It took me a long time to figure out that one door closing means it’s time to open another one. This lesson often came brutally hard because I still needed to smash into the closed door repeatedly until I was half-conscious and bloody, never one smart enough to take the obvious at face value, insisting instead to test the immutable repeatedly until I was so soundly beaten I had no other viable alternative but to reassess and redirect. One of my old newspaper supervisors once said about a colleague, “That guy’s too stupid to quit. I have to fire him.” He could have been talking about me. Fortunately, dogged persistence can be a quality if appropriately channeled, but I sure do wish the channel changer worked a bit easier.
Had it not been for Darlene Ward I might have sought a longer career in newspapers. Darlene was the first good reporter I met on the job, a kind yet incisively agile combatant when this was necessary, and it often is in the news game. As for her caring and gracious side, Darlene quickly taught me many things about the craft and also, indirectly, about my own native abilities, or more accurately, the lack of them with respect to being a reporter.
Watching Darlene work led me to conclude I was not destined to become the next great star reporter at a time I seriously sought fame’s bright spotlight. When I rushed into a phone booth to change from Clark Kent into Superman, the transformation never happened, and I’d stumble out the same way I stumbled in. Fortunately, there are other ways to earn a living and build self-esteem in the world of information transmission, and I eventually found my own place, but so far as being a beat reporter went, I knew very early I was not made of Grade A material while Darlene had every attribute required in great abundance.
I met Darlene on my very first assignment, covering a meeting of the Hoosick Falls Village Board. I’d been taking illegible notes for so long so fast and missing so much I was to the point of total frustration. I also had severe hand cramps, something I’d never experienced before, mostly because I never cared enough to take copious and careful notes until this fateful evening. And this is precisely when Darlene and a Hoosick Falls living legend saved me.
Darlene looked over at me and smiled as an elderly gentlemen rose to speak. “You can take a break when Harry’s talking,” she whispered.
Ahh… Harry, he was certainly something.
Henderson E. “Harry” Van Surdam earned his place of distinction in Hoosick Falls through numerous accomplishments and good deeds. He was 95 when I first met him and I think, like Roger, was in the beginning of mental decline, but not quite to Roger’s degree, but even if he was as bad off as Roger, there wasn’t anyone in Hoosick Falls about to tell Harry he couldn’t speak at a public meeting and not one resident or official had the temerity to tell Harry when it was probably a good idea to stop his recitation. Consequently, when Harry rose to address his adoring public, as he was so frequently moved to do, everyone in the room knew we were in for an extended presentation and had better get the popcorn as the movie itself tended to go on for what seemed like hours but I’m sure was far shorter.
I grew to learn there are three distinctly different kinds of people who show up at most governmental meetings. One group, of which I was a part, had to attend for some reason ranging from being a board member to media pundit. The second group had some sort of ax to grind or vested interest to protect. The third group had absolutely nothing better to do, and this was Harry’ club as it is for numerous folks who can take to a discussion of zoning laws like many others do to a basketball game.
It was Harry’s cue that told Darlene it was break time, something she kindly shared with me as she did so many other things about the news business over the year I knew her. Eventually, I could be marginally helpful myself and we often compared notes and fact checked with each other when we felt the need to.
While Harry was widely known in Hoosick Falls, I’m fairly certain his name rings a bell with a lot of Cambridge folks too, at least those who were football fans and read the Washington County Post in the 60s and 70s. For many years, Harry wrote a weekly column every football season, one of his most popular parts being his score predictions each week that were far more accurate than not and often used by “sporting” folks for weekly wagering.
As far as football went, no one was more qualified to write about a given topic when I contributed my two cents worth at the WCP. Harry was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame in 1972 for his contributions at the dawn of the sport. Harry claimed he invented the forward pass, something I’ve tried to verify but couldn’t. Still, beyond a doubt, Harry played ball when the pass was first used in the early 1900s. Harry’s many other merits are listed on the Hall of Fame web site, and deserve inclusion here in their entirety:
“Henderson Van Surdam, born September 28, 1881, died May 28, 1982, at age 100. He excelled as player, coach and official. Nicknamed “Dutch”, he was a star back for Wesleyan 1902-1905. He coached Marietta 1906-1907, Sewanee 1908, Texas Mines 1920. His coaching record was 22-8-3, and his Marietta teams beat West Virginia, Cincinnati, Miami (Ohio). In 1906, first year the forward pass was legalized, his Marietta team reeled off a 56-yard pass play against Ohio University. He was a referee 1921-62, dubbed “dean of eastern officials.” “Dutch” played piano, organ, clarinet, and led his college glee club. At various times he was a hotel music director in San Diego, military academy superintendent in Texas and hospital manager in Lake Placid, New York. He wrote poetry, composed songs, was national coordinator for Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity, directed world cruises, was a balloon observer in World War I, and Red Cross field director in World War II. Elected in 1972, he donated his Hall of Fame plaque to his old high school at Hoosick Falls, New York.”
Suffice it to say, Harry lived 10 worthy lives in a single body and was revered in Hoosick Falls, not just for his professional accomplishments but his many volunteer contributions to the local community over many years. If anyone deserved to bore an entire village for hours, it was Harry, and boy did he cash this check often. At first, I was grateful for the breaks but as the months wore on a little resentful of the waste of time when I had so little of it to spare, but like the rest, I kept my mouth shut and just nodded politely as Harry wove his soliloquy which often had absolutely nothing to do with the issues at hand, but Harry felt important to share at the given moment.
Often, to pass the boredom, I watched Don Bogardus, who I think would still be Hoosick Falls mayor had he not passed away in 2017 and did have a 20-year tenure I’d attribute mostly to his personality. Down here in Texas, we call guys like Don “a good ‘ol boy” and this is definitely a term of endearment. Don just liked people and people liked him, whether he was cutting hair in his barber shop across the street from where I worked or at the helm of village meetings.
As mayor, it was Don’s job to keep the meeting ball moving and recognize speakers. Most government bodies have specific rules for this and how long a person can speak, but if Hoosick Falls had such rules they didn’t apply to Harry. Sometimes, when Harry drew a long breath between stories, Don would say something like, “Thanks, Harry. That was really helpful, maybe we should…” but by then Harry got his second wind and rolled on. Don would just sigh then, kick back a bit in his chair and watch Harry with the same look of resignation and benign amusement I found on just about everyone’s face. This was Harry’s show and he’d let us know when it was over.
It was Harry’s work for the paper that gave me further insight into Nick. I soon leaned that Nick was as benevolent as his wife, just the sort of guy who would keep people like Roger and me employed simply because he was essentially charitable and too kind to fire anyone. I was too stupid to quit, so God provided me with precisely the employer I needed to survive and learn.
Nick usually did business with Harry directly, mostly I think because he got a bang out of the guy as many of us did, but also because he knew Harry enjoyed the attention. One afternoon though, Harry missed his meeting with Nick. Harry came to me, asking if I’d relay his column to Nick. Of course, I volunteered to be the conduit and Harry handed me his “column,” in a crumpled brown paper bag.
I didn’t know what to make of the offering and just thanked Harry, at first thinking maybe the old guy just became confused and handed me his lunch by mistake, but later I couldn’t resist opening the bag and found it filled with scraps of paper, some with random notes I couldn’t make out and others with college names and numbers, Harry’s weekly predictions, I think. Miraculously, these scraps transformed into a full column in the paper every week with Harry’s photo and byline, a bit of small town journalism that makes me smile every time I think about it.