Bill Wundram interview about journalism career, Iowa City, Iowa, December 8, 2004

Section 1: Q: What are some of [your] favorite stories? What are two or three that you’re proudest of? A: I write a column seven days a week. I think I’m the only columnist in America that goes seven days a week since Herb Caen. Caen cut down to six, but I do seven. November 29th, which is just the other day, Red Smith, a great sports columnist, [wrote], “Writing a column is easy. I just sit down at the typewriter, open a vein and bleed it out drop by drop.” Some of the stories I’ve been proud of or columns I’ve been proud of are almost ridiculous things. Like Bob Hope. I don’t recommend this as good journalism. But it reminds me the other day, somebody from St. Ambrose University, a small college in Davenport– they have a small communications department – was going to be smart and pin me down and ask me,“Tell me your ethical purpose in journalism.” And I said, “That’s easy. Get the story.” That’s it. Get the story. I remember one time when Bob Hope came to the Quad Cities. He came in his great big fancy leer jet with its ski nose painted on the front, I knew it wasn’t a charter it was the real thing. He gets out, waves, says a couple of jokes. And the media was just clamoring around him, trying to get him to say something. No, he was just going to walk away. He was going to be in Davenport for an appearance. I thought, “Oh shucks. I’m not going to get anywhere with him.” But I saw this big limousine parked near the airplane. So I just climbed in the limousine. I figured it had to be for Hope. And there was this very mature woman sitting in the back seat. I figured it had to be his wife. I always remember for some useless reason that her name was Dolorous. And I got in. I said, “Hi, Dolorous!” She said, “Who are you?” I said, “I’m Bill.” I wasn’t lying. Pretty soon Bob Hope gets in and he said to her, “Who’s this?” She said, “Bill.” And he said, “Who’s Bill?” I said, “Bob, you remember me!” I was just lying like a rug. It was awful. I said, “You remember that day when we were playing golf at Pebble Beach with Dino and it was raining and we were all wet.” “Oh yeah, yeah, Bill!” He didn’t know me from Smaltz. But he made it look good. And he said, “What are you doing here?” I said, “I’m living here now. I’m just living in Davenport.” “Oh Davenport,” he said. “Let’s take a ride. I want to see these gambling boats that are all around Davenport. And I want to see if Pete Rose is dealing the Blackjack.” So we rode all in his limousine all around the Quad Cities. And boy, I didn’t take one note. But I knew I was going to write. That was that. When we got out [they said], “Oh goodbye Bill. It was good to see you again.” It was awful. So the next day I wrote a page one piece. And there was a great big picture of Hope on the front page. Luckily, our photographer – no one was getting near him – got a good shot. Then the head was something like “Wundram’s anonymous or secret interview with Bob Hope.” I just wrote everything. I [remembered] everything he said. I didn’t hear one word from him. I knew it was a fun piece. I didn’t hear a word from him. I knew he wouldn’t care. But honest to gosh, the following Christmas I got a Christmas card from them. It was just signed, “Bill, you big phony.” And every year until he died, I got a Christmas card from him. It’s kind of a sweet little thing. That’s bad journalism. But as I said, I got the story. Q: Do you recommend people do that? A: No. Unless you have a lot of guts. I told my superiors how I got it and they got a kick out of it. I told the editor and he said, “You son of a gun.” Because Hope wasn’t giving interviews to anyone. Q: Was there a moment, a millisecond, a nanosecond when you said, “What the hell am I doing getting in the car in the limo with Dolorous? I could get arrested. Is this wrong?” What came over you to do that? A: I didn’t have a millisecond of thought. I figured that limo is for Hope, I’m going to see what it is. If he says, “Get the hell out of here!” Or the chauffer says “Get out of here!” I would have said, “Well, that’s it.” And by golly I might have had an inside column out of that – getting kicked out of Bob Hope’s limo. There are more dead ends than grand staircases, believe me. Q: There a word for this, this is a lot of hootspa. A: Yes. It takes guts. Q: A lot of nerves. A lot of balls. A: A lot of balls. You have to have a lot of balls. I just recall it taking guts. It made a pretty good piece. I never use the word story. I always refer to it as a piece. Who was the Olympic skater a few years ago [who] got hit with a tire iron? She was back on the road with some commercial ice show after that and making great money. Of all the obnoxious people I’ve ever met, it was Nancy Kerrigan. I can remember scooting backstage at the ice show and I wanted to get something out of her. What I got out of here was terrific. She said, “I don’t grant interviews.” And I said, “Let’s just talk a few minutes. I’ll just walk out to the bus with you.” She had her backpack on. And some little girl came up to her. She had a big hardcover book of Olympic skaters. And she said, “Miss Kerrigan, will you autograph this picture.” Kerrigan looked down at her and said, “I didn’t authorize this picture to be in this book.” And she tore it out of the book – this little girl’s book – and crumpled it up and threw it down on the ground. Q: Nancy Kerrigan was America’s Sweetheart. A: For a while. Q: Did you write