Hall Marcellus - The Way I Heard It

For Mom and Dad

who may have heard it differently

A promise made is a debt unpaid.

SAM McGEE

Be wary of all earnestness.

TRAVIS McGEE

I drove into the long-term parking lot at BWI twenty-five minutes before my flight was scheduled to depart. This would have been back in 1988. June, I think. I had bags to check and security to clear, but if I hustled, I could still make it. There was just one problemI couldnt seem to get out of my car. It was the strangest thing. The door wasnt locked, nor was it jammed. In fact, the door was open but I was stuck to my seat, and I remained that way until the man on the radio spoke his magic words. Words that would allow me to grab my bags from the trunk and sprint for the gate. Finally, those words were spoken.

And now, you know the rest of the story.

How many times did I sit in parking lots and driveways long after Id arrived at my intended destination, waiting for Paul Harvey to utter those words? Too many to count. Thanks to his insanely addictive radio program, The Rest of the Story, I missed my flight that day, and ever since, Ive wanted to write stories that cant be turned off or put down until the very end. Stories that make people late.

Ill have more to say about Paul Harvey later. For now, I just want to thank him for inspiring The Way I Heard It, the podcast whose title is shared by the book youve just begun. Like The Rest of the Story, the mysteries in this book tell some true stories you probably dont know, about some famous people you probably do. Your job is to figure out who or what Im talking about before I get to the end. Inside, youll find thirty-five mysteries pulled from my podcast. Think of them as tiles in a mosaic. Each of these tiles is followed by a personal recollection. Think of those as the grout that holds the tiles together.

Many of these mysteries were written in the heart of Americain her greasy spoons, hotel rooms, and train stations. Others were composed high above the fruited plain, as I flew hither and yon to host one show or another. Funny thing, though. While writing mysteries up there in the friendly skies, something mysterious happened to me. Time became compressed. Distances started to shrivel. How many times did I begin to write on the tarmac at SFO, only to look up a few minutes later, stunned to be landing at JFK? Too many to count.

Picture me at 37,000 feet

My laptop is open, the light is on above me, and everyone around me is sleeping. Thats what I pictured for the photo on the cover of this book: me in a middle seat, writing the words youre reading today. I went with a corner diner instead because the foods better, but you get the ideahalf of this book was written on the road. The other halfthe groutwas mixed right here, at my kitchen table.

Perhaps you can picture that, too?

A fire snaps and crackles in the background, the fog blows in from under the Golden Gate, and my faithful dog, Freddy, gnaws on my slippers as I wrestle with the question gnawing at mewhy, exactly, did I write about the people I wrote about? I mean, something must have drawn me toward the subjects Id picked, right? The more I considered what that something was, the more I discovered some surprising connectionspersonal connections that I hadnt noticed from 37,000 feet or at the lunch counter at Mels. Invariably, these connections began to rhyme, and soon the mosaic began to change. The grout and the tiles became equally important.

How many times did I look up from my laptop, only to see that the fire had gone out, the dog was asleep, the fog was gone, and the moon was right where the sun had been shining just moments ago? Too many to count.

Youve already met Freddy, and youll run across him again in the pages to come. Hes a good boy. Youll meet my parents, my girlfriend, and my high-school mentor. There will be ghosts and pigs, farmers and fishermen, movie stars, presidents, Nazis, and bloody do-gooders, along with the fictitious knight-errant upon whom my entire worldview was once based. Along the way, youll hear stories about Dirty Jobs and a long list of less notable shows that still haunt me on YouTube. Shows Ive tried to forget, but cannot. In all cases, each story is told the way I heard it. If youve heard it differently, Im okay with that, and I hope you are, too.

By the way, Im trying to picture you, too. Is that creepy? I hope not.

I see you checking in to some quaint bed-and-breakfastin Oregon, maybe, or Texas, or even in England or France. Youve arrived late, worn out from your journey. Youve built a fire and slipped into bed. This book, dog-eared and stained, just happens to be the one lying on your bedside table. You pick it up. You start to read. And when you look up, the fog is gone, the fire is out, and theres the sun, right where the moon was just moments ago. You wonder where the night went.

On Monday morning, at the water cooler, you might share one of these stories with a friend. Theyll probably raise an eyebrow and say, Wow! Is that really the way it happened? If I were you, Id say: You better believe it. At least thats the way I heard it.

Corporal Kaminsky was precariously perched atop a makeshift utility pole, forty feet above the frozen ground. In the dim light of a crescent moon, he squinted to complete his task and tried not to lose his battle with gravity.

As a member of the 1104th Engineer Combat Group, Kaminsky was used to such work. What he was not used to was doing it so close to the enemy. You see, the particular pole to which this particular corporal clung was planted in Belgium. Specifically, in the Ardennes Forest. Just through the trees, a big chunk of the German Army was preparing to launch an enormous offensive that would be remembered, forever, as the Battle of the Bulge.

They were so close Kaminsky could smell them: an odorous stew of gasoline, bratwurst, and boiled cabbage filled his nostrils. He could hear them, too. Theyd been playing propaganda recordings all night long: an unholy mix of the German national anthem, the latest ravings of the mad Fhrer, and the sweet voice of Axis Sally, urging our boys to lay down their guns and surrender.

As he twisted the last wire around the last screw that would carry the current to a slightly different broadcast, he heard a harsh whisper from the sentry below him. This isnt funny, Kaminsky! That made the young corporal smile. If there was one thing hed learned growing up on the mean streets of Brooklyn, it was this: whenever anyone said thats not funny, it was almost certain to be hilarious.

Kaminsky shimmied down the pole, took one last glance up at the enormous loudspeaker hed just installed, and chuckled. The sentry shook his head as Kaminsky scurried back to battalion command. Along the way he stepped around numerous foxholes filled with exhausted and freezing GIs. Their spirits needed a lift, and by God, he was just the soldier to do the job.

Kaminsky searched through a small box of vinyl 78s, looking for the perfect selection for an occasion such as this. His eyes settled on a classic, and he chuckled again.

A switch was flipped, a dial was cranked, and the wall of sound that erupted from Kaminskys loudspeaker echoed through the frozen forest. In an instant, the racist rantings of Adolf Hitler were drowned out by the unmistakable refrain known to millions: