Stories that make you say wow!

What's left of Frank & Alice Pitchler's Eastlake home.

 {EDITORS NOTE:  The explosion that rocked Cleveland’s west side comes one year to the week after a gas explosion in Eastlake.  A story that one year later still makes me say WOW!} 

Every once in a while in this line of work you’re hit with a story where you just continuously say WOW.   The explosion of the Eastlake home of Frank and Alice Pitchler is one of those stories. 

The calls to the newsroom that night were about an earthquake, followed immediatly by scanner chatter about a housefire.  They were one in the same.  When I first arrived on the scene I couldn’t believe it, their was no house.  Then I learned that Frank and Alice, who were in their 80s actually survived the explosion and that Frank was, believe it or not, still sitting in his recliner, covered in debris with his home gone around him, when the first of his neighbors ran to his aid.

My wows only continued the next day when they pulled their little dog, a Yorkie, from the rubble alive and I also learned their son John was Fire Chief in University Heights.  The biggest wow was for the picture John painted of his parents and what they went through just to start their life together.

Frank and Alice Pitchler met in England during World War II, he was a Sergeant in the Army and she was a nurse who also drove double decker buses.  It was during this time that Alice survived a blast when a bomb, dropped from a plane, exploded destroying the theater that she was in.  Her son says she only lived because a man who was killed landed on top of her and saved her life.  Sadly, behind the theater was a school where 150 students were killed.

As Frank and Alice fell in love a Colonel gave the young Sergeant some valuable advice “he says if you want to marry this woman then we gotta get her,” his son John says.  “They brought her in through the camp and they had her married the day before they went out to fight,” he said.  Where Frank was headed you see was to Normandy and Omaha Beach.

Frank Pitchler was one of the boys of Pointe du Hoc, a Normandy Invader but as he stormed that beach in Northern France word reached his new bride back in England that her husband, like so many of his comrades on D-Day had died.  She wouldn’t believe it her son said, “so she lit candles every night at the church and prayed for him to be alive.” 

Frank, she would soon learn, did survive D-Day and would go onto fight in the Battle of the Bulge before returning to Northeast Ohio with Alice to start a family.   

When the blast happened and the first responders reached Frank they said his only concern was not for himself but for his wife.  Alice was seriously injured but at the hospital.  Before taking a turn for the worse the Doctor’s told her that Frank was okay and when they did her son says, she closed her eyes and you could see the relief on her face.  She died a short time later.

In television the pictures rule and we often spend too much time focusing on how someone was injured or how someone died.   It’s only when you look at how they lived that you often get the better story.

The Fog Bowl; December 31, 1988

Eagles Head Coach Buddy Ryan peering into the fog.

I don’t know why but I felt nostalgic the other day for the Fog Bowl, that NFC Divisional Playoff game played on New Years Eve 1988 in Chicago.  

This was the much anticipated showdown between Bears Head Coach Mike Ditka and his former Defensive Coordinator Buddy Ryan who was now head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. 

 

The game started off under warm sunny skies but the air coming in over the cold waters of Lake Michigan quickly began filling the inside of Soldiers Field with a thick curtain of fog that made it impossible for the fans either at home or in the stands to follow the action on the field. 

Even the players on the field had trouble following the action, straining to read the plays being sent in from the sidelines.  A game that saw 26 points scored in the first half saw only six scored in the second. 

 I remember watching the game straining to see what the heck was happening on the field, something the announcers weren’t able to help with.  A switch to the field level cameras gave a little clearer view but not much.

In football most passing patterns are all about timing and that keen instinct gave an offensive edge to the receiver expecting the ball vs. the defender who could barely follow it.  

No game had ever been called for fog and the NFL was hesitant to pull the plug on this one.  The feeling on the field was so long as the refs were able to see both endzones the game would go on but the way it looked on television, that wasn’t the case. 

The Bears would triumph in this game and Buddy Ryan would never win a

playoff game during his time in Philadelphia despite always having one of the leagues best defenses.  But it is this game that for me will forever define his time in Philadelphia and go down as one of the most unique in the history of the NFL.

Buddy’s two sons are Rex Ryan the head coach of the New York Jets and Rob Ryan the defensive coordinator of the Cleveland Browns. 

