Triad Today

As the lead character in the TV series Cheyenne, Clint Walker was often called upon to rescue a damsel in distress. It was a gesture that came easy to the 6’6” bodybuilder. But for Clint, helping people wasn’t just an act, it was in his DNA, so much so that he once rescued a real damsel in distress, and risked losing out on the chance of a lifetime in the process. On that fateful day, Clint, then a security guard in Las Vegas, was scheduled to meet with legendary director Cecil B. DeMille to see about a bit part in The Ten Commandments. A job like that could be the big break Clint had been waiting for, and no one in his right mind would do anything to jeopardize an opportunity like that. No one, that is, except Clint Walker, a man who always put others first.

A few years ago I asked Clint to recount that incident for a column I was writing about him. Here’s what he told me: “I was driving down the Hollywood freeway on the way to Paramount studios, and I saw an elderly woman on the freeway trying to change a tire, and it was obvious she couldn’t handle it. So I stopped and changed the tire for her. Afterwards, she said, ‘What do I owe you?’ And I said, ‘You don’t owe me anything Mam, I’m glad to do it.’ And she said, ‘Well I hope I haven’t made you late for anything.’ And I said, ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I have an appointment at Paramount which may lead to an acting job, but I’m sure it will work out fine.’ When I got to Paramount I was very late, and had to sit outside Mr. DeMille’s office waiting, then I finally got called in. He was a commanding individual. He looked me up and down and said, ‘You’re late young man!’ And I thought this is probably the beginning and the end of my career. I said, ‘Yes sir, I’m sorry. I stopped to help someone on the freeway.’ And he said, ‘Yes I know all about that. That was my secretary you helped.’”

Needless to say Clint got the part, and later that same year he was hired by Warner Brothers to star in what was to be the first hour-long, filmed drama on television. Cheyenne ran for seven seasons, from 1955 to 1963, and was a huge success. Clint became a hot property and was sought after for a number of big screen action movies, such as Yellowstone Kelly, Night of the Grizzly, Sinatra’s None But the Brave, and The Dirty Dozen. Later he went on to star in a number of TV movies, then landed the lead in ABC’s short-lived drama, Kodiak. More films and guest starring roles would follow until he retired from acting in 1998. Ron Ely (TV’s Tarzan), who co-starred with Walker in Night of the Grizzly, was once asked to describe the big man. “Clint was a simple, straight-forward guy who always told the truth. He was a wonderful, terrific human being.

I first met that wonderful human being at an event in which he was being honored by the Paley Center in Los Angeles. I was excited to meet my boyhood hero and discover that he was just as nice in person as he was on screen. We stayed in touch several times a year after that, including my annual birthday call to him, which I had just put on my to-do list, when a friend told me that my idol had passed away. Clint died on May 21 from congestive heart failure, just nine days shy of his 91^st birthday. He is survived by wife Susan and his daughter Valerie.

On occasions when Clint and I would visit by phone, we often talked about his career. Here are a few excerpts from those conversations.

JL: How did you catch the acting bug?

CW: I thought that acting was kind of a silly way to make a living, but then I was approached by Henry Wilson at the Sands Hotel where I was working as a security guard, and I realized that carrying a gun and a badge the rest of my life wouldn’t get me very far.

JL: But you ended up carrying a gun and a badge a lot on TV anyway .

CW: Yeah, but the bullets weren’t real, and you get to kiss a pretty girl now and then. And I got paid better. [laughs]

JL: Why did you enjoy working in Westerns so much?

CW: Well I felt at home with them. I like the out of doors, especially the West. The mountains and the deserts, and the lore behind it, and the kind of people associated with it.

JL: If you hadn’t been an actor, what would you have done?

CW: Maybe an inventor. As a matter of fact, at one time while I was doing Cheyenne I designed a piece of exercise equipment, and also a camper tent to go on a pick-up truck.

JL: Cheyenne DVDs are still big sellers, the show still airs every day, and you still get fan mail. Why are you and the show still so popular?

CW: I have stacks and stacks of letters that are so wonderful. A lot of them say things like, “I lost my Dad at an early age”, or, “My folks went through a divorce, and you’ve become my surrogate father.” Some say, “I watched Cheyenne and wanted to grow up to be just like him.” Well that’s a heck of a compliment. Maybe I did something that has had a positive effect on other people’s lives, and I thank God for blessing me with that opportunity. I wish I was as perfect as the Cheyenne character, but I try to live up to those kinds of expectations.

By all accounts, Clint lived up to those expectations, and then some.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson was born in Greenville, South Carolina, but folks in these parts claim him as a native son because he graduated from NC A&T State University. In fact, Jackson will tell you that he found himself at A&T, where he was a star football player, student body president, and leader of a movement to integrate public facilities and businesses in Greensboro.

Jackson went to work with Dr. Martin Luther King in 1965 and in 1967 took over the Chicago-based “Operation Bread Basket”, where he was successful in persuading area companies to hire minorities. He became an ordained minister following Dr. King’s assassination, then founded Operation P.U.S.H. (People United to Serve Humanity) in 1971. He organized the Rainbow Coalition in 1984, and merged the two groups in 1996. Rev. Jackson ran for president in 1984 and 1988, and over the years he has been instrumental in freeing scores of hostages from foreign adversaries.

