University of Massachusetts Amherst - Index Yearbook (Amherst, MA)

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7 4-I Photo by Andy Heller

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Use all your senses. What does the place smell like? Look like? What were the sounds? I asked the students to give me the feel of the place. They wrote it down much as I had written it down, perhaps hoping as I once hoped that someday it would all come natu- rally. The day at UNH was my first prodding. The second was not gentle, certainly not subtle. Rather it resem- bled a hokey scene in an unremarka- ble movie. I had picked up a book and, inside, found an envelope, ad- dressed to me at a Laurel, Maryland, address in 1965. We had lived in that bland suburban community because it was halfway between Washington and Baltimore. Each working day, Caryl, wife and reporter, drove to Washing- ton, and Alan, husband and reporter, drove to Baltimore. The letter was from Tucker. He had written it on January 27 of that year, four sheets of lined paper, full, but for eight lines at the bottom, of gentility, courtesy, compliments, con- structive criticism. I had forgotten that I had written to him and had sent along copies of some of the stuff I was doing on Balti- more's muggy and sometimes mean streets. I had been so damn proud of those stories, some of them about the people rarley touched then or now by the media. I had also sent something I insisted was free verse. This too had fallen out of the envelope. It's dated now, but according to Bob Tucker, it wasn't exactly primed to set the world on fire then either. Once again, in the letter this time, he became teacher. Once again, he did so without being overbearing or pretentious, without hurting the feel- ings of a young writer. And make no mistake about this - a journalist's ego is much more fragile than a politi- cian's. Once again, I soared, because this voice from my past was telling me that some of those newspaper pieces were good. And now in 1985, as I re- read this old letter, I glow unabashed- ly again. Yes, not only is a journalist's ego fragile, it is so large as to be suffo- eating. In the letter, Tucker wrote of per- spective, of how newspapers, radio, and television really don't deliver a proper perspective. He went on to de- scribe those who see the world as a whole, who see the good with the bad. They with the grace of God, he wrote, get us the hell out of Egypt. They write the good news - that it's never too gruesome fthey face all the worstj for the most important thing, human love and compassion, to begin rebuilding with whatever fragments seem to be at handf' Now it hits me. He knew. Tucker knew all the time what some reporters never learn and what some of us take so long to learn. I recall, as a young reporter, that I felt I must concen- trate on the bad news, in order to right wrongs. But by concentrating on the bad, we present such a warped view of the world that our readers and viewers lose heart, and, in the process, lose confidence in us also. It took me so long even to begin to understand that, but Tucker knew. In closing he said of me and of my wife, whom he had not met, I shall expect a couple of calf-bound autographed copies of your two novels. Make them good news, like this of your remem- bering me, 6 or 7 years outf' My wife has written and published her first novel, her fifth book. It is humorous and sad, bittersweet and just what Tucker would have liked receiving. Iive written three books, but no novels. I'm not sure I know how to do a novel. But I now keep the letter next to my typewriter. I don't wish to lose it again. I'll need it, you see, if I ever try that novel. For I remember him now, 26 years out, and will always. - Al Lupo, Class of 1959 'Reprinted courtesy of The Alumnus, August - Septemb 85

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iii xxxx . W' Im 'fm A M ' vp, Y' Servlc winning this year. ICZITIS at athlete is ed but in the sweat of his brow. -e St. Jerome