The following are two reports I posted to youtube that aired that night on the CBS and ABC evening newscasts.

Leno vs. Letterman; Everything old is new again.

As NBC figures out how to best handle the whole Jay Leno situation the most likely scenario sees Jay returning to the comfortable Tonight Show time slot of 11:30. 

It’s a move that would pit him head to head again with David Letterman.  The discussion got me to looking for a piece I did with the man who created the Tonight Show, television pioneer Steve Allen.

I sat down with Steve early in 1994 not long after Letterman began his Late Show with CBS after bolting NBC when he was passed over to replace Johnny Carson. 

Allen could relate to the situation on a number of levels, not only as first host of the Tonight Show (Jack Paar followed him before Carson took over) but also because Steve Allen once went head to head against Ed Sullivan.

Steve Allen died in 2000 but his insights in the piece were interesting especially when you look at them in the context of what’s happening today,  here’s the story;

CONFESSIONS OF A POLAR BEAR

 

  “It’s a mouthwash for the brain!”  That’s probably the best way I’ve heard those New Year’s Day polar bear swims summed up.  After all plunging your body into the frigid waters of a lake or ocean isn’t exactly the sanest thing you would ever want to do, which is probably why I do it.

 

   Yes my name is John and for many years I’m a Polar Bear.  Don’t get me wrong, a great outdoorsman I’m not.  I enjoy skiing but I do it with enough layers of clothes to see an Eskimo family of four through the harshest of winters.

 

   So why would someone who gets cold stepping out of the shower choose to do this?  The rush, the experience, the feeling you get when it’s over!

 

   I was actually conned into doing this a number of years back when I worked in Atlantic City.  I agreed to cover a story on the local Polar Bear Club but I wasn’t sure whether or not I would actually go in.

 

   Oh I had all the common concerns, won’t you be cold, won’t you get sick, WON”T YOU DIE?  I was assured by the president of the club that no one has ever so much as caught a cold let alone went belly up.

 

   Even still I was leery as I headed for the beach that New Year’s Day.  I had my towel strategically positioned by the waters edge so that not a second of drying time would be wasted.  This brought a good laugh to the experienced polar bears.  They assured me that I would not only not need a towel when I got out but I would actually feel warm.  After questioning their sobriety I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

 

   As I stood nice and toasty all bundled up on the beach beforehand it dawned on me that the key was not to be warm but to be cold.  I had a flashback to my youth (they say that’s common before near death experiences) and the days when we would play in the snow for hours.  We’d be soaked but we wouldn’t feel it because we were already so cold.

my freezing feet

     As I stripped down to my bathing suit the wind chill was in the teens and the water temperature was 41.   On a count of three we went.  I ran in as fast as I could to lessen the shock (subscribing to the theory that a band-aid ripped off hurts less than the one removed slowly.) It didn’t work.

 

   After about twenty strokes the pain became too much and I quickly turned around for shore.  As I got out and made my pre-planned mad dash for my towel it quickly dawned on me those polar bear veterans were right, I wasn’t cold and much to my surprise I didn’t need my towel

 

   Your body, reacting to the fact that you just tried to turn it into one of Mrs. Paul’s newest entrees, is kicking out so much heat and adrenaline that you actually feel, well, warm.  It’s like a reverse sauna effect.  

 

   For six New Years Days in a row I did the Polar Bear Swim in Atlantic City, I also did one in Lake Erie. 

   The coldest temperature wise was Atlantic City in ‘98, when the temperature was 4 degrees when I left my home in the Poconos.  Believe it or not the worst was 2003 when I jumped into Lake Erie, that’s because there was a rain – snow mix falling and the wind was blowing hard in off the Lake.  I got to my car afterwards and could not open the door with my keys because my fingers couldn’t move. (I still don’t think I’m warm from that one.)

 

   Many folks come back each New Year’s Day; others do it only once just to say they did it.   One thing’s for certain though, while your memories of the other 364 days in a year may one day fade, this is one day you’ll never forget.

 

Here’s the story I did on my very first swim in Atlantic City January 1, 1993.

 

 

    

 

“LET IT SNOW” Remembering Sammy Cahn

Sammy Cahn & me in October of 1992

At one point or another over the next few weeks you will undoubtedly hear the holiday tune “Let It Snow.”  The classic that rose to #1 on the Billboard charts in 1946 was written by the legendary Sammy Cahn. 