Earlier this month, Rev. Jackson was in Greensboro to deliver the Baccalaureate address at Bennett College, and, thanks to some creative wrangling by Bennett President Phyllis Dawkins, we were fortunate to have Jackson visit the abc45 studio, where I taped an extended interview with him for Triad Today. On that day, Rev. Jackson was greeted like a rock star by a large, enthusiastic, and mostly female studio audience. He stopped to shake hands and have photos taken with everyone, and gave my wife Pam a big hug before ascending to the stage. I asked him, “What IS it with you and women?” “We have an understanding,” he replied with a smile.

Age (Jackson is 76) and Parkinson’s have slowed his stride and softened his once booming voice, but his words are still filled with the fervor of a man on a mission of economic empowerment and racial unity. During our 25-minute conversation, Rev. Jackson talked about his early days at A&T, working with Dr. King, his two runs for the presidency, gun violence, racial profiling, social media, and Donald Trump. The Triad Today special airs this Sunday night. Here are some highlights.

JL: You played football, baseball, and basketball in high school. Which was your favorite?

JJ: Football ultimately because that’s how I got my scholarship.

JL: But which sport were you better at?

JJ: Maybe baseball, but football was my meal ticket.

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JL: Everyone knows about the Greensboro Four who staged the first lunch counter sit-in, but folks forget that it was you who organized “wade-ins” at all-white swimming pools, “watch-ins” at segregated movie theatres, and more.

JJ: The real deal was when the four brothers made that gallant step, but then the Bennett women sustained it. They showed the strength and courage to follow through.

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JL: Dr. King was sort of like a father to you. What did you learn from him?

JJ: Strong minds bring strong change. You have to study diligently and study every day, and pray fervently, and have the courage of your convictions.

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JL: You did well in the 1984 and 1988 primaries, but didn’t win the nomination. Why didn’t you run as an independent?

JJ: I was trying to honor the system. We wanted to expand the base of Democrats at that time. One of my concerns then and now is that people must run for change, not just run for themselves.

A special edition of Triad Today with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, airs this Sunday night at 8 o’clock, on MY48 (cable channel 15).

 
 

Let’s be brutally honest. Last week’s big launch of the “Be Best” campaign was nothing more than a transparent attempt to give Melania Trump a noble reason for spending time away from her husband. From now on, the media won’t have to report that the First Lady is traveling separately from the President because she doesn’t like flying with an adulterer, and instead, they can report that she is leaving D.C. to tour a school in Montana, or a hospital in Louisiana. The problem is that “Be Best” is as transparent as the reason for creating it.

Forget the fact that the name of the campaign makes no grammatical sense. It’s the broken English, twitter-age version of “Be Your Best”, which is a rip-off of the Army’s old slogan, “Be the Best You Can Be.” Beyond that, “Be Best” strives to tell us that cyber-bullying and opioid abuse are bad things. Thanks for the news flash. The question is: Why combine the two issues into one confusing campaign?

As you recall, Melania’s big issue from day one was cyber-bullying, but when you’re married to the nation’s leading cyber-bully, you can’t make your husband’s offensive behavior the sole focus of your campaign. And so, some brilliant White House advisor probably said, “Hey, let’s add opioid abuse to our program so that the media won’t attack us for the hypocrisy of a war on cyber-bullies.” The diversion didn’t work, and the First Lady is getting hammered by the media any way, as well she should. Her husband fills his daily tweets with disparaging remarks that serve to bully his intended victims, and there’s no indication that he will cease and desist that behavior out of respect for Melania’s campaign.

Beyond the hypocrisy of it all, “Be Best” also dilutes the message of its disparately dual objectives, and, in the process, does a disservice to both, each of which deserves its own campaign. True, some teens who are victims of cyber-bullying also turn to drugs, but the opioid crisis has more to do with adults who mix and abuse their meds than it does with kids who get high from their parent’s prescription drugs. At any rate, it’s no wonder that Melania couldn’t and didn’t announce any specific elements of her “Be Best” program because there are none, beyond a few lofty aspirations. Toward the end of her Rose Garden presentation, it looked like she was about to offer up some substantive ideas when she called on several teenagers to stand and be recognized for their achievements in the war against cyber-bullying and opioids. Instead, the three teens were trotted out for window dressing. Melania recognized one young man for encouraging every school in his district to install a “buddy bench”, where lonely kids could sit and invite a friend to join them. Pardon me, but what in the hell does a buddy bench have to do with preventing cyber-bullying and opioid abuse?

The First Lady’s moment in the sun was hard to watch. Her English was badly broken (it took me awhile to figure out that “body beach” meant “buddy bench”), she never spoke from the heart, her campaign had no substance, and, as it turns out, much of the language she used to describe “Be Best” had been lifted from an Obama-era brochure, a reminder of the convention speech she once plagiarized from Michelle Obama. But perhaps the most painful moment came at the end of her presentation, when she called on “The President” to join her at the podium. There was no affectionate hug, no kiss on the lips, no look of love between them. Instead they exchanged what can only be described as a diplomatic peck on both cheeks. It was a visual reminder of the chill that exists between the Trumps, and of why she needed a national cause that would give her a reason to keep her distance from her philandering, cyber-bully of a husband. It’s sad that our current First Couple can’t be more like some of our past ones. Bush 41 wrote daily love notes to his wife. Bush 43 and wife Laura worked puzzles together and bedded down each night at 9:30 sharp. Barack Obama made a point of eating dinner with the family every evening before returning to the Oval Office. In contrast, the lame, impersonal cheek peck by the Trumps wasn’t affectionate, instead it was like a greeting between two foreign adversaries. Maybe that’s what they are.

