White Underpants

And the novice reporter

I don’t know which was worse: getting punched in the face or getting the story wrong. Both felt pretty much the same.

I was stringing for the New Jersey Herald out of Newton around 1982 and assigned to cover a municipal board meeting in Byram, in Sussex County. I was about 20 years old and green as hell. Not even a bright green; more like a dull, moron green.

The reporter who normally covered that beat was away and no one else could do it. Or wanted to do it. Because as I learned the hard way, municipal board meetings in the early ’80s there could be pretty contentious. Politicians there did not work so well together.

Before I left for the meeting, several reporters who had covered Byram shouted out words of advice, like, “Don’t let them get you rattled” and “They’ll fight a lot but just stick to the facts.”

I was already scared and confused, and I hadn’t even left the building.

When I got to town hall there were two sets of tables reserved for the press on either side of the dais, facing each other. I chose the one on the left; a reporter I recognized from another paper took the table directly across from me on the right.

She was a chubby young woman who wore miniskirts and refused to say hi. I had tried to get her attention at several other meetings I’d seen her at, but it was no go. We didn’t have to be enemies because we worked at different papers.

But then again, she didn’t have to sit the way she did, with her skirt hiked up so that you could see her underwear. At every meeting. I wanted to let her know, but I had no idea how to approach her; we weren’t even at the hello stage.

Now every time I looked up at the dais to take notes, I was seeing white underpants out of the corner of my eye, and it was disturbing. So was the meeting. There was so much shouting I could barely tell what was going on.

One minute the democrats were winning; the next minute the republicans had the upper hand. I was running out of note paper. Finally, the meeting concluded, and I ran to the chambers to clarify my notes.

Had the measure passed or not? I really wasn’t sure. Between the shouting and gavel banging and the audience chiming in and white underpants, I was letting them get me rattled. I rushed in.

“Pow!”

I was immediately punched in the face and knocked off one foot by a councilman shouting, “You bastard!” He had missed his target and gotten me square in the jaw. I almost fell over, but the target behind me held me up.

I had entered a bloodbath: the entire side of the room was shouting at each other, and it was impossible to be heard. Many apologies were made to me and blame thrown, and the fight resumed with or without me in it.

Then I saw white underpants across the room, calmly getting her quotes and not getting punched in the face. She was completely composed.

I left to go write my piece. And put some ice on my jaw. I was still a bit shaken up when I got back to the newsroom.

“Are you sure this is what happened?” I was asked again and again by every night editor because we absolutely did not want to get the township debacle wrong.

And we got it wrong. I don’t remember now if the measure passed or not; all I do recall is that whatever actually happened, I’d written the exact opposite. It was a complete blowout. We had to do a retraction the next day. My night editor Joe was rightfully pissed.

And white underpants had gotten it completely right.

I had failed miserably. In front of the whole newspaper reading populace. And all the other papers. Ugh. I was lucky to still have a job.

They never sent me to cover Byram again, and I certainly don’t blame them. I was secretly grateful. Give me the slow, boring towns where nothing happens and democrats and republicans live peacefully side by side. You know, Shangri-La.

So, what did I learn from this lovely evening? Wear pants. Pay attention. Don’t let them get you rattled. Learn self-defense. Doublecheck your notes. Make a phone call if you’re unsure.

And always look both ways before entering a room.

Thanks for reading Bonzo Journalism, where you can forget about your own social incompetence and come explore mine. Every Friday.

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