Cahn wrote more of Frank Sinatra’s hits than any other songwriter with Sinatra recording 89 of Cahn’s songs.   Among his hits are “Love & Marriage,”  “All the Way,” “High Hopes,” “Come Fly with Me,” “Three Coins In A Fountain,” “My Kind of Town” and countless (and I mean countless) others.

As I heard “Let it Snow” recently I got to thinking about Sammy Cahn who died in January of 1993.  Three months before his death I was working in Atlantic City  covering the opening of a local chapter of ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers.)  Burt Bacharach was there for the news conference and so were many other noted song writers.  I did my interviews and then went into the reception that followed.   It was there I spotted an older gentleman sitting alone at a table.  I thought to myself is it?  No, they didn’t introduce him earlier so it couldn’t be.  What the heck I’ll ask so I went up to him and said “excuse me sir are you Sammy Cahn?”   His face lit up at the fact some 20-something reporter knew who he was.  I said can I grab a word with you? He said have a seat. 

We were wrapping up our interview when I said to him I recalled hearing a story behind “Three Coins” which won Cahn his first Academy Award in 1954.  With full showmanship a light went on, his smile widens and he says to me “We were doing a picture called Pink Tights, with Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe and Dan Dailey. We wrote one of the best scores we ever wrote,” recalled Cahn.  But it was music that would never be heard. 

“When the picture’s about to start Miss Monroe runs off to Japan with some baseball player called Joe DiMaggio leaving us all there without anything,” said Cahn.  It’s a break that wouldn’t last for long. 

“One day we’re hanging around and the door opens and the producer walks in and says ‘Can you fellows write me a song called three coins in a fountain?’” Cahn’s answer showed he was more than up to the challenge. “I looked at him and I said I can write you a song called “Eh.”

Cahn asked the obvious questions, “I said can we see the picture? He says you can’t see the picture it’s all over the lot.  I said can we read the script? The scripts in Italy,” the producer responded.   “Would you mind telling me what this picture’s about?” Cahn asked.  “Three girls go to Rome, they throw coins in a fountain and they hope they fall in love.”   And with that the producer left.

“Well we had a title, a pretty good clue,” said Cahn.  “I went to the typewriter and I typed three coins in a fountain, each one seeking happiness, thrown by three hopeful lovers, which one will the fountain bless.”

While the words came easy enough to Cahn, he knew that was only half the job.  “I gave the lyrics to composer Jules Styne.  Now you could spend a hundred years figuring out notes to these words,” he said.  But it would take Styne only about twenty minutes.

“We wrote that song in about an hour.  It went on to become one of the biggest hits in history and I never saw the fountain, never saw the picture,” he said proudly.

Well they had a song but now they needed a record. They first asked Cahn himself to sing it but since Frank Sinatra wasn’t doing anything, with their film on hold, Cahn turned to his old buddy and asked him.

“I said would you do it? He said sure,” said Cahn.  “So he came the next day and Jules Styne taught him the song and it became the theme for the film.”

The song would go on to become a big hit for Sinatra and The Four Aces, it would also win Cahn the first of his four Academy Awards.

On January 15, 1993, just about three months after we spoke Sammy Cahn died at his home in Los Angeles at the age of  79.  He was a one of a kind figure who brought joy to millions around the world through his songs and his words.  Cahn’s final words are the four he left to be inscribed on his gravestone…  

“Sleep with a smile.”

This is the clip I ran on the news the night Sammy died with part of that interview.

The Christmas Week Snow Storm; 7-feet in 5 days.

Radar shows with winds out of the SW why Buffalo gets hammered

 Buffalo, NY;  December 25-30, 2001  – 7-FEET OF SNOW IN 5 DAYS:

When it comes to Lake Effect no week stands out more to me than Christmas week 2001.   As of Monday December 24th, Christmas Eve, Buffalo hadn’t had any snow for the season, not even a trace.  It was the first year on record the city had gone that long without a flake.  Later that night the snow started falling and when it ended Christmas Day we had around 25″ on the ground. 

We became the talk of the country and on Wednesday we found ourselves doing extra live shots for the network and other stations on the Christmas Snow.  The sun was out much of the day though in Buffalo as the band drifted north into Niagara County and was hitting them hard and giving us a chance to dig out.  