about it? A: Sure I did. I didn’t use the little girl’s name because I never got it. The little girl’s name didn’t make any difference. -- <br><br> Section 2: Q: Tell us about Pinky and the whole Pinky story. A: I knew you were going to ask that so I brought the original Pinky letter. I got the whole works here, the original piece I wrote. The Pinky story can go on and on and on. [I’ll read] just a little blurb, because I write little pieces. This is just a little thing. “Life In The City – Easter Sunday: Not everything was closed on the Sunday downtown Davenport. She was tough and blonde with a pink headband pinching her dark-at-the-roots curls. She had been poured into her jeans. And she spiked along West Second street in silver heels. She wiggled west, then bee-lined across the street to a green compact. She spoke briefly to the driver, scampered in front of the car, and climbed in the passenger side. I pulled away from the stoplight and watched the driver, who looked to be in his 60s. He was wearing an implement cap and chewing on a cigar. Just like our Quad Cities slogan says, “A Spring Alive in ‘85.” Anyways, that was it. [It was] just a nice, life in the city thing. Oh, a couple days later I got a telephone call. [The person] said, “This is Pinky.” It didn’t dawn on me what Pinky was all about. I said, “Pinky who?” I said somewhere along in there: “With a pink headband.” She said this is Pinky. And I said, “Pinky?” She said, “You know, you wrote about me the other day.” I said, “Oh, you’re the hooker!” She said, “Yeah.” She’s such a sweet person. I had a vicarious thrill of visiting with a hooker. We had a great visit. I said, “You’re a hooker, but you sound so nice and intelligent. I expected someone as hard as nails.” And she said, “Oh no.” I said, “What do you do when you go home at night?” [I asked] because she had said, “I only work the streets during the day because I like to watch TV.” I said, “What do you watch?” She liked Friends. Then I said, “Do you shop? Where do you shop? Where does a hooker shop?” “Oh,” she said. “I like to go to Yonkers. Yonkers has good sales.” We were just having the greatest visit, and she said, “Gosh, this is nice talking to somebody who isn’t a John.” A John is a customer. She said, “I’m going to come down.” I said, “No, no, no. Don’t come down to the office! It’s been good to visit with you.” From our conversation was a neat gal, just a neat person. Then I get this letter: “Although you weren’t aware of it, your mention of Susie in your column made her very happy. It brightened her drab life for a few days. She was very proud of that column and had several copies made. I made them for her to give to a select group of people never to any of her ‘clients’. She even went so far” – and now this got to me – “as to purchase half a dozen more pink headbands as a sort of trademark. Yes, I know it sounds rather silly, but Susie was a very simple person who had never achieved any sort of recognition in her short life. And we all need some kind of recognition, don’t we. You gave it to her.” Isn’t that nice? Q: Backtrack for a minute, Bill. How did she die, and how did you find out that she died? A: Alright. I’ll read some more clips here: “The last time I saw Susie in late spring” – this happened at Easter – “ I asked her if she still carried a copy of your column. She shyly pulled it out of her jeans and we both began to laugh because she still kept a copy with her.” Since then I found out she had several copies in her billfold. “Over the months I would occasionally her news about Susie from the street people. The last news being that she had been busted again and was in a halfway house. What happened to Susie was admittedly tragic and avoidable, but in another sense it was preordained. Every dollar she made went into that hole in her arm. I hope that she has found tranquility that somehow escaped her in this life.” It is signed, a friend. [It is] a very literate letter. I never told this whole story. This gets kind of wild. I don’t go out and speak. Everyone wants a speaker, but I don’t go out. If I could charge a $1,000 dollars I’d go out. But Starchy First Presbyterian Church was inaugurating a month of speakers from the community. And I came and I was the first speaker. This sounds nuts, but there was a story in the paper about Wundram to speak. Of course there was no mention of Pinky – that was just another little addendum to life. I was speaking there, and I bet I had a crowd of 200 Starchy Presbyterians. And all of a sudden, you won’t believe me, without question, there came in four or five hookers. And they had pink roses. I wasn’t going to talk about Pinky [but] one of them spoke up and said, “You wrote a long time about Pinky.” Oh, she was crying. “We wanted you to have these pink roses in her memory.” I didn’t know what to say in front of all these Presbyterians. I said, “Are you street people?” They looked hard. [They had on] a lot of leather. They said, “Yes, that was so nice that you wrote about Pinky. We love you Bill.” To make a long story short, a couple of years later, a young woman came to my office and said, “You kind of know about Pinky.” Because after that [speech] I had written the sad saga of Pinky. I did a whole column. But [I] never mentioned the last name – kind of dangerous. This young woman said, “I think Pinky was my mother. And I said, “What was her name?” She had her name and we got on the microfilm, found the obit and found her name. It was Susan - I can’t remember the last name. She said, “I think she’s buried at Rock Island Arsenal cemetery because she once for a brief time was in the service.” So we looked it up and found her mother’s grave. I went out and bought a dozen pink roses. And went over there with this young woman who was her daughter, illegitimate, without question. We put pink roses on her grave – probably the only flowers the poor gal ever had on her grave. I’m a sort of sentimental sap and we cried and cried and cried. You shouldn’t get involved in stories, but you can’t help it sometimes. You just can’t help it. -- <br><br> Section 3: ou people are probably too young to ring a bell on the great, classic comedian, Red Skeleton. [He was] really a classic, classic comedian. [He was in] TV, movies and all that. One day, he was to be in Davenport for some odd speaking engagement, not for the public. Some corporation brought him in – probably for $20,000. I was walking down the street and I had a parking ticket. And it was a big one because I took up two parking spaces and I hadn’t feed the meter. So I was just sitting there cursing, and this old guy chewing on a cigar [with his] shirt pulled out said, “Don’t be mad, Sonny!” Nobody called me Sonny. “The sun is shinning.” I looked at him and said, “You’re Red Skeleton!” He said, “Hell yes, who’d you think I was?” I said, “Here, sign my traffic ticket.” I said, “I got to talk to you.” He said, “No, I’m too tired to talk. I’ll see you in the morning. Give me your card. I’ll see you at 9:00. You got an address on there?” I thought that was the old celebrity kiss-off, I’ll never see him again. The next morning in front of our office, downstairs our receptionists said, “Wundram, there’s something crazy, there’s a limousine out front and some old guy sticking his head out the window. The limo driver's honking his horn, saying, ‘Where is Bill? Where is Bill?’” Q: This is just the opposite of the Bob Hope story. A: This is shortly after the Bob Hope incident. Anyway, I said, “Let’s talk.” He said, “No, I don’t want to talk. I want to shop. I forgot to pack my pajamas, and I’m not going to speak for a couple days. Do you mind if we go shopping? Do you have a K- Mart in Davenport?” And so, we went around, and I spent the whole day going from one place to another. He was just buying everything. He kept buying me these candy orange slices. He kept saying, “Eat these and you’ll never get a cold.” I remember we were in a hardware store, and he would be walking around and people would recognize him. And this young woman came up, and she was carrying a baby. And he said, “How old is that baby?” She said, “Nine months.” And he said, “Oh good. I haven’t been in Davenport for two years.” He’s quick. Another woman walking in the store, he threw a mop at her. And she grabbed it and was shocked. He said, “Here, put this on my bill. I know your house is a mess.” To me, it was a memorable day. I spent all day with Red Skeleton. And I learned from him. You learn when you’re doing stores. I just remember everyplace we went, he’d rush ahead and open the door for people. He’d say, “I don’t care if it’s a bum or bank president. If you open that door, it will make them feel important.” I try to do that. We just had a great day. By mid-afternoon it was “Bill” and “Red.” We went back to the hotel – the guy had a roll of money – and you’d expect he’d have a suite. But no, two twin bedroom [with] great big trunks in them. I said, “What are you doing with that stuff?” “Oh,” he said. “You’ll never know what you’ll need when you work a show.” There was stuff in there like rubber chickens and rubber horns, which he’d never use. I said, “I don’t like to ask for autographs. I think that’s corney.” But I got out my notepad and asked, “Will you draw me a clown.” Because he was a great artist. He was not just a good artist, but a great artist. Around the country there are still three Skeleton galleries. He said, “I’m want to draw you a good clown. I want to do it on a canvas. I don’t have any canvas here. But I’ve got a TWA napkin.” It was a big napkin. It said TWA in the corner. So he pinned it on books and catalogs. And I think we sat there for two hours while he took good colored pencils. And he drew a real, swell self-portrait of himself. And then he said to me, “What’s your wife’s name?” I said, “Helen.” He said, “What’s your telephone number?” So I gave it to him. And he said, “Helen, this is Red.” He always had that inimitable way of saying it, “This is Red. What are you doing?” She said, “Oh, I’m sitting, just reading.” “Well, why aren’t you ironing Bill’s shirts?” They had a conversation. Anyway, this great portrait he made. He signed it. He would never remember any woman’s name. Every woman he met would be Dear Heart. So he signed it to Helen and Bill, Dear Hearts. Well, I knew that I had something here. So I had it carefully framed and had it photo copied. And I took it to Sarasota where he had one of his galleries. I said, “Is this worth anything?” “Oooo,” they said. “Do you want to sell it?” I said, “I don’t know? What’s it worth?” They huddled. They said, “$16,000.” I said, “Helen, we have just sold [the picture.”] I said, “I’ll pack it up and ship it to you.” And Helen said, “We are not selling.” Wouldn’t you have sold it? It still hangs in our kitchen. It’s very nice. Q: The amazing thing about this story is that Red picked you up. A: That’s right. Q: He had no idea that you were a journalist. A: No idea. He just said to me, “Don’t