Today the help we received was a little more ironic, mysterious and maybe a little divine in nature.
Chad Tucker and I were on a late afternoon hunt for a story that was our backup for the day after the players for our first story weren't available until Monday. We drove 50 miles to Danbury looking for the father of the 2 boys who drowned in the Dan River in September of 2006.
The boys' parents are suing DSS for placing the boys with the paternal grandparents who, the suit says, were unable to take care of the boys and that factor and others allowed the boys to wander to the river causing their death.
With no listed phone number we stopped at his house and his parents gave us the information that he was in a nearby town working and they didn't have his cell number. They took our number and said they'd have him call.
As we proceeded to gather information for our story and the afternoon clock ticked away, we knew we didn't have much time to get this story done.
After a quick trip to the courthouse we sat at a convienence store near his house. The people in the store know him and they said he has been working building fences. I looked in the phone book but there are a lot of fence companies so I wasn't going to go down that path.
Almost jokingly Chad and I both wondered aloud about needing a sign from God. About 5 minutes passed and I noticed something that hadn't caught my eye earlier. A fence business sign, with the last name of the man we were looking for. The sign included a cell phone number!
We called and sure enough it was our guy. He came and met us for an interview and then he asked us how we got his number. We told him we got it from the sign and he looked puzzled and we re-explained that it was the one by the store. After a minute he suddenly remembered the sign and we all laughed it off.
But I've got to wonder...why didn't I see the sign sooner and why didn't he remember his own sign?
The Story aired at 5:30
2 comments:
Nice!
Truly funny. Got my first photog job the same way. News Director walked into the shop and rob where I was working. I asked about a job. He said one of his guys had just quit. Twenty years later, I'm still cussing both of them.
Post a Comment