What can I say, I love story telling and the fact that we can now share our stories through so many new means, like right now on this blog. In 1999, as a young reporter and photographer; I just wanted to be on television. How cool, I thought when friends of mine would tell me how much they liked my story from the night before.
It's funny how you think back on your life and career in the early stages. I was asked by my good friend Brian Andrews, what was the most memorable story I did that meant something to me. I think I threw him off when I started telling him a story I did about an old cemetary in Michigan that was forgotten. I was driving one day, and noticed that there were headstones covered in trees and brushes with a faded white picket fence surrounding the small property. I began to ask around and make a few phone calls and found out that it had quite a history. A Barnum and Bailey Circus elephant was burried there along with many of the founders of that small town.
I spoke with the historical society--they didn't know what they could do with the property, being that it was so old, and there was little if any funding to take care of something like that. I was raised to respect our dead, and our history. So, I did the story on my own time with the blessing of my station, who were a little weary of the story. The next day, I understood what journalism was and the power of television. A group of volunteers were there the following weekend cutting branches, mowing grass and painting the fence. I had tears on my face when I drove by and saw what my little story did to preserve that peice of history and show respect for the people who lied beneath those headstones.
Since then, 10 years later; I haven't done anything of that magnitude in the way of real journalism. I did manage to force the hand of a big box retail store to clean up a section of river that they were polluting. It felt good, but what else have I done to change the World...not much.
Brian and I were sitting in a Tallahassee Hotel resturant one cool October day. I met him down there for breakfast, feeling like I couldn't do it anymore. He looked me in the eyes and said something I won't forget, "Be true to your core.". I'm a journalist inside, not a button pushing shooter like supervisors like to think I am. It hit me. Why don't I stay true to my core, and tell stories? Because it doesn't exist so much, when dead babies and cars in canals are headlines and the daily norm.
So, guess what? I am taking the advice of Brian and my new friend Kelley and staying true to myself. I am going to start telling stories again. I'm nervous, but too bad. I'm a frustrated journalist, but never the less...a journalist.

Thanks guys...

J