be mad, Sonny. The sun is shining.” That’s when I said, “Oh, that’s kind of nice. What’s your name? I’m going to use that.” And then I saw [that it was] Red Skeleton. -- <br><br> Section 4: Q: Take us to Sioux City. A: This is kind of a lesson in journalism, of being gutsy and mean, if necessary. How many years ago [was it], Steve? Q: 1991 A: Big flight 232. The fella had lost probably 300 passengers aboard. [He was] flying out of Denver and by Nebraska he had lost all hydraulic control of the airplane. He was going to Chicago and he knew he could never make it. He knew he could never make it anyplace. So he thought, “Maybe I can bring it in. Maybe I can pancake it in.” There was constant dialogue between all airports. And he figured his best bet was to come in at Sioux City – not to land, but to [glide] in and see what would happen. Well, this wonderful pilot – and I’ve seen the film of it over and over again – the plane [was] just coming in perfectly and then [it rolls] over and over. It fireballs. Well, around the office – this was in mid- afternoon – the editor says we better get out there. And the young punks said, “Wundram, you’ve got the guts, you go out. You’ll know what to do.” I didn’t know. I covered the Pope. But I’ve never done a really great disaster like this. I got right on the line and got a flight out early in the morning, at probably 6:00. Right away I knew I wasn’t going to land in Sioux City. I was going to land in Omaha. When I made my flight reservation I [made reservations for a] rental car. I got there the next morning, and the airplane was still smoldering. 150 still on board. Dead. Burned. Crisp. And the NBC, CBS big vans were starting to come in. The only way you’re going to get anywhere on a big disaster like that and get any kind of a story – even if it’s a two-car fatality – [is to] talk to the people right away. That little guy that escaped from the accident and is waiting there for the ambulance, talk to him right away while [he is] still in state of shock. because if you wait until the next day, you’re going to have a tough time. But at this airplane crash I was there and they were in a total state of shock. There were people wandering in the airport that had escaped this crash. Gosh, what great copy you could get. I just couldn’t write it fast enough. Well, then I checked into the office, and like I say, my brain is [focused to] get the story. I checked in the office a couple times mid-morning and asked, “Do you know anything,? Is there anything I should know?” And they said yes. There were two Davenport people aboard. One of them is severely burned and in some hospital. The other one, Her seatmate from Davenport is dead. So I quickly found out where the burned [woman] was. It’s a terrible way to get news. Found out what hospital she was in. The hospital was in terrible chaos. Everything was in triage and all that. I said, “I need to talk to an older woman, Esther somebody.” And they said, “You need to talk to her?” I said, “Oh yes. I’m a very close friend. I’m the only one she has.” Awful. They brought me coffee and said, “We’re so sorry. She’s not in very good condition. Do you want to come up to her?” And I went up to her room right away. I said, “Esther, what happened? Tell me.” She was a librarian in Davenport, a children’s librarian. And I remember the first thing she said to me was “Bill, how in the hell did you get in here?” But, you get the story. No one challenged me. Not a bit of a challenge. I never did hear anything. I made it quick. Get in and get out. That’s the secret in those things. Get in and get out -- <br><br> Section 5: I’ve done a lot of crazy things. Helen said to me, “I suppose you’re going to tell them about the doughnut shop.” We were in Florida. We were on the gulf side and my wife Helen had the radio on and she said, “Isn’t this crazy? Over in Fort Lauderdale there’s a topless donut shop.” And I said in the service of investigative journalism, I should check this out. So I had no idea were it was. So I drove to Fort Lauderdale and I called Sunset News and I said, “I’m a visiting fireman.” They gave me the address. And I still remember [the address] because I still get people asking me where is that topless donut shop: 2002 S. Federal. And I came up to this place and it was an old Dairy Queen. I said to Helen, “You stay in the car.” And she said, “No, I think I’ll go in with you.” There was a lot of lengthy interviewing. It was topless. And they had little skimpy bottoms on. It was near the airport, so they got a lot of pilots in there. Everything was a dollar. Donuts were a dollar. Coffee was a dollar. I don’t know why I brought that up. Q: How were the donuts? A: I don’t remember. I did ask the girls, “Don’t you wear nametags?” They were very ample, and they said, “How are we going to pin a nametag on?” But it made a fun column. I’ve used that a couple times. I reprinted that sucker just for the sake of investigative reporting. -- <br><br> Section 6: Q: I want to hear more women in journalism and how things have changed. A: Now listen, I have been there. I have been there since the lava dried. I have been there 60 years. That’s terrible. No one should work any place for 60 years. It’s not bloom where you’re planted, and I’m just a rutabaga stuck in the ground. But when I came in 1944, the newsroom was entirely male. It almost seems like yesterday to me. Believe it or not, it was like a western movie. There were spittoons. That’s weird. They were these brass things you spit into all around the desks. I don’t remember any tobacco chewers. There were cigars. They were always chewing on the end of a cigar and spitting it. I always remember all the guys wore hats. The regional editor would make some of the other editors on the rim – you don’t hear the term rim anymore, it’s where the copy editors were – [disgusted.] There were these big, wire wastebasket, and he would always blow his nose in the wastebasket. He was very delicate about it. But there were no women. I remember if you were making a long distance call – that old building where I started, very handsome building, still standing – we had to go into a phone booth in the corner. It was nuts. But women were not, women would be unheard of in the newsroom. They were relegated to society items in another, separate glass-enclosed [room] with a door. [They did] absolutely society, weddings. And they would get the births. And they’d have corny headlines every day. Visits from Doc Stork. These were the days of hot type. Everybody had typewriters and there was nothing wrong with a typewriter. And what would you type on? We used long pieces of paper just to fit in the typewriter. [It was] called copy paper. And if you had a really long story, you just glue it on the back or you would right “Take 1.” Then on the bottom [you would type] “More.” And then “Take 2” and then “More.” And then if that was the end – I always used “30.” 30 was an end mark. It’s a mystic. It’s a beautiful thing. -- <br><br> Section 7: I see you guys writing. [A little thing] that may be of help to you: I never use a notebook. You know the little one with the spiral? I have found that a notebook can be intimidating. I’m an envelop guy. Or if I’m going to do something that’s going to take me a little time, I’ll use a yellow legal pad. I can get a lot of copy. I can get three takes on one sheet. It’s much less intimidating. Q: I suppose Bill, you’re not a tape recorder guy either are you? A: No, I don’t trust them. I’ve used them, but I’ll take notes and use the recorder. I think I’ve used it once or twice in my life. I learned from a great AP reporter, Saul Pat. He was a super reporter. No it was Hugh Mulligan. Oh my gosh, he could drink. I can remember in some tavern one night, we were at some seminar and we were probably drinking too much. We were just making good trade talk. He was a master at the interview. And I said, “Just tell me, what do you do when they don’t talk?” You throw a tough question to President Clinton, and he’s not going to answer it. So you wait and wait. You don’t try to keep the conversation going. He said, “I have sat and waited for I know two, maybe three minutes for this person to answer. Eight times out of 10 they are going to start feeling sorry for you. And they are going to give you something.” I can say, develop a trust. Now with Bob Hope I didn’t develop a trust. But if I’m after something that I know is going to take me quite a spell, [I’ll] develop extreme trust with [my] contacts. This one story that won a lot of awards just a year ago was the Paula Sue Heiser case. [It was an] interesting thing. Paula Sue Heiser was found dead, obviously murdered in a trenchant camp [at] age 38. So what? Another cop story. But then, I read the obits avidly. It doesn’t take long. A couple days after her murder, her picture ran. [She was a] beautiful gal. I thought, “What the heck?” She didn’t look like a trenchant, a hobo, or anything like that. So I thought, “Well, I’ll get a column out of this. I’ll go to her visitation and her funeral.” I was thinking the story would be only six people showed up, one of those things. Well, I went to her visitation and I could hardly get in. It was like the mayor had died in this small town [of] Beulah, Iowa. And so I started talking with the people there. I asked, “What is all this?” The flowers filled the room. The people were telling me what a wonderful person she once was. I thought, “Boy, here is something that’s kind of good that I’m going to spend some real time on.” I searched out her mother, and her mother said that Paula Sue was a great person. She was the homecoming queen. She played the part of Peppermint Patty in Charlie Brown. She sang every time there was a funeral or a wedding. Then she showed me a picture from her wallet and boy, was she a beautiful woman. I said, “How’d she go to hell and end up murdered in a trenchant camp?” “I don’t want to talk about it.” Well, I went to visit the mother and we got to talking and talking. Finally, we became really good friends. I said, “I want to tell the real story of Paula Sue Heiser. I’ve never run into such a crazy situation. She had two children. At the time of her death they were 15 and 17. But she had abandoned them maybe eight years earlier. Then I talked to her ex-husband. I went out and had supper with him. He’d remarried a swell lady. [They said,] “We’ll talk to you, but you can’t put this in the paper.” I took every note down and said, “We’ll just see. I’m not going to promise you anything.” I asked, “How does a person become this low?” Well, he figured they had a colicky baby and he was in the Marines. And this baby would cry al night long. So she’d take a nip of Vodka, just to get her to sleep. This story kept building and building. I found out this woman had lived in trenchant camps for probably about eight years now. How would she live? She would live in sewer pipes. She had an old man who took care of her, who I was always suspect