The day Ken Screven and I met

I realize that new Times Union community blogger Ken Screven has reported on maybe fifty thousand stories during his stint as a WRGB reporter.  And I can’t ask him to remember all fifty thousand of them as if they were baseball statistics.

But I do remember this one instance.  And it’s the time when one of those fifty thousand articles … involved me.

Spin the time machine back to 1985.  After four years at Hamilton College, a “Little Ivy” school where I never even thought I could attend, let alone graduate, WRGB wanted to craft a news piece about the hardscrabble kid who went from a rough-and-tumble life into, with help and guidance from a team of educators, a college graduate.

So here’s the deal.  After I graduated and returned to the Capital District, Ken Screven interviewed me at my old high school, the Street Academy of Albany.  My high school principal, Lillian Tillman DeWitt, added comments about my time at the school, and there was some footage shot of me hanging out at one of the classes.

I acquired a copy of the original interview, and then I packed it away.  And of course, you know what happens when you pack things away… eventually you open a box and looky looky here it is.

Eventually, I transferred this old VHS copy of the interview to a DVD.  Then, in time, I transferred the DVD to a digital file for my computer.

Today, I looked at the original news footage.  Damn, I was a skinny, gangly kid back then.  What the hell was that caterpillar growing on my lip?  Jeez, did those glasses come with windshield wipers?  Is that a mullet on my head?  And what in the name of Pee Wee Reese possessed me to start rocking out a Brooklyn Dodgers satin jacket, 20 years before Mitchell and Ness made retro gear appealable?

But that video clip also reminded me of where I came from.  A family life that was full of turmoil.  Moments when I thought I had no future, that my life was destined for a dead-end job, a treadmill to oblivion.

And then, in 1979, I found a high school that saved my life.  A school where I wasn’t some nameless, faceless soul.  A school where I could achieve and thrive and prosper and survive.  A school where I went from asking for a handout… to finding a way out.

And on that sunny May morning in 1985… WRGB showed up at the Street Academy, filmed me, interviewed Mrs. Tillman, and later that day… I made the local news broadcast.

Nearly thirty years later, after Ken Screven joined the ranks of the Times Union’s family of community bloggers… even though I looked like the dorkiest dork from downtown Dorkville, I had to put this clip up on YouTube.  If for no other reason, this shows what kind of work Ken Screven did as a reporter for WRGB – always diligent and professional, a man who actually gave a hang about the Albany school system and the students and teachers who were part of it.

I don’t even know if Ken Screven will have a chance to read today’s blog… but hopefully he’ll smile at this little video flashback.  One of the fifty thousand news reports he worked on during his time at WRGB.

Thanks, Ken.  Much appreciated.