At it’s best, it looked like this with me as Ralphie. I wanted the BB gun too, but also my school, the coal furnace, the front yard, clothes… my childhood really looked like this. Earth tones clothes, furniture and walls. One telephone in the house, one electric plug per room. Snow suits. Until … More The First Years
When my daughter Lauren was born we lived in Philadelphia and nine of our best friends were secretly working for the CIA. It was different then, in the early 60s: things were hopeful, the Vietnam war was a whisper, the government was not the enemy. Working for the government wasn’t so…. suspect, wrong. Government then was … More The CIA and Me
My daughter Lauren was about six months old in March 1965 and we lived in Philadelphia. There were a lot of awful things happening then — kind of a storm of shit that battered us those years: including civil rights, Vietnam. That winter, on March 25, Viola Liuzzo, a 40-year-old housewife and voter registration worker … More Celebrate Heros
Today another story out there about who killed President Kennedy. Fifty years ago. Like maybe who or what did it is still alive and ready to confess. Or that finally confirming this or that version changes anything. It’s my sense that all these whodunit pieces in print and TV are created by people who weren’t … More JFK
Back then, early oughts, I was field producing live shots for the Today Show. Not much money, but kinda fun way to spend an early morning. Usually pretty good stories, and the glamor. That too. So one night in April the crew booker called from Burbank – this would be maybe 8 pm Pacific – … More why I no longer work for NBC News ever
First off, the statute of limitations on my crime has surely expired and one little inter-state move of a ‘quantity for sale’ of marijuana probably doesn’t matter as much now as it sure as hell did in 1970. Second, jail is weird space. If you haven’t been in, there’s no way to get it. … More 24 Hours to Life in Reno
Tom DeVries 