of, but he was too old to do her any harm. But he knew where she lived and when it was really cold she would go to his home. This is bizarre. She would go to sleep in his arms because she was so cold. Where would she eat? Where would she get food? There was a couple gas station where she could buy sandwiches. And this old man always paid. Paula could do whatever she wanted. Well, it finally shook out. Finally, this old gentleman was an excellent photographer. Paula Sue would begin her day with two six- packs. She’d always kept one out in case of emergency. Her regular amount of drinking was a half gallon of Vodka. But she was arrested so many times for public intoxication that all the welfare workers loved her. She was a sweet gal who would sing. But she would get so full of booze. On of the police records she went into one tavern, and one guy was sitting there, and he just had a t-shirt on and she bit him so bad on the shoulder. I don’t know how many stitches [he had to have.] She was a berserk woman. Anyway, she was murdered in a trenchant camp for an argument over an argument with another trenchantee over a can of Franco American spaghetti. Death was partly strangulation and they pushed her face into the mud. She died of asphyxiation. I sat all through the trial. I wasn’t going to write this until after I sat through the murder trial – because they had the people who did it. You can’t beat a trial. If you’re going to do a story right you can’t miss a trial because amazing stuff will come out in the trial. The fella who was tried on second- degree murder, he got a long time. And his girlfriend who was with him, was convicted of manslaughter and she’ll be out in eight years. The woman did it. I’m convinced. She stood on the back of [Paula’s] face in the mud long enough to kill her. Anyway, this old man, strange man, was an excellent photographer. He took pictures of her galore. Pictures of her sitting on the railroad track drinking Vodka. I had all these. He gave me all these. Every now and then she’d get sobered up and would go find her daughters. The daughters were 15 and 17. And the daughters would get her all cleaned up, do her nails, take her to the beauty shop. She looked plenty good again, I had those pictures. Anyway, it finally got to push and shove and I told the former husband that I was going to do it, that I had the story. I got it all, sue me, there’s no malice here. Truth is not always a protection. I went to the mother, she asked, “You’ve got to let me read it.” I said, “I’m never going to let you read it. I’m going ahead with it.” It made a terrific story – all those great pictures [including] high school pictures. She was the homecoming queen. And one big shot that was the centerpiece – it took up most of the front page – of her on the railroad tracks drinking vodka. After you run something like that you get a little touchy. [You ask,] “Who’s coming after me?” I didn’t hear a word. I got a lot of mail – both ways. It made a lot of good letters to the editor: “Why would Wundram write this story of a woman in disgust.” And then the other way. Here was a person who [wrote] “She was a human being.” The best thing was a long, long email I got from the 17 year old daughter that said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you for writing that story. Now I know what my mother was really like.” -- <br><br> Section 8: Q: You said that when you first started in journalism women were basically unheard of, can you tell me about the role of minority reporters when you first started and how that has changed? A: I knew you were going to ask that. I have something here – something really neat. I think I have it here. Maybe it’s in this pocket. You can tell I’m a pocket-type. I must have put it in the folder, because this is important. I don’t have it – after all that. Lee newspapers, where I work, is a big company. [It is the] eighth largest newspaper company in America, believe it or not. I just got an email. I’ll get it. I’ll send Steve a whole bunch of them. Lee, in an effort to encourage minorities – if you have normal talent, you don’t have to be at a J- school, or if you’re a middle-aged person with a spark of ability –will send you someplace with a decent journalism [school] free, all expenses paid for 17 weeks with an assurance that you will enter or make a try with Lee or some other newspaper organization. I think that’s pretty darn noble and expensive. [There is] no age limit. You can be a grandma. Q: Why did they decide to do that? A: Because we aren’t getting any minorities. Q: Did someone call you on that? A: No, this was a decision of Lee enterprises. Q: When did they start this? A: This just came yesterday. So it’s brand new. In a smaller-sized paper like ours, when we get a minority person they’ll stay with us a while. Newspapers are very interested in hiring minorities. They’ll stay with us a while and then off they go to the Chicago Tribune. Q: What do you think you could do at a small newspaper to keep minorities? A: At the moment we don’t have any. We had a Mexican [woman.] And we made an effort. We were going to get more news from the Mexican community. We had a page every Sunday, as in Miami, in Spanish. We tried this for a year. It was a difficult thing to do. It didn’t do anything; it went no place. We had a very talented African- American woman who was our medical writer. My gracious, she was sharp. She probably stayed with us a year. Now she’s at St. Petersburg. She sat right