While perched on that stool I got to watch the goings-on in the news room and sometimes was asked to help with this or that. The Gong Show came on at 3:00 or 3:30, which the reporters would watch religiously (and raucously) if they weren't out on a story. Occasionally a school group would come in and I'd show them the dark room and some film canisters to demonstrate where the stories came from. The prop master was an old black man, whom they called "Deac" because he was a deacon in his Baptist church, and I'd talk to him or help him out with heavy lifting. Or sometimes I'd just sit on my stool and zone out, saving energy for the pre-air rush to process the incoming film.
This being a TV newsroom, there was a shelf with all kinds of radios monitoring what was going on in the area, including fire, police, and other services of potential interest. This shelf with these radios happen to be above the door to my darkroom, and on one of my zone-out days I was listening to the chatter with mild interest when I heard something that made me perk up. Not sure I was hearing right, I stood up, turned around and tried to focus...which radio would that be coming from, and could it be so? Yes, there it was again - they were saying MY NAME on the police radio!
There are virtually no other Mahood's on earth, so it definitely had to be me or someone connected with my family. Sure enough, as the transmissions continued I learned that my brother Allan was in the process of getting a traffic ticket! HA! Have I got one over on him this time!
It was anticlimactic, though, because when I got home he just shrugged his shoulders and said that Yes, he got a ticket, no big deal. If it had only happened a few years earlier...
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