Up until now, Melania has kept a low profile, but this will be her first foray into the public policy arena, which means she will endure a different kind of public scrutiny. I hope “Be Best” can make a difference, but in its present form, the odds are against it. Right now, “Be Best” is in need of a reboot, and the First Lady is in need of a loving hug. I fear neither are forthcoming.

 
 

With America in the throes of WWII, FDR ordered that the military draft age be lowered from 21 to 18. Soon thereafter, Senator Jennings Randolph began lobbying for the voting age to be lowered as well. According to History.com, Randolph wrote, “They (young people) possess a great social conscience, are perplexed by the injustice in the world, and are anxious to rectify those ills.”

Randolph’s pleas fell on deaf ears, but in 1954, President Eisenhower rekindled the debate when, during his first State of the Union address, he said, “For years our citizens between the ages of 18 and 21 have, in time of peril, been summoned to fight for America. They should participate in the political process that produces these fateful summons.” Again though, support for a lower voting age dwindled until over a decade later, when we were embroiled in the Viet Nam War. President Nixon supported a constitutional amendment to lower the voting age to 18, and by summer of 1971, the 26^th Amendment was ratified. Ironically, the new law unleashed 11 million new young voters onto the political scene just in time to vote for Nixon’s anti-war opponent George McGovern. Nixon was still re-elected, but in 1972, 55% of the newly franchised young voters went to the polls.

Over the years, youth voting has been erratic. For example, according to the US Census, only 36% of eligible young voters turned out for the 1988 election. Four years later that number was 44% thanks in part to an interest in Bill Clinton. That percentage was duplicated in 2008 when young people were energized by Barack Obama, but by 2012, their participation dropped back to 38%. Reportedly, the 2016 election brought out young voters in numbers that nearly equaled those of 1972, although an informal poll, taken during the Portland Oregon protest rally the day after Hillary lost, revealed that nearly 70% of Millennials didn’t bother to go vote the day before.

Today, in the wake of the Parkland, Florida school massacre, young people ages 16 to 18 are more politically active than ever. Their fervor and anti-gun protests are even stirring up debate about lowering the voting age from 18 to 16. Late last month, the Washington, D.C. City Council voted to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in local elections, with Councilman Charles Allen saying, “At the age of 16, our society already gives young people greater legal responsibility. They can drive a car. They can work. Some are raising a family or helping their family make ends meet. They pay taxes. And yet, they can’t exercise their voice where it matters most – at the ballot box.”

Mr. Allen’s comments harken back to Jennings Randolph, Ike, and Nixon, all who argued that if a young person can be called into battle, he should be able to vote. The problem is that D.C.’s action does not apply to federal elections. Short of Congress passing new voting rights legislation, a change to the 26^th Amendment would have to be ratified in order for the voting age to be lowered to 16. Theoretically there’s enough time to act on either option before the 2020 election, but to do so, members of both parties would have to put politics aside, and agree to let millions of young, angry voters have a say in national politics at a time when high school kids despise and distrust all incumbents.

It is unlikely that Congress will demonstrate the kind of non-partisanship it would take to lower the voting age, but we can only hope. Yes, I realize that some high school students are immature and lack an understanding of how government works, but those same shortcomings also apply to millions of adults whose political parties gave us Trump and Hillary to choose from in the last election. I doubt that 16-year-olds could do any worse than that.

Last month one of my Triad Today guests talked about Ridge Care’s wonderful “Hearts and Soles” program, which encourages senior citizens to walk around Hanes Mall in the mornings. The program promotes wellness and social interaction. That same weekend, about a hundred junior citizens were walking around Hanes Mall, but for a different purpose. The teens hung around past the mall’s 6pm curfew, and when they were asked to leave, violence erupted. Police arrived and were in the process of making an arrest when the mob interfered, resulting in more arrests. So there you have the great shopping mall conundrum. By morning, one group gathers to stay fit, and by evening, another group gathers to have a fit.   

The question is, why are young people getting into so much trouble at malls in the first place? I suppose that some scuffles develop organically. For example, Johnny and Jill run into Jerry who used to be with Jill, and all of a sudden, Johnny and Jerry are throwing punches. But, increasingly police say that mall violence is orchestrated, with unruly teens having been summoned via social media to show up and act up. Either way, the problem of teens misbehaving in malls is nothing new. In 2016 alone there were numerous incidents of mall violence, including in Manchester, Connecticut where 300 teens attacked police, and in Aurora, Colorado, where 500 teens faced off against 50 policemen. There were also similar confrontations in Ohio, Connecticut, Texas, and New York. The trend continued in 2017, including at a mall in Cherry Hill New Jersey, where over a thousand teenagers fought with police, and in Sacramento, California, where under-aged teens caused a disturbance in Arden Fair Mall the day after Christmas.