outside my office and we became friends. She’s probably double the salary I am here. Q: What keeps a journalist at a paper? A: Money. Money makes the world go round. -- <br><br> Section 9: Q: You told us some great anecdotes. A: There just anecdotes. Life is kind of a story. And newspapering is a wonderful life where you’re never going to get rich – unless you’re a publisher. But the newsroom is a theatre. We don’t have the character-like reporters like we used to have who drank an awfully lot. You see that in the front page, but these guys drank. They had a bottle under the desk and nobody cared. They did a good job. Q: A lot of these stories you’ve told us – Pinky, Bob Hope, Red Skeleton – you’ve become involved with the subject. A: Yeah, I shouldn’t have. No, I really didn’t – I didn’t get involved with Hope at all. I didn’t really get involved with Pinky I just wrote it straight and all of a sudden it started building up around me. I got every involved with this Heiser murder case – very involved with that. Q: Do you think there’s some emotional involvement at least? A: Pinky was just straight copy all the way through. The Heiser case where the gal was murdered there was no emotional involvement but yes, I became very, very close. That was the only way I was going to get that story was to gained their trust. Q: In building off of that, how would you suggest a journal maintain a level of objectivity? A: You just have to have blinders: “I’m going to be objective. I’m going to not let this involve me.” [You must] follow the straight line. But then, I confess, with this Heiser thing I got so deep with all the relatives, the kids and everything. I’ll get Christmas cards from the kids, I know I will. Q: Do you think it’s still possible to remain objective in dealing with stories? A: I told that Paula Sue story straight. I didn’t put myself into that at all. The only time I put myself into that was an interesting sidebar story. As soon as I felt I was going to get into this story, I went back after the funeral with the cops to the place where she was murdered and I wrote a first person story on what that place was really like, the mosquitoes and how strange it was to talk there because you walked in this trenchant camp over crinkly broken glass that was many colors that reminded me of Chagal’s windows in Bern, Switzerland. I don’t like to use “I” but sometimes it’s unavoidable. Herb Caen, who is my idol – you got to be careful using “I” –could do it. I don’t like to do it. Some people use “we” if you’re going to use “we,” you might as well use “I” what’s the difference? I once had an editor when I started this column – it’s more than 25 years, it’s 27 years, I just figured that out the other day – who was just deathly against the word “I.” It was sometimes hard to write around I. But it’s possible. Beginning columnists will constantly put themselves into it when they don’t have to put themselves into it. Just tell the story straight. Let the story tell itself. Like last Sunday I had one of these stories that told itself. I said, “Wow, this is one of these wonderful things I can write in 15 minutes.” It just told itself. And we used it Sunday which is fine because they used it on [page] one which meant I had to write another column. But it was [about] a guy who called me and said, “This is Santa Clause.” I said, “Yeah, I’m the Easter Bunny.” He said, “You were always writing for five years now about the mystery man who decorates a Christmas tree on Interstate 80.” [It’s] sort of between Davenport and Iowa City. He said, “I’m going out this afternoon, and for the first time I’m going to dress like Santa. But you can’t write my name.” I went out and I never did use his name. He was an old retired person. And he’s 20 feet high and he has a ladder. He’s in a Santa suit, horns are honking and he’s giving them the high five and he said, “I’m the secret Santa.” He wouldn’t even tell me his name on the phone. It was like Deep Throat. I said, “Who are you? You could be a faker. Give me your telephone number and let me call you back and if you’re the same person I’ll believe you.” I thought it was a good stunt. So I called him right back. So I said, “O.K., I’ll meet you with a photographer at your house.” “No,” he said. “I don’t want you to know where I live. I’ll meet you at the warming shed at Vanderveer park in Davenport where they ice skate.” It did remind me of Deep Throat. And that’s where we met. I know his name now, but I’ll never tell. Our editor was [unsure.] I said, “But we have the pictures.” We had great shots of him. He said, “But I got to know his name.” I said, “It isn’t going to do you any good. You aren’t going to know the Easter Bunny’s name.” So I know his name. I said, “Maybe I’ll tell you I when he dies.” That’s the secret of it, isn’t it? That was my Deep Throat – Deep Santa. -- <br><br> Section 10: Q: Could you explain the thistledown thing? A: News is everywhere. It’s drifting everywhere. They all say that everyone has a story in them. I don’t believe that. I’ve hit too many dead ends. I remember doing a column on a guy who I did a whole column on just because he didn’t want me to write about him. You know a thistledown? You blow [it.] That to me is news – it’s everywhere. You grasp it for an edition or two and then you let it go. Then there’s another thistledown which is another news story you grab onto. Maybe it’s too poetic. In a basic term – and you’ve probably read this in your texts, news is living history: