for a copy of the paper with “that story.” George was delighted.
He was not a strong mentor (“I’m too busy to be teaching you everything!” as he might have put it), but he did hammer home a couple of points that stuck in me.
I used to talk about what some sources had said during my reporting on a story. One day, George interrupted me with the question, “But when are you going to finish the story?” In other words, stop talking about doing it and just do it.
He wasn’t high-tech, either. He used to call up a source for an interview with an old manual typewriter in front of him. Then he would type out the quotes and facts at an dazzling pace. I first thought he just kept mislaying his pen or notebook. He later told me he wanted good solid notes when he later wrote the story on the computer.
Today, some high-tech-friendly reporters will clack away on their computers or laptops as they conduct an interview over the phone. They think they are saving a step. Then they start cussing when the computer crashes and their notes scatter into cyberspace. I learned to avoid that thanks to George, though I do use pens and notebooks not a raucous typewriter.
There were funny, eccentric moments with George as editor and publisher and Fran, his sister, as advertising manager. One Saturday morning I was working in the darkroom on the second floor of the office, which had a separate stairway entrance from the street-level office and press room. When I came down to leave the door was locked. I was never issued a door key while I worked there so I was trapped because there was no other way out.
Phone calls to George’s home went unanswered. Were they out of town on one of their weekend trips? For about an hour I contemplated climbing out a window dangerously near power lines. Before I tried it the Fraziers came back and rescued me from possible electrocution.
When I arrived at the funeral home last week I met some of the people George was with that Saturday and many other weekends or holidays. There was his wife, Sue, and his adult children, including Mike, who has left the newspaper business for law school, and daughter, Beth. Fran has been gone for more than a decade.
Sue remembered me despite the fact there’s so much more of me. I ribbed Mike, a former reporter with the Decatur Herald & Review, about all that reading he faces now. I was reluctant to ask if Beth recalled when she she was a grade schooler I lifted her into a small trash can during a “trash compacting” experiment at the newsroom.
Photographs on display showed how much George loved his family and found time for them over the years. George was definitely a family man, not some grouchy workaholic like I am becoming.
I now regret I didn’t mention to them that George gave me a compliment on my last day at the Shelbyville paper about how I had improved as a writer during my time there. I believe he really meant it and I appreciated it greatly.
But I did not forget to ask one important question: Why did he take up the bagpipes?
Sue said it was because he was Scottish. He had even traveled to Scotland.
So last week I learned George lived his version of amazing grace.
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Mama says wrote on Sep 1, 2009 6:01 PM: