50 years ago tomorrow, mid-day on a Friday, I was finishing my junior year at UT Austin. major: Advertising. School: Journalism. I was in the newsroom of the campus newspaper, The Daily Texan, finishing up an assignment for a feature writing class. Since the paper was a six-day a week pub with no Saturday edition, I was alone. The lights were out except in the one corner where I was working. Nobody around anywhere. As I recall, we had 4-5 teletype machines that were chirping occasionally and briefly each time. Then the AP machines red light lit up and from it a claxon began sounding. This was followed in seconds by the UPI machine, then Reuters. All three going bonkers simultaneously. three continuous sets of bells ringing. Three red strobes rotating. Something was up. I went to the AP teletype and there i saw the headline. And my world changed forever. It took me 3-4 minutes to realize I needed to find the editor. And then get the hell out of there. No way did I want to write that P1 story for the first Saturday edition of the paper ever.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 04:44:58 +0000