By 4 a.m. Thursday though it drifted south and was back on top of us dropping snow at the rate of 3″ an hour again.  Once again we were the talk of the country (remember no real news happens during Christmas week so the networks loved it.) 

My wife and I were doing live shots for just about every network (even the financial ones) and tons of local stations around the country.   (One of the live shots she did was for a station here in Cleveland and from that came a job offer and that’s how we ended up moving to less snowy side of the Lake.)

My wife of CNN

The storm hit during a time in my career where in addition to anchoring WKBW’s morning show I was a fill-in weather person pushed into full time duty because the station had only one meteorologist working that week.  He handled the late shows I handled the early.  

Between live shots they asked me to a phone interview with Sam Donaldson on his national radio show.  I thought sure I can do this one from my desk where it’s warm.   As I waited his producer asked me if I could wait a minute or two, there were some new developments out of Afghanistan that morning and Sam wanted to get a quick update.  I said no problem, I’m good on time.   I sat at my desk with my coat on trying to warm up and actually starting to dose off a little as I waited.  I hear Sam come on and talk about what happened with Al Quaida that morning.  Then I heard him say “joining me now with more on this is John Kosich, President of the National Institute of Military Justice.”   Like a kid called on in class by the teacher the adrenaline rush shot through me “oh crap” I thought.  I can talk about Travel Bans not the Taliban.  A heartbeat later Sam recognized his mistake, corrected himself and said “I’m sorry Eugene Fidell, President of the…”  Needless to say when Sam came to me a minute or two later I was awake.

Me digging out my car 12/29/2001

When the snow ended Friday we had 84″ of it in five days.  Saturday was spent just trying to first find my car then dig it out for the third time this week.

The biggest problem with 7-feet of snow is where do you put it?  Buffalo has huge trash cans, I’d fill one up, roll it to an empty spot, dump it, then repeat the process.

Oh and if you wondered what 7-feet of snow looks like? It actually looks like three or four feet because it’s constantly packing down under it’s own weight.

We couldn’t get out of town for New Years until Sunday and even then it wasn’t easy, then as we got 20-30 miles out of town there was hardly any snow, the joy of Lake Effect.

The most awesome thing about that year was the fact that we basically had winter in a week.  We had nothing leading up to that storm, we got walloped and then we really had very little snow after it.  Maybe one or two 6″ storms but nothing huge.

Christmas Song Worth Catching; “O Holy Night”

 

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was a short lived TV show that followed the behind the scenes going ons of a fictional Saturday Night Live type show.

After Hurricane Katrina they featured a group of New Orleans musicians playing a classic that has quickly become my favorite.

If you like Jazz you’ll like the “City of New Orleans” ensemble and one of the most moving renditions of “O Holy Night” you’ll ever hear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khSml43oKJQ

Thank You Dave Roberts!

John Kosich & Dave Roberts "Live on City Line" January 1987

As Broadcast Pioneer Dave Roberts prepares to call it a career I simply cannot express in words the thanks I owe to this man who, especially in the early days of my career, was always just a phone call away with advice, support and a positive attitude that was nothing short of contagious.

Dave Roberts at the old magnetic 5 Day Forecast board.

I first met Dave in January of 1987 when I became an intern in the sports department of WPVI-TV, he made a point to go out of his way to say hello and strike up a conversation with the quiet but inquisitive Temple University student, just overwhelmed by actually being in this place he had daily watched his whole life.

It was actually the night the above picture outside was taken.  I brought my camera into the station that day and while taking a picture of Dave he asked me to help build a snowman in between his weather hits.  I was ecstatic to help and even more happy to capture the end result on film.

 We quickly hit it off and whenever I could, I would sneak away from the sports department and take advantage of the opportunity to pick the brain of this man who had done it all in this business.

When I took my first job at KQTV in St. Joseph, Missouri, Dave was one of the first I called and when I returned on my first vacation home from St. Joe, Dave was one of the first I visited. 

Tape in hand he sat down with me and one by one went over a handful of my first stories. 

Looking back on them today they were absolutely brutal but not to Dave, he let  me know everything that I was doing right and what I might want to try differently.  Note it’s not what I was doing wrong, you see Dave always stressed the positive.  He might say  ‘that was good but next time why don’t you try it this way.’  