For now, there is some evidence to suggest that earlier curfews and parental escort policies can prevent teen violence. For example, immediately following the Hanes Mall incident, mall manager Charlie Gwinn moved the curfew back on Fridays and Saturdays from 6pm to 5pm, after which time, anyone under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a parent. Since then, no other disturbances have been reported. Of course no good deed goes unpunished. Gwinn’s counterpart at Arden Fair Mall tried to enforce a similar teen ban, and now he has the ACLU on his case. Speaking on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, attorney Michael Risher said, “the Unruh Civil Rights Act prohibits businesses (including shopping centers) from engaging in wholesale discrimination against a specific group, and that includes children.” According to the L.A. Times, Risher also wrote to Arden Fair Mall, warning that they, “must treat people based on their conduct and not because they are part of a category.” Translation, only a relative few minors cause trouble, so why ban them all from a mall because other minors might cause trouble.

Risher has a good point, but a mall must also act in the best interests of all shoppers and merchants. One of Gwinn’s associates told me last week that since the earlier curfew has been in effect at Hanes Mall and other CBL Properties locations, the company has seen a “return of the family shopper,” and “fewer incidents of shoplifting among teens.” I also spoke with a Hanes Mall merchant who said the weekends are much more quiet now. That’s the good news. The bad news is that, ironically, curfews and bans are being enacted at a time when malls are in desperate need of more foot traffic. According to Newsmax, mall vacancies are at an all-time high with no signs of slowing down. It’s a trend that the Wall Street Journal refers to as a “Retail Apocalypse”.

Even so, malls can’t afford to attract the wrong kind of foot traffic. The solution then, seems to be for malls to work with local police to maintain a database of teens who have caused trouble in the past, and then ban those troublemakers altogether, but allow all other young people free access with no curfew. Law-abiding teens should enjoy the same freedoms as law-abiding seniors, no matter what time of day they gather at the mall.

 
 

Legendary television producer Steven Bochco had a wry sense of humor, so when I first heard that he passed away on April Fool’s Day, I held out hope that he had perpetrated a hoax on us. He hadn’t. Steven, who won countless awards and accolades across a career that lasted for half a century, finally lost his long battle with leukemia last week. He was 74 years old.

Like his virtuoso father, Steven had a talent for music, but it was writing that captured his interest. In the formative years of his career, Bochco took any job he could get just to be around the written word, first as a $50-per-week script reader for Sam Goldwyn, Jr., and later as a script fixer at Universal. His early writing credits for NBC included Columbo and McMillan and Wife but his first big solo series came while working for Grant Tinker at MTM studios. Hill Street Blues was a critical success, racking up 98 Emmy nominations and four wins as “Best Drama” during its seven-season run.

Bochco followed Hill Street with L.A. Law, another four-time Emmy winner, then signed a long-term development deal with ABC, where he co-created the ground-breaking cop drama, NYPD Blue, which ran from 1993 to 2005. Unlike Hill Street Blues, which one reviewer referred to as a “balance between comedy and drama”, NYPD Blue was mostly a gritty, edgy drama that pushed the envelope when it came to raw language and nudity. Not surprisingly, more than fifty ABC affiliates refused to air the first episode in which David Caruso and Amy Brenneman showed off their bare body parts during a roll in the hay.

After creating the short-lived Iraq War drama Over There, Steven returned to the legal and police genres with Raising the Bar (2008) and Murder in the First (2014-2016), respectively.

In addition to writing award-winning television scripts, Bochco also penned two books, Death by Hollywood, a tongue-in-cheek detective novel, and Truth is a Total Defense, his 2016 autobiography. I first met Steven at the Museum of Television and Radio (now Paley Center) in 1998, where he participated in a panel discussion about creating dramatic television. The following year I interviewed him for my first volume of TV Creators. Before the book went to press, I sent Steven a preview copy. A few days later, he returned the pages, and they were filled with handwritten notes in which he corrected my grammar, and even fact-checked some of my research. I still have that marked-up manuscript, and point to it with pride. After all, how many authors can say that they were edited by Steven Bochco? His notes made me a better writer, and a more thorough researcher, and for that I will always be grateful.

During our two interview sessions in the summer and fall of 1999, Steven revealed a lot about himself and his craft. Here are some highlights:

(On his early interest in writing): “My teachers always told me I could write, and so it just sort of seemed clear to me at a very early age, that that’s what I did better than anything else. I wrote a lot. I wrote short stories, I’d write poems. I always enjoyed the actual act of writing. I enjoyed expressing myself on paper.”

(On creating Hill Street Blues at MTM): “That was the most creative control I ever had. I had creative autonomy on that show, for the first time. […] Grant Tinker created an amazing company, and the environment was truly unique, in much the same way I hope that the environment of my company is unique, and a reflection of the environment that existed in those days at MTM.”

(On dealing with network censors): ”I’ve had horrible fights (with them), because even though you may have creative control, you still have to deal with broadcast standards. I‘ve been at war with those turkeys ever since I’ve been in television, but I’ve never lost an episode to it. I’ve never had to fundamentally alter an episode.”

(On pushing the envelope with NYPD Blue): ”We were being deserted in droves for cable, and I felt if we didn’t make this kind of show, and get people back in our tent by being more adult, and more contemporary in our use of language, then we were going to be out of business.”

(On trusting your vision): “If you start listening to everybody who’s telling you what’s wrong with what you’re doing, then you end up with the old cliché. You end up with a camel, and a camel is a horse designed by committee. My responsibility is to myself. I trust my judgement, and you’ve got to be true to your own vision.”

