Re: Genial reporter knew value of a ladder

[Jeremy Mixer <mixer@zoso.net>]

On Fri, 21 Dec 2001 Dib9@aol.com wrote:

> The link below will take you to a guest column in today's Portland Press
> Herald remembering Bob Elliot, which was written by our own Chuck Igo!
>
> http://www.portland.com/viewpoints/mvoice/011221bob.shtml

> One of the great things about Bob was that he was the same nice guy off the
> air as he was on.  That's unfortunately not always the case.

Bob was one of the first TV people I ever met....not the first, in second
grade I got to tour the WCSH studios in Portland and got to meet Patsy
Wiggins and Peggy.....I don't remember her name, but in 1985 they were the
afternoon news anchors on channel 6. Several years later, in the early
90's, I was offered an oppertunity as a boy scout to be part of a
colorguard for a charity football game in Sanford featuring a lot of
former NFL stars. Bob Elliot was there, and I walked up to him and said
"Are you Bob Elliot" and he seemed tickled to death that some 12 year old
kid (somewhere around that age) recognized him and he bent over (I was
amazed how tall he was) and shook me hand, asked me my name, said it was
great to meet me etc..... and it was really cool for me. And it was
genuine, it wasn't him saying hi to me because he felt he had to, it was
because he wanted to. He could have just ignored me.

I wwas very saddened when I found out about his death. His segments on
WCSH and later......was it WMTW? or WGME? Either way, they were always
some of the most entertaining and humerous segments that you ever would
see on the news, and would provide a lot of releeif to newscasts, which
unfortunately are usually all bad news....

WHile I have been fortunate to meet many very polite news people, none of
them have made an impact on me like Bob Elliot did. I have also met some
very unfriendly, pompous-ass news people, who I will not say their name
because things get back to people and they'd (one man in particular) would
probably find some way to make me or the station I work for look bad in
retaliation.....so I'll keep my mouth shut :)

Jeremy