Dave Roberts & John Kosich August, 1987

Before long I was home from Missouri working as the 11 p.m. anchor at WMGM-TV in Atlantic City and one of the ways that was great for me was the fact Dave was now just up the Expressway and believe me I took advantage of that.  

After four years at the shore I was offered a job at WNEP-TV in Scranton.  As I drove back to the shore from the interview after accepting the job the first stop I made was WPVI, I couldn’t wait to tell Dave.  I would now be working with Nolan Johannes, who together with Dave, helped shape Buffalo television at WKBW-TV.  

Dave was as proud as a father at that and even more so when I was named to replace Nolan as 11 p.m. anchor when he announced his retirement.  The positive reinforcement was always there and before long Dave wasn’t just singing my praises to me but to his bosses and trying to get me a job at Channel 6.

Rob Jennings, Scott Palmer & Dave Roberts in a break.

That was something though that never happened and from WNEP I retraced Dave’s footsteps to Buffalo when I joined WKBW-TV as morning anchor.  I was there about a year and a half when Dave was inducted into the Buffalo Broadcasting Hall of Fame.  During his time there Dave Thomas, as he was known, became a household fixture for kids in Western New York and Southern Ontario for his role on Rocketship 7.

 Many in Buffalo knew Dave but there was nobody else that I was going to let do the story on his return and honor.

This was that story.

After all the accolades Dave will be remembered by most for his work in television, I will remember him though for the person he was off the air.   Anyone who likely ever received a card or letter from him had included on it the same smiley face that appeared nightly on his hand drawn weather clouds.  That was just the positive attitude of the man, there’s no question to him the glass was always more than half full.

A favorite memory for me was one Friday night when I was an intern and my father came to pick me up.  My mother was out of town and my Dad, who had to rise early for work during the week didn’t have to get up the next day so I asked him if he wanted to come in to sit in on a newscast.  Jim Gardner and Don Tollefson couldn’t have been nicer to him but it was Dave who came over and made a fuss over my Dad telling him how proud he must be.   My Dad sat there that night with a smile a mile wide.  Years later Dave would still ask ‘how’s your Dad?’   And when my parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary Dave was one of the first to step up and send me a video greeting which I included in a special video I put together for them.

The best Dave Roberts story I heard isn’t one that involved me.  It came, oddly enough, from the funeral of a very good friend’s mother.   In a eulogy her daughter told the story of a Birthday card she once received. 

Her mother it seems was writing out the card while watching Dave’s weather one night.  Well instead of signing it “Love Mom & Dad” she accidentally  signed it “Love Mom & Dave.”

Like so many Dave was like a member of their family and I’ve been so very proud to count him in an extended way as a member of mine.   And retirement to me Dave means your just easier to reach when I need some advice!

Jim Gardner, Don Tollefson, Dave Roberts in a commercial break

The old weather magnets

If you look closely you can see the weather info written out on the white board since the sun glare on City Line made it tough to see the monitor.

LAKE EFFECT NIGHTMARES;

Me on CNN, December 27, 2001

In the interest of full disclosure, I love Lake Effect Snow.  It is the most unpredictable of snow storms hitting one area with 3″ an hour blizzard like conditions while the sun shines 10 miles away.   My love of Lake Effect was born in Buffalo where I lived for three years prior to moving to Cleveland (a move which was the result of Lake Effect snow – more on that in part two.) In the three years I was in Buffalo I experienced three of their five biggest snowfalls of all time, two of which occurred during Christmas week of 2001 when we had 7-feet of snow in five days. 

When Cleveland gets Lake Effect Snow, the winds tend to be out of the NNW so the moisture they pick up is limited.  When Buffalo gets hammered it’s because the winds are out of the SW.  That means those winds travel the length of the lake, all 250-miles of it and when they hit Buffalo watch out.

Buffalo November 20, 2000

NOVEMBER 20, 2000:

The first biggie was November 20, 2000.  It was a Monday and it just snowed about 10″ the day before.  The forecasters were calling for additional Lake Effect but nothing major.   Around 11 am. the winds set up out of the SW and the snow started falling and falling hard at about 3″ an hour.  My wife and I were done work at WKBW-TV after the noon show at 12:30.   We were lucky, we were able to navigate the quickly snow filling roads on the 2.5 mile trip home.   We slid into a spot across the street and went into our apartment thinking this can’t last.  It did.  