Steven Bochco was always true to his own vision, and he left behind an innovative body of work to prove it. He also left me with some notes on how to be a better writer. I hope I didn’t let him down.

 
 

Adultery has been in the news a lot lately, thanks largely to full disclosures by a porn star and a former Playboy bunny who claim that they both had sex with Donald Trump (not at the same time, of course). And while Mr. Trump’s extra marital dalliances may be big news on CNN, there’s nothing new about presidents who have strayed from the nest.

JFK sneaked women into the White House on a regular basis, including such luminaries as Marilyn Monroe and Judy Exner, the famous mafia go-between. He also took nude swims in the White House pool with two of his interns. Lyndon Johnson was even more brazen, allegedly having sex in the back room of Air Force One, while his wife was on board. And then there’s Bill Clinton, who had affairs with numerous women including Jennifer Flowers and Paula Jones, before romping around the Oval Office with his intern Monica Lewinski. Of those presidents, only Clinton got into hot water, and that was for lying about sex, not actually engaging in it. A similar fate may await Donald Trump who is being investigated, not for committing adultery, but for allegedly having his attorney and a magazine mogul pay hush money that could be construed as illegal campaign contributions.

But the real question is, why don’t these powerful men (and men in general) ever pay a substantial price for committing adultery? After all, adultery is still a crime in 21 states, carrying prison time ranging from 30 days to five years, and fines ranging from $10 to $10,000. In Massachusetts, for example, adultery carries a three-year jail sentence and a fine of $500, while in Oklahoma, an unfaithful spouse can do five years in the slammer. In Wisconsin, the jail time can be three years, and a whopping $10,000 fine. On the flip side, if you cheat on your wife in North Carolina and get caught, the longest jail term you can face is 30 days. But marital cheaters fare the best in Maryland, where you only pay a $10 fine for messing around.

The problem is that while adultery is often used as leverage in divorce settlements, it is almost never prosecuted as a crime in and unto itself. For example, according to Divorcenet.com, here in North Carolina a cheating spouse can be sued by an aggrieved wife only if the adulterous act took place within the past three years. Translation? Even in a divorce action, any man whose past indiscretions are discovered to have taken place more than three years prior, gets a free pass. It’s easy to see, then, why most district attorneys feel that prosecuting an adulterer under antiquated statutes, is a low priority. Not so in many other nations. In parts of Asia, an adulterer is subject to painful caning. And in fifteen countries (including Iran and Somalia), having sex outside of marriage will result in the offending party being stoned by a legally assembled mob.

American men who commit adultery are lucky to be living in a country where their crime isn’t treated as a crime, and where their spouses tend to throw lawsuits at them, rather than rocks. Of course, we don’t yet know what kind of throwing arm Melania has.

 
 

Fifty-four years ago, Mary Ann Summers and six other shipmates set out for a three-hour tour that left them stranded on an uncharted desert island. Today, Mary Ann’s alter ego, Dawn Wells, is setting out for a different kind of tour that will take her all over the world. This time, her first port of call will be the High Point Theatre on Saturday, April 28. “What Would Mary Ann Do?…the Confessions Tour” was inspired by Dawn’s 2014 book of the same name, in which she offers up common sense advice on a wide variety of topics. The live show will focus on her life and career, including humorous stories from her time on Gilligan’s Island, which premiered in September of 1964, and ran for three seasons.

Dawn Wells was born October 18, 1938 in Reno, Nevada. Her father Joe was part-owner in a Las Vegas hotel, and her mother Evelyn was a homemaker, and a bit overprotective of her daughter. “My mother knew where I was every single second. My junior year in college, I’m driving from Reno to Seattle with my boyfriend, and the highway patrol pulls us over. I rolled down the window and the policeman said, ‘Is there a Dawn Wells in the car?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Call your mother,’ he said.” [Dawn laughs]

Dawn won the Miss Nevada contest in 1959, competed in the Miss America pageant, then caught the acting bug in college. Soon afterward, she found steady work on television, often guest-starring in westerns like Cheyenne, Maverick, Wagon Train, and many others. She was a natural fit for westerns because her great-great-grandfather was a stagecoach driver, and Dawn had ridden horses since she was a child. “I remember one of the first western episodes I did, they asked me, ‘Can you drive a buckboard?’ I hadn’t driven a buckboard in my life, but I said ‘Of course I can!’ My horse got away and they had to come get me. [laughs]”

After appearing as Mary Ann in over a hundred Gilligan episodes that are still in re-runs, Dawn is one of the most recognizable actresses on the planet, and is in constant demand at nostalgia conventions and on talk shows. But starting next month, her schedule gets even busier as she launches her tour in High Point.

I first met Dawn in 2013 when she attended the Western Film Festival in Winston-Salem. We re-connected last week and talked about her book and the tour.

JL: Why did you write the book in the first place?

DW: Because we don’t have a Mary Ann today, and I think it’s very difficult being a parent, or a best friend. There’s no guidelines. My generation was pretty black and white. There were no drugs, no sex before marriage. Now with all of the temptations and all of the permissiveness everywhere, it’s much harder to raise a child. But there still needs to be a guideline behind it, and I think that’s Mary Ann.

JL: Mary Ann herself had a pretty good upbringing because she never engaged in intimate relations with the Professor on Gilligan’s Island.

