[continued from yesterday's post; series stared 05/09]
By far the most interesting thing I did while working at KTRM, however, was an interview I did for the news department with a man named Donald Morris. I did not work for the news department, but saw Mr. Morris on TV one day in Beaumont and got the idea that he'd be interesting to talk to. So I asked Kevin Brennan if it would be interesting to him as well, and he said that if I got the interview he'd do something with it. After a few phone calls arrangements were made to meet at his office in the Houston Post building.
Trouble was, that meeting was scheduled during a school day, and I was still a senior at BCP at the time. Of course no one would have given me permission to do such a thing on school time, so we had to skip. I say "we" because I invited a friend of mine named Bill McKeon to tag along for the ride. The interview was set right in the middle of the day and I knew that if things went smoothly we could make it over there and back without upsetting the routine. The night before this little excursion I went to the station and picked up the taping equipment, getting a few pointers from Kevin. Then I called Bill and things were good to go.
It went without a hitch. I drove my dad's Cougar to the school and picked Bill up at a predetermined location right after he got off the bus. We got on Interstate 10 and skedaddled out of Beaumont before first period was even under way. Finding the Post building on the Southwest Freeway was no problem, and before we knew it we were on the elevator, microphones and tape machine in tow.
Mr. Morris was indeed a very interesting person. At the time he was writing a column for the paper, but had served in the CIA and written a book which was made into a movie (All Hands on Deck), among other things. He appeared totally at ease with us - or at least was successful in making us greenhorns feel at ease with him - and provided many laughs and anecdotes. In a little more than an hour we wrapped it up and said good-bye. By stroke of luck we arrived back at the school just as the buses were loading, so Bill simply got right on as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The interview was edited into a weekly Perspective program that aired either the next or the following Saturday, I forget which.
I still have a copy of that program, but unfortunately up in the Texas panhandle I had a girlfriend that was a bit of a flake, and upon finding the cassette plugged it into a machine and started recording a love note. So the beginning was erased, but a majority of the interview remains intact.
As another aside, very recently (I'm writing this in May of 2020) I saw a TV report on Channel 2 here in Houston. The story was about a police officer in Sour Lake, a small town just outside of Beaumont, who was assaulted very badly by a suspect at a convenience store there. When they named the officer as "William McKeon" I knew right away it was Bill. I was not surprised that he'd chosen such a service-oriented career, and that the community loved him, as the story reported, for his approachability and sense of humor, which I remembered about him well.
I hadn't communicated with him since we wrote back and forth during my first year of college at SFA, but the connection was still there as if no time had passed at all. A couple of weeks after the incident, when he stabilized but still in a coma, I drove to Beaumont to see him at the hospital. I'd written a letter to him reminding him of some of the good times and adventures we had, and included a card for this blog in case it might help while away the long hours in the hospital should he come out of the coma (they weren't even sure he was going to live at that point). The lady that was at his bedside at the time said that he could hear even though he couldn't respond, and suggested that I read the letter out loud to him...that the memories might help snap something into place.
For the love of God I could not, fairly breaking down right in front of this stranger, seeing Bill laid out like he was. I could do nothing but stammer a good-bye and leave with my own thoughts and grief. The reports now are that, after some six months, he is recovering, but has to learn to do everything all over again, including speak. Maybe he'll be able to read our story in this post one day and reminisce on his road to recovery. God willing...
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