Because it caught everyone off guard the schools didn’t let out early.  So at 2:30 the loaded school buses hit the street at the same time the city and county governments shut down and just about every business let their employees go.  All of a sudden the streets were gridlocked,  the plows couldn’t get anywhere, the cars couldn’t and the buses couldn’t.  Bottomline where you were at 4 in the afternoon is where you would be at 4 the next morning.  

That meant there were school kids stranded on buses throughout the city.  They ended up spending the night at whatever Hospital, Church, Fire Station or fast food restaurant they were near.

What made it so neat when it got dark was the thunder and lightning that accompanied the snow.  After it got dark at 5 the lightning would reflect off the falling snow looking like the world’s largest flashbulb.  The snow stopped around 6:30  p.m. but by this time the damage was done and the plows were stuck with the cars many of which now sat abandoned. 

I anchored the morning show at WKBW-TV and in order to get to work at 3 a.m.  I had to walk the 2.5 miles down Delaware Avenue, a four lane road lined with cars.  The atmosphere was one I’ll never forget, those who stayed with their cars bought every ounce of beer they could find and made a party of it.  I was offered the equivalent of a six pack by the time I made it to work.  (I didn’t take any – at least that’s the story I’m sticking with.)

Delaware Avenue, these were the cars I walked around going to and from work that day.

The city remained shut down all of Tuesday.  When I walked home along Delaware Avenue the tow trucks were still removing the cars but they could only go so fast.  I got home to dig out my car.  As I rounded the corner it dawned on me it was towed because it wasn’t there.  As I got closer though I saw the rear view mirror sticking out of the white, crap it was plowed under.

The state of emergency was lifted on Wednesday morning which was also the day before Thanksgiving.  The supermarkets were unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my life and likely will never see again.  People looking to not only restock after the storm but get everything they needed for Thanksgiving the next day.

What made it awesome was the way people came together, opened up their houses and went out of their way to help each other out.

The Crash of AA Flt. 587 November 12, 2001

When American Airlines Flight 587 crashed shortly after takeoff from New York’s JFK Airport, the nation stopped dead in its tracks.  Afterall it was two months and a day after 9/11.   Were we under attack again? 

On this the eigth anniversary of that crash it has faded from our memories because it was not terrorist related.  Even still it remains the second deadliest U.S. aviation crash in history,  260 people on board were killed, five people on the ground.

Crash site of AA Flt. 587 Belle Harbor, NY

I arrived on the scene early that evening after coming in from Buffalo.  Having left immediately after learning of the crash I saw little TV coverage and didn’t know what to expect when I got there.  When I arrived I was floored by how small an area had been impacted by such a massive jet.  Afterall this was an Airbus A-300.  What was overwhelming was the smell of the Jet fuel that lingered in the air.  The jet crashed 103 seconds after takeoff so it was loaded with fuel.

What I quickly learned about Belle Harbor was this was a community of hard working men and women that was absolutely devastated by the attacks of September 11th with just about every resident either losing a member of their own family or a neighbor in the terrorist attacks.

I remember standing the next morning outside St. Francis DeSales Catholic Church on the edge of the crash site, where 9 a.m. mass was packed with a Sunday sized crowd.  This is a church that had been the site of almost daily funerals, 30 to date at that point, as the victims of 9/11 were identified.

John Heffernan, FDNY Killed 9/11

Outside I met Mary Heffernan, a woman with a brogue as thick as could be, who rode her bike down to see for herself what had happened to her neighborhood.  In talking with her I quickly learned that Mary had lost her son John, a New York City firefighter in the September 11th attacks.  I remember being struck by just how calm she was in all this but in reality like so many people here she wasn’t so much calm, she was just  numb.  These people at this time just had to be thinking why us?  How much more can we endure?

The cause of the crash was quickly ruled not another terrorist attack but a takeoff that followed too closely the takeoff of another jet causing extreme turbulence which in a nutshell led to the crash.

Anyway as we look back on that day here’s the piece I put together that night for WKBW-TV on the people of Belle Harbor.