A pretty good newsroom story

I am in a group of old newspapermen whose careers date back to the 1950s, and in a few cases the 1940s.

We have collected some impressive newsroom stories in those decades that are fun to swap. This week, however, we are eyeshade-green with envy of a young reporter, Kathryn Garcia, who by her photo may be all of 25 years old.

Garcia is the reporter at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times who, Sunday morning, was in the newsroom, hadn’t even had her coffee yet, when the phone rang on the city desk. She answered, and found herself listening to some woman from Kenedy County, 60 miles south of Corpus, talking about the vice-president shooting a man.

All of us in the business have drawn Sunday morning duty, answering the phone, checking the wires, or these days, the Web, for stories the Sunday ACE (assistant city editor) may want to “localize” later, when the evening crew comes in around 2.

That may be what she was doing when the phone rang. Part of the story I can piece together. The caller asked: “Is Jaime Powell there?” “No,” Garcia would have said, “I believe she is in Austin today.”

“Well,” said the caller, “this is Katharine Armstrong, down at the Armstrong Ranch. I’ve been trying to reach Jaime since 8 this morning. . . .”

People around Corpus, especially the media, know the Armstrongs and the Armstrong Ranch the way people around Dallas know the Ewings and Southfork. It made sense to Garcia that Katharine Armstrong may have some reason to talk to Powell, who is the Caller’s political reporter and had written about the Armstrongs before.

“I can give you her cellphone,” Garcia said. “Oh, that would be great,” Armstrong said. But when Armstrong called, Powell didn’t answer. Powell later said her cell was in its charger. Armstrong called the city desk again and Garcia answered.

“Yes, hello again. Sorry you couldn’t reach Jaime. Is there some way I can help you?”

At this point the fact-based reconstruction ends, and all old newsmen and women enter war story heaven. All of us have received at least one call like this, but not nearly so good. We can’t resist fantasizing it is not Garcia, but us, talking to this caller who says she is the well-known Katharine Armstrong.

“Well, I have a story for you, that I believe you will want.”

“Okayyyyy . . . What is the story about?”

“Well, we had a terrible accident here at the ranch last night. The vice-president and some of us were hunting quail, and he shot one of the other hunters.”

“Who shot one of the other hunters?”

“The vice-president. He wasn’t killed or anything; in fact he’s there in the hospital in Corpus. It was about 5:30, and Harry – Harry Whittington, the lawyer from Austin – do you know him?”

“No, I don’t believe so . . . “

“Well, Jaime has interviewed him many times. So Harry had dropped a couple of quail – it was a double! And . . . “

“A double? Sorry, I’m not a hunter.” Garcia is starting to do other stuff - sorting through press releases, etc. - as she talks. She also makes a note to herself - she is the Caller's health reporter - about telephones and loneliness.

“Well, a double is when you drop two birds with two shots. So when Harry came back up, the vice president didn’t see him. A bird flushed to his right, and the vice president pivoted and fired.”

“What do you mean, the vice president . . .”

“Well, the vice president. Of the United States.”

“You are talking about the vice president of the United States? Dick Cheney? Shot someone?”

“Yes. I’m sorry; I should have said – “

“Could you hold on for a minute, please?”

Garcia has already started scrolling the Associated Press, and now is looking at CNN. Nothing. She glances at the wall clock: 11:10 a.m., Sunday.

“When did you say this happened?”

“About 5:30 last night.”

“And it was Dick Cheney, the vice president of the United States?”

“Yes, it was.”

“Would you please tell Angela we both have better things to do?”

Angela is the education writer at the McAllen Monitor, Kathryn’s former roommate at UT Austin, and a real imp who three months ago had a friend call Kathryn at the Caller and say he was from the Coast Guard and a tsunami was bearing down on Corpus.

But of course it wasn’t Angela, it really was Dick Cheney, and the story Kathryn Garcia is retelling 50 years from now to old green-with-envy newsmen will forever be better than this one.