Duck, dummy!

I just remembered the first time I tried to take a baseball photo. It was 1980, and I was at a high-school practice in Oconee County, S.C.

I was sitting on a bench and adjusting the long lens on my camera. I heard the crack of a bat, and I saw the ball get bigger and bigger through the lens. I ducked to the right, felt the spin of the ball move my hair and heard the ball hit a young player in the side of his chest.

That could have been my camera and my head.

It took me a while (maybe a couple of years) to get good at baseball photos. Still, I learned from this beginning; always stay on your toes.

And duck, dummy.

 EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com TWITTER: EDITORatWORK

More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

• Resume for a writer and editor

• An editor's views on powerful writing

• Advice for be Eand would-be novelists

• Links to TG's stories online

• Favorite quotes

• What I do when I'm editing

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie

• Good Samaritan

• The PRESS cap and my friend Mike

• Watching TV

• No luck with Billy Sims

• Wipeout at Death Valley

• Days with rainbows

• A desperate writer working in the dark

• Yer outta there!

EDITOR@WORK blog entries

• You really DO need an editor

• Reminders for would-be novelists

• What I do when I'm editing

• What I charge (it's a deal) and what I edit

• Slogging through the Internet

• J-school: More eyes on your stories

• J-school: Go out and learn

• Rookie mistakes for magazine writers

Entries from The Dog Blog

• Katie cried

• Growl and pull

• ... said the spider to ...

• The Dog Diary (2015)

• The Dog Diary (2014)

• 13-plus years with my dog Lady

• OOH! OOH! The stereophonic huskies

• What Lady and Michael Jackson had in common

Blog entries from The Auto Racing Journal

• Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr.

(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)

(the book of great NASCAR stories)

• My best day as a sports writer

• Jeff Gordon's milk toast to Dale Earnhardt

• Wayne Auton: A life in racing

Old movies and TV: Crazy in Laredo

I recently found an old TV series called Laredo, and I just watched an episode on YouTube called A Matter of Policy. It's a funny western series featuring Neville Brand, Peter Brown, William Smith and Philip Carey. The first three are Texas Rangers, and Carey plays their captain.

I spend each episode thinking that the three amigos are nuts, and it's obvious their hair-brained schemes should be avoided. But things always work out at the end, and Laredo might be my all-time favorite western series (other than, possibly, Have Gun Will Travel).

******

Today, I re-watched a really old movie called Bulldog Drummond in Africa, one of the better movies in the 1930s series featuring actor John Howard. I loved those movies when I was young, and it's nice to find them again.

The interesting thing about Drummond in Africa is the appearance of standout character actor J. Carrol Naish and future superstar actor Anthony Quinn.

******

I just watched an old movie called Phffft. The title came from famed newspaper columnist/radio personality Walter Winchell, who wrote or said phffft when a marriage was going sour.

In this movie, Jack Lemmon and Judy Holliday are having marital problems, so Holliday decides she wants a divorce. She gets one in Reno, Nevada, but then they soon begin to realize they love each other.

The movie sort of drags until Lemmon's friend, Jack Carson, fixes him up with Kim Novak, who does a wonderful imitation of Marilyn Monroe. The highlight, though, comes when Lemmon and Holliday are dancing with other partners, but our hero and heroine wind up switching partners in mid-dance and doing one of the strangest dances I've seen.

I won't give away the ending, but that's one of the best parts of the movie; I watched it (and the dance scene) twice. I'd give Phffft four stars out of five.

EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com TWITTER: EDITORatWORK

More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

• Resume for a writer and editor

• An editor's views on powerful writing

• Advice for be Eand would-be novelists

• Links to TG's stories online

• Favorite quotes

• What I do when I'm editing

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie

• Good Samaritan

• The PRESS cap and my friend Mike

• Watching TV

• No luck with Billy Sims

• Wipeout at Death Valley

• Days with rainbows

• A desperate writer working in the dark

• Yer outta there!

EDITOR@WORK blog entries

• You really DO need an editor

• Reminders for would-be novelists

• What I do when I'm editing

• What I charge (it's a deal) and what I edit

• Slogging through the Internet

• J-school: More eyes on your stories

• J-school: Go out and learn

• Rookie mistakes for magazine writers

Entries from The Dog Blog

• Katie cried

• Growl and pull

• ... said the spider to ...

• The Dog Diary (2015)

• The Dog Diary (2014)

• 13-plus years with my dog Lady

• OOH! OOH! The stereophonic huskies

• What Lady and Michael Jackson had in common

Blog entries from The Auto Racing Journal

• Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr.

(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)

(the book of great NASCAR stories)

• My best day as a sports writer

• Jeff Gordon's milk toast to Dale Earnhardt

• Wayne Auton: A life in racing

Wham! There goes a car window

It was probably 1980 when I was covering American Legion baseball in Seneca, S.C. The Seneca Legion team played at a local elementary school, and everyone felt safe with their cars parked on the other side of the building.

They were playing under the lights, and a guy jacked a foul ball to his right. The ball bounced once on the roof of the school, and we heard "CRASH!" as the ball went through a windshield. About 200 people raced around the school, and most came back relieved. I heard one guy yell a one-word expletive while he was standing in the parking lot, and he was still cussing under his breath when he came back to the field.

When I went around the school after the game, I saw a red truck with a soccer-ball sized hole in the windshield. Expletive, indeed. I hope he was insured. He'd probably have to pay a deductible, though.

Contact: I can be reached at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com.

More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

• Resume for a writer and editor

• An editor's views on powerful writing

• Advice for be and would-be novelists

• Links to TG's stories online

• Favorite quotes

• What I do when I'm editing

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie

• Good Samaritan

• The PRESS cap and my friend Mike

• Watching TV

• No luck with Billy Sims

• Wipeout at Death Valley

• Days with rainbows

• A desperate writer working in the dark

• Yer outta there!

EDITOR@WORK blog entries

• You really DO need an editor

• Reminders for would-be novelists

• What I do when I'm editing

• What I charge (it's a deal) and what I edit

• Slogging through the Internet

• J-school: More eyes on your stories

• J-school: Go out and learn

• Rookie mistakes for magazine writers

Entries from The Dog Blog

• Katie cried

• Growl and pull

• ... said the spider to ...

• The Dog Diary (2015)

• The Dog Diary (2014)

• 13-plus years with my dog Lady

• OOH! OOH! The stereophonic huskies

• What Lady and Michael Jackson had in common

Blog entries from The Auto Racing Journal

• Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr.

(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)

• Then Junior Said to Jeff...

(the book of great NASCAR stories)

• My best day as a sports writer

• Jeff Gordon's milk toast to Dale Earnhardt

• Wayne Auton: A life in racing