Snow Days Frozen Fingers and Food Lion

I just read another one of Stewart "Lenslinger" Pittman's great little anecdotes about TV Photogin' and it sparked my mind back in time to the Winter of 1996. I was working in my own little TV Photog world in Goldsboro, NC, I was a 3 year veteran and I just knew the day had come (again) when I was going to be fired from my first TV Job.

I was called on the carpet for something that I didn't even do.(at this particular junction in time anyhow)

My NewsDirector/Anchor/Reporter(just one man) and I had gotten permission to shoot the bread and milk at a grocery chain during the onset of the first winter snow. My buddy, the assisstant manager of the store, had allowed me in before for this type of coverage and he obliged again. But soon after I commenced gathering some bread and a little milk onto my Beta SP my friend brought me some less than pleasing news. We had to leave, so says the district manager.

I raised my arm to summons my TV Talking Cohort to the camera and told him the deal and we quitely left, though displeased with the setback.

On the way back to the office we got a call from our bosses asking what had happened at the Grocery store. I could tell in the voice over the phone that something was askew. I gave my version as I have laid out for you here and I was confronted with accusations of Flying the Bird in the Grocery Store. It didn't help that they were a large revenue source for our small time news operation. I pleaded my case in a lengthy meeting at the office, trying to even reckon how they thought I had flown the bird.

Apparantly it runs in the family...My sister telling me off.

After some question asking of my own I figured out that some other girl working at the grocery store had seen my arm fly into the air from a distance and my left after she knew I'd been told to leave. She interpreted that as the F-You then and told the district manager who promptly called my bosses.

I told my theory to them, but I had to call my friend at the store to clear things up. The uproar was settled, but I don't know that they ever really believed my. My NewsDirector/Anchor/Reporter(just one man) knew it was a crock but it was still tense for a couple of days.