DW: Back then there was never any romance. They couldn’t even show my navel. We’ve come a long way. If we were doing the show today, we’d all be living in the same hut. [laughs]

JL: I understand your touring show is for the entire family, especially for fans of Gilligan’s Island, but what do you want the audience to take away from your presentation?

DW: When you’re in the audience, I want you to know that I’m relating to you. I’m not talking to you, I’m one of you, and that’s what I feel Mary Ann is. And what do I want you to take away from it? Don’t lose the values you’ve been raised with.

As a special treat, the audience will be able to ask Dawn questions during the second half of her show. You can ask her about Gilligan’s Island, or you can even ask her for advice. Just don’t ask her if she can drive a buckboard.

Tickets are still available for the April 28 performance, and can be purchased online at www.etix.com or by calling the High Point Theatre box office at (336) 887-3001.

 
 

Last Monday a special ceremony was held in which Senator Richard Burr announced that he was donating all of his official papers to his alma mater, Wake Forest University. During his presentation, Burr said the collection is for, “all who are passionate to lead.” I hope that’s the case, but the sad irony is that Burr has spent his entire political career failing to lead.

Burr’s “Go along, get along, quid pro quo” approach to elective office has been evident ever since he was first elected to Congress in 1994. Since then he has voted in lock-step with his fellow Republicans, and with a slew of special interests. But partisan voting is one thing, avarice voting is quite another. The fact is that Burr has received a fortune in donations from industries whose products and positions have brought hardship to millions of people, and he has enriched himself through the longevity those donations afforded him.

During his 2016 re-election campaign, Burr promised to lower the tax burden for everyone, but in December of last year he voted to raise the taxes on 55% of North Carolinians. According to the Raleigh News & Observer, those tax hikes amount to $900 per household per year over the next ten years. Meanwhile Burr voted to lower taxes for wealthy folks like himself, who will save an average of $115,000 per year. It’s just one small example of how Burr is able to increase his net worth simply by staying in office long enough to enact policies that can bolster his wealth.

As a senator he sits on a committee that has oversight of the FDA, Medicare, and Medicaid. But instead of using his position to help people, Burr has voted with the interests of industries who he should be trying to regulate. According to STATnews.com, companies that manufacture drugs and medical devices gave a million dollars to his last campaign, and, in return, Burr pressed for lower taxes on Big Pharma. He also received big bucks from the insurance industry, therefore he opposed the ACA, voted to privatize Medicare, and refused to take on Blue Cross Blue Shield for price gouging. As a result of his votes, millions of people can’t afford the costly drugs they need, often won’t seek proper medical attention, and can’t pay for rising premiums.

And then there was Burr’s vote to oppose passage of the STOCK Act, which would prohibit members of Congress from trading on and profiting from insider knowledge of the stock markets. Sean Galitz of CBS.com suggests that Burr opposed the Act because he held stock in a number of companies who were “lobbying for several energy and regulatory bills that [Burr] co-sponsored”, and that those companies had donated a half-million dollars to Burr’s campaign.

But perhaps the most disturbing example of Burr’s special interest votes has been his continuing refusal to support substantive gun reforms. Rob Schofield of the Progressive Pulse reported that in 2016, Burr voted against a bill that would have required universal background checks and limited the sale of guns to known terrorists. He has also remained steadfast in his opposition to banning assault rifles. Becky Ceartas, director of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence, wrote that Burr’s votes were a quid pro quo for the staggering sums of money he received from the NRA, which in his last campaign amounted to $7 million dollars. Burr chose not to put safety of our families first, pushing that aside to demonstrate [his] loyalty to the gun lobby,” said Ceartas. She’s right. Instead of fighting for bans and restrictions on guns, Burr has looked the other way after every massacre because that’s what the NRA expects him to do.

Campaign contributions from special interests like the NRA, Big Pharma, and the insurance industry, along with votes against the STOCK Act, have enabled Burr to significantly increase his personal wealth. According to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Burr’s net worth in 1994 was $189,000. By 2004, it was over $2.6 million dollars. That’s an increase in net worth of 500% during a period when, according to Ballotpedia.org, the average American household net worth increased by less than one percent.

I remember a time when elected officials acted like statesmen, and never compromised their ethics or their votes for political or personal gain. They arrived in Washington with very little wealth and they left the same way. Now that he’s no longer running for office, Richard Burr is being portrayed as a leader in the Senate. He is finally coming into his own as a statesman, but that’s only because he’s already come into everything else. I, therefore, call upon Mr. Burr to do the decent thing, and have his papers removed from Wake Forest and delivered to a more appropriate venue, like NRA headquarters, or to the cages at a local animal shelter. Either place will give Burr’s papers the respect they deserve.
 
 

In sports, statistics matter, and Woody Durham had them in spades: 14 years as sports director for WFMY-TV in Greensboro; 40 years as the radio voice of the Carolina Tar Heels; play-by-play man for 1,800 football and basketball games, including 23 bowl games; announcer for 4 national basketball championships, and 13 Final Fours. But there’s no statistic that can describe Woody’s commitment to his craft. UNC head coach Roy Williams said of Woody, “He prepared for each game as if it were the national championship.” He also prepared every TV broadcast with that same level of intensity. I know because I witnessed it first hand.