history happening. Q: Michael Gartner said news is what you never read in a newspaper because once it hits the newspaper, everybody knows about it anyway. A: Somebody said this: “If you only put in the newspaper, what people wanted you to put in, you wouldn’t have any newspapers.” Somebody like Benjamin Franklin said that. Q: You were reminiscing about the older days of journalism with typewriters. Do you think with technology anything has been lost in journalism, the feeling? A: No. I think it’s better. I write better. Do you write better? Q: Yeah. Because the computer is great. A: Yeah, you can switch things around. The typewriter is slow. The only thing I ever wanted in life was a typewriter with a self- reversing ribbon. There was nothing wrong with typewriters. [They have produced] some of the greatest things ever written. Q: Is it hard for women to break into the news business? To be looked at seriously next to these guys with their hats, spitting in spittoon? A: The newsrooms were cleaned up after World War II. The old hard-bitten front page types became more proper. Q: But there were a lot hard-bitten front page women types in the ‘40s and ‘50s, [who were] real characters themselves. A: Yes. Dorothy Kilgallen. Q: Dorothy Kilgallen herself was the victim of a murderer. A: That’s right. Q: So there were a lot of hard-bitten women who actually gravitated to the crime beat. A: Correct. I was the Iowa City editor for many years. I disliked the job. I just didn’t like it. And we had a very bright, young woman reporter who was very gutsy. I told our managing editor I was going to put her on cops. I [thought] she could do it. I was certain she could do it. And he said, “Oh my god, you can’t do that – she a woman and she’ll see all that blood.” And she started on a Friday night. I remember so distinctly, she phoned in and we had a call of a shooting in a parking lot. It was a shooting in a car – bang, bang, bang in the head. [There was] lots of blood. And this young woman handled it perfectly. The ME was still working nights. He said, “Well, you better send some guys out. She won’t know what to do.” She did a good job. She went to the Register – Amy something. Women are tough. You don’t have to be tough. It’s just being a good reporter. Q: Did you lose a lot of reporters to the Register? A: Yes. Too many. Dave Ipsen is one of our graduates. Clark Hoffman is one of our graduates. Not graduates, [the Register] just plucks off the good ones. And yet we have good ones and McGlen, one of your students who went to the Register and came back to us. They were kind of selective out there. And here, a smaller paper like us, we have a lots of reporters. We have 22 now. So you get a good shot at everything. Q: Do you know what a jouneyman reporter makes? A person who has seven years experience, we’ll say. A: $60,000. Q: Four weeks vacation? A: Well, you build up. First you get two weeks and after two years you get four weeks. We try and watch overtime. But that’s impossible. You’re only going to work 40 hours a week, and sure as heck you’re supposed to only work 40 hours a week. But you don’t want to. If you’re on a good piece you’re just going to stay in. I don’t know how close you’re being watched. We pay overtime. -- <br><br> Section 11: Q: What do you think a newspaper’s role should be in its community? A: Its eyes and ears. Unfortunately, too many papers are not the eyes and ears. The newspaper should be the soul of the community. I believe newspapers have souls. Do I ever believe that a newspapers has a soul. It’s like a ship has a soul. Newspapers should speak for the community – all sides of the community. We’re into a nasty situation in town near us called Pleasant Valley where they banned a book last night. Q: What book? A: I’m trying to think of it. What’s the name of it? It’s a teen book, with a homosexual as one of the kids. The cover is like a piece of somebody’s blue jean. Q: Solon tried to ban that book. A: Well, we did it. It cannot be read in the classroom. It can be taken out of the library. If that doesn’t remind me of Hitler and the book burnings. But newspapers should speak for all sides. Q: What do you think your column does for your community? A: My theory is from the old Readers’ Digest theory: “Make them glad, make them mad, make them sad.” I am just a big piece of pie. Like tomorrow, I’ve written: 15 good things to worry about. -- <br><br> Section 12: Q: Because you only attended college for one semester, you basically learned journalism on the job. A: I think one of the best ways to learn to write is by reading. There’s a great book out called Postville. No, I just was thrown to the wolves. To be a good reporter you have to have an innate curiosity. And I say you have to know how to write. You either got to it or you don’t got it. You’re either going to be a so-so reporter or you’re going to be somebody good. Q: A lot of people would say [on-the-job training] is the best way to learn journalism. A: I don’t say it’s the best way. I say go to college, get your degree, get your Masters. Q: How important or useful do you think journalism schools are? A: I think they’re fine. I think they’re so important. You’ll learn newswriting 101. You’ll learn the five W’s and the H. You should. Narrative leads are so vogue these days it makes me sick. I want to read a good, straight lead. Yes, go to journalism school. I wish I had gone on and been smart like Steve and become a teacher. I don’t think it would have worked.