confessions of an ambulance chaser–Timothy McVeigh and a snowy night in Denver
I was in Denver covering the trial of Oklahoma City bomber and mass killer Timothy McVeigh when I got the phone call from my mom.
Rarely an alarmist, she told me very matter-of-factly that I probably ought to get on a plane home to Salt Lake City as quickly as I could.
My dad was dying.
I’d never just abandoned a story in my life. But I did that night. I remember jumping in a cab in sort of an emotional trance and the next thing I know I’m standing in front of a ticket counter at Denver’s airport as a sweet and sympathetic young airline employee tried to explain to me my flight options on a stormy night in the Rockies.
My best shot was a direct flight in a couple of hours. That is if it didn’t get cancelled because of the weather.
Somewhere along the line, I made a phone call to my boss in Phoenix.
“I’ve got to bail out, man…..I’m need to go home.”
Dennis O’Neill was always a cool cat and utterly unlike any other t.v. news director I’ve ever known or worked for.
“Sure,” O’Neill said. “Do what you got to do.”
Some philosopher once said that the most important day in a man’s life is the day his father dies.
I’m not sure that’s true. But it certainly has some profound implications.
……more to come……mw