In 2008, I was supposed to cover a high-school state-championship football game in Raleigh, N.C. The game was being played at N.C. State's football field, Carter-Finley Stadium.
They had saved credentials for me, but they'd left them at the Will Call window. So I had to talk my way into the parking lot.
There were several people working together when I got there. I talked to them, particularly one woman, for several minutes, and they were nice. But they wouldn't let me in. I couldn't prove to them that I wasn't just trying to get into the game free.
I had made up a credential that I wore at high-school games; it said MEDIA, Surry Messenger, Tom Gillispie. But, as the woman pointed out, anyone could have printed up credentials like that.
She said I needed to prove that I was a newspaper man. In desperation, I pointed out that I had a North Carolina Press Association sticker on my front windshield and a Winston-Salem Journal sticker on the back window (I had worked for the Journal before I took the Messenger job.).
Before I could even finish my sentence, she looked at my windshield and waved me forward. "Let him in," she told the others.
Open sesame...
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(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)