I met Woody in 1974 when “Channel 2” hired me to run studio camera and put sports scores on screen for his daily newscasts. Eventually I wormed my way onto the anchor desk as late night weatherman. It was my first on-air job, and I was thrilled to be sharing the stage with a broadcasting legend, especially one who worked so hard to prepare his material. The preparation paid off because Woody never made mistakes, and that put pressure on the rest of us to do our best.

A year or so later, Woody left WFMY to focus more of his energies on Carolina sports, and what energies they were. Listening to Woody Durham call a close game on the radio was like having Rembrandt paint you a masterpiece with words, except that Rembrandt graduated from Carolina and hated Duke. But by 2011, the words no longer came as easily to Woody as they once had. Writing in his autobiography, Woody Durham: a Tar Heel Voice, Woody said that he felt he wasn’t as sharp on air as he’d like to be. Ever the perfectionist, he retired from broadcasting rather than make a mistake on air. The fact is he was feeling the early effects of aphasia, a disease that would gradually rob him of his extraordinary ability to communicate. It was a cruel twist of fate for a man who painted pictures with words. On March 7, that booming Tar Heel voice was silenced forever. Woody Durham was 76.

My most treasured memory of Woody came in September of 2012 when he stopped by the Triad Today studio to plug his new book, and to promote a fundraising project for Ronald McDonald House. Here are a few highlights of our last time together in a TV studio.

JL: You’re a real legend.

WD: [laughs] I tell people who say I’m a legend, that I had 900 lettermen, and six different coaches, and they all made old Woody sound pretty good on Saturday afternoons.

JL: You developed a love for Carolina at an early age.

WD: My dad came back from WWII and we were living in Mebane at the time. He and my mother both grew up in the Chapel Hill area, and Dad had been a real football fan. He told me about how he used to ride into Kenan stadium on the running boards of Coca Cola trucks, so of course he and Mom had season tickets. I really did become a football fan then.

JL: You played football in high school where you met your future wife Jean. But she later said that it wasn’t love at first sight for her because you were arrogant. Is that true?

WD: Maybe I was trying to be older than 15. As a matter of fact I told her that I was 16, so that she would think we were the same age, and she later found out that wasn’t quite the truth. I think that’s the only time I ever told her something that wasn’t true. [smiles]

During the interview Woody also talked about his friend, coach Dean Smith.

WD: He’d meet a person in Chapel Hill, and six months later he’d see that person at the airport, and was able to call them by name. He had a terrific mind for remembering people’s names.

Woody Durham also had a terrific mind, and on the day we taped our segment, his was as sharp as ever, and his speech was picture perfect. I will always be grateful for that brief reunion, and for the time we worked together at WFMY. Back then, Woody set the bar high for everyone who worked with him, and I’m lucky that some of his professionalism rubbed off on me. They say it’s not bragging if it’s true. I never heard Woody brag about himself, but if he had, it would have been true, because he was the best at what he did.

 

From the Archives, Sept. 6 2012

Woody appears on Triad Today

Last May I wrote about a study released by the healthcare website STAT, in which they determined that Donald Trump’s language and cognitive abilities are at 3^rd and 4^th grade levels. At that time, and even prior, I had noticed that the President struggled when trying to read aloud, almost like a child trying to sound out words. In fact, the only time Trump doesn’t struggle is when he speaks off the cuff. The problem is that his vocabulary is limited and child-like. A recent report from FACTBASE showed that Trump’s vocabulary is the lowest of any of the past 15 presidents. To that point, the STAT report also cited data from the Flesch-Kincaid grade level test which documented Trump’s frequent use of derogatory words, like “idiots” and “losers”. And he spews out derogatory nicknames for people he doesn’t like, just as a child would do.

Even more disturbing, Trump can’t focus on or process information. According to CIA director Mike Pompeo, National Intelligence director Daniel Coates and others, Mr. Trump won’t read his daily briefings, and will only pay attention to them if he is given big pictures to look at. Speaking of not processing information, just watch as he emerges from a meeting and has to have notes prepared for him so that he can summarize what had occurred only moments before. So what could be worse than a president who doesn’t read, can’t process information, and acts like a 9-year-old child? The answer is a president who, in addition to his other faults, doesn’t listen, can’t empathize, and is disingenuous when he says something.

Last week when meeting with a group of high school students about ways to prevent school shootings, Trump would occasionally say in a monotone voice, “I hear you.” So what’s wrong with that? Plenty as it turns out. An observant videographer noticed that the President had a small card cupped in his hands, so he zoomed in for a close-up. The card contained several key phrases that Trump’s staff had prepared for him, and guess which phrase was highlighted in yellow? “I hear you.” The man is so incapable of feeling, so inarticulate, so ill-informed, that he actually needs a cue card to tell him when to say “I hear you.”

Later that same day we also got a look at Trump the non-focused ad-libber. While meeting with 40 governors, the President was addressing the problem of trade imbalances, when he told a story about how Ford couldn’t get its cars into Japan. Without pausing, or indicating a change in topics, he said in the same sentence, “and we’re going to get rid of the bump stocks.” Say what? It got worse. A few minutes later he told the governors that what the country really needs is to arm our public school teachers. He then launched into this weird diatribe: “I don’t mean all teachers would have a gun. I want people that have a natural talent, like hitting a baseball, or hitting a golf ball, or putting. How come some people always make the four-footer, and some people can’t even take the club back? Right? Some people can’t take the club back.”

