chuckography

Looking over my old resume...

People usually responded when I sent out my resume.

I always mentioned I had worked with CBS Television News and people would invite me in when I said I had been hanging out with Charles Manson. I had spent half a year with Chuck and the Family for CBS every day in court Monday through Friday (except holidays). Or people were curious to hear details on what heroic steps I had learned to take if it were necessary for me to land the Goodyear blimp in an emergency. These items were very prominent in my resume. Hey, we did what we had to do.

Some retired navy admirals even bought me lunch because they wanted to chat about my coverage of Commander Bucher and the USS Pueblo trial or the SEALAB III Inquiry for CBS News.

In the 70s I was part of the Los Angeles Cronkite Report and was damn near a member of the L.A. staff but, unfortunately for me, I was the 9th man in an 8-man Bureau. I covered Manson and elections and other stories as a "researcher" - often with a film crew and sometime with an artist - but my ego as a former newspaperman wouldn't let me continue to hang around and do everyday mundane tasks such as running film back and forth from LAX as I waited for a full-time staff opening. I wandered away into the Tour and Travel industry instead.

I look back on that every now and then. Hmm...Ed Murrow, Dan Rather, Terry Drinkwater, Bill Kurtis (Kurtis with a "K") and Chuck Boyd? Good night and good luck indeed.

During my earlier days as a staff photographer with the San Diego Union, in addition to taking human interest and weather photos - and "Dog Of The Week - I once found myself in the FBI offices at 3am taking pictures of bundled packs of ransom money and the FS ring as part of the evidence recovered during the sudden conclusion of the Frank Sinatra Jr. "kidnapping" story.

Or bouncing around in helicopters and Jeeps, spending 4 days and nights in the desert covering a search and rescue for a missing 9-year old. He was found, tired and thirsty, and my pictures ran each day as the search went on.

My camera caught the concern on the face of Phillipe Cousteau's wife after he was hauled back on board - bloody, wet and dizzy - from San Diego harbor. A cable had snapped and smacked him in the head knocking him unconscious during an experiment involving a huge parachute that unexpectedly dipped and yanked him from the boat into the cold water.

When I called LIFE magazine to pitch the photos and story, they asked if he had died and I said "no, he was only injured." They passed. The son of Jacques Cousteau DID die a few years later - drowned in a seaplane crash of all things.

It is an interesting read, my resume, of a career that started with a newspaper in San Diego then the tour and travel industry for 25 years and, finally, 8 years with a newspaper in my hometown of Charleston before I retired. Nice journey.
So far.

posted by chucker @ 10:22 PM