Luck
Some time ago Zack and I were discussing how things were going with him and life in general. I struck on the topic of plain ole luck and how it had played a pivotal part in my life. My days at the Mobile Press-Register I used as an example.
After graduating from USA, his mom and I moved to Puerto Rico. My intention had been to find a job and to work in whatever social movements were there. I don't know what I expected, a grand welcome, MacArthur coming back to Manila? We found ourselves in complete social dysfunction and poor economic straights.
The winds of social and progressive change brought about by the late 60s would be a decade more in coming to the island. Worse yet, the job prospects for a "foreigner" without connections were dim. San Juan is a major city and you could drop dead on the sidewalk and people will just walk over you. Politics there make Alabama's home cooking look like bread and water.
Not able to find work and completely hating the developmental stage of Puerto Rican politics, we decided to come back. I spent some time working on the McGovern campaign and desperately looking for work. During one of my job searches, I found myself at the Mobile Press Register. I asked to see the editor, John Fay. "Here I am," I told him. He was puzzled. "A couple of years ago I came looking for a job and you told me you would hire me when I finished school. so here I am."
He looked at me and I fancied that his grin was in appreciation of my chutzpah. "That sounds like something I would say." We chatted a while. I set out the reasons he should hire me; my experiences on my college newspaper (I left out the underground rag we started and my antiwar and civil rights work), that I had been a printer with the Fairhope Courier, grades in school, history major, etc.
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He punted. He said it really wasn't up to him, that the final decision would be with the new guy they just hired. We walked downstairs to his office. On the way down we ran into David Parker, my SGA president at USA. We greeted each other affectionately. David turned and said "You ought to hire this guy." Fay looked at me and said "I guess it's settled. This is who we were going to go see."
And that's how I became a reporter at the Press Register. I've had so many lucky breaks in my life on oh so many different levels but that chain of fortuitous events was huge. I spent a year at the Press-Register. From there I started the Azalea City News (and was fired by John Fay for doing it), sold the paper, went to work for the Legal Services Corporation of Alabama (another lucky break) and then, somehow, I somehow managed to get into the University of Alabama law School. All of it hinged on a brazen gambit and the happenstance meeting of an old friend on that stairwell in the old MPR building.