It’s no wonder that, last year, a number of congressmen called for Trump to undergo a full psychological exam. Accepting that challenge, the President had his personal physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, administer something called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), which, said Jackson, the President passed with flying colors. But a closer look at MoCA reveals that perhaps Trump’s most challenging question was one that asked him to identify the names of three animals pictured on a page. Reportedly he correctly identified a lion, a camel, and a rhino. Gee, I feel better about our president’s mental fitness already.

Let’s face it, you don’t have to be a medical specialist to know that Donald Trump is a few fries short of a Happy Meal. But never fear. At least he is brave. Last week while speaking to the governors about the Parkland high school massacre and the deputy who failed to enter the building, Trump said he would have gone in, even if he didn’t have a gun. Funny, but when he had a chance to carry a gun into battle, he asked for and received five deferments.

It’s really sad that we have a president who needs a cue card to tell grieving students, “I hear you.” I just wonder if he had that same cue card with him the day his staff told him that nearly 70% of Americans want him to leave office. I guess he has selective hearing.

 
 

Last month we weathered through some arctic temperatures, but for those of us taxpayers with an ounce of common sense, last month is also when hell froze over. That’s when a school district in Wisconsin was coerced into writing a former student a check for $800,000.

Had the student been raped or assaulted on school grounds? No. Had the student been denied an education? No. Had the student been injured at school? No. So why then was Tremper high school in Kenosha, forced to pay a former student close to a million dollars? Because school administrators refused to call the student by the “proper” pronoun, wouldn’t allow her to use the boy’s bathrooms or showers, and wouldn’t let her run for Prom King.

The student, named Ash, was 16-years-old when the pronoun battle began. Ash’s parents filed a federal lawsuit in 2016, which they eventually won on appeal. The Kenosha school district ran out of resources and couldn’t afford to take their case to the Supreme Court, so last month, taxpayers in that district settled with Ash for $800,000.

The payment was a first for this type of case, but the battle has been brewing since 2013 when Kathryn and Jeremy Mathis, the parents of an 8-year-old Colorado boy, demanded that their son Coy be allowed to use the girl’s restroom because he identified as a girl. Other similar cases began to spring up across the nation (in states like Illinois, Maryland, Virginia, and Massachusetts), and so did legislation and policies that required students to use the bathroom and shower facilities according to their biological gender. As the Colorado school principal suggested five years ago, if a young child has a penis, then he is still a boy, and it wouldn’t be fair to other students to let that child use the girls’ bathroom. All of the parents I’ve spoken with agree with that sentiment. They oppose letting a teenage boy shower with their teenage daughter simply because he “identifies” as a girl.

It should come as no surprise, then, that two weeks ago, the Trump administration decided that the Department of Education would not be allowed to weigh in on, or make policy affecting the use of school bathrooms and showers by students who identify with a gender that is opposite to their biological sex. Had that decision come earlier, and with it the probability of a Supreme Court who would be sympathetic to Kenosha, then perhaps the school district’s wallet would be $800,000 fatter now. Instead, administrators at Tremper high school gave in to the threats of bullies. They buckled to the demands of Ash’s media savvy parents who had enabled and pushed for their daughter to be transgender, then ran roughshod over anyone and everyone whose views ran contrary to theirs.

Increasingly our society seems to have a zero tolerance for bullying, so it is important to note that bullies come in all forms. There are bullies who physically beat up their victims. There are bullies who use social media to shame their victims. And there are bullies, like Ash’s parents, who use threats to obtain something they want. These are the overzealous, publicity-seeking parents who, after coercing their own children to be something they are not, then dare the rest of us not to accommodate their beliefs and demands, or else pay the price.

Last August I wrote about Texas residents Rachel and Frank Gonzales. They began letting their little boy dress up like a girl as early as age 3. Then, when “Libby” was 7, his parents challenged the Lone Star State’s school bathroom policies on his behalf. I wondered at the time if such gender-enabling by parents was actually harmful to the child, and I discovered that, according to a number of experts, it is.

Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins, told CNSNews.com that young children who are pushed by parents to act in conflict with their biological sex, suffer a mental “disorder of assumption.” Moreover, left to their own devices, young kids who are conflicted about gender, grow out of the confusion. In fact, studies by Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman Clinic found that 70% to 80% of children who express transgender feelings, “spontaneously lose those feelings” over time. Dr. Ken Zucker, head of the Gender Identity Service at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, concurs. Zucker told the Globe & Mail, “About three-fourths of little kids who have issues with their gender will be comfortable with it by adolescence, …or grow up to be gay or bi.”

So why don’t Libby’s parents, and Coy’s parents, and Ash’s parents, just take a wait-and-see approach to the gender identity issue, rather than pressuring and enabling their children into an adult lifestyle? Dr. Alice Dreger, a bioethicist at Northwestern University’s school of medicine, and a staunch supporter of transgender rights, says that, “Parents who encourage their kids to change gender are socially rewarded as wonderful and accepting, while parents who try to take it slow, are seen as conservative, unaccepting, and lacking in affection.” In reality, those characterizations are probably reversed.

I’m of the belief that any adult has the right to identify with another gender, but young children aren’t emotionally or intellectually capable of making that leap. I’m also of the belief that we need to protect all children from bullies, even if those bullies are their parents.