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Threads:
Freelancing
Letters
written by me, updated May 2004
to
include the period 1988-1989 |
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Sunday,
March 13, 1988
I'm
freelancing in television now, specializing in operating a Chyron
at sports events. (That's the computer that creates the player
identifiers, scoreboards, and other graphics that are superimposed
annoyingly over the picture that you're trying to watch.) I'll
be traveling with the much-improved Pittsburgh Pirates this spring
and summer, and then going to Korea in September to work the Olympics
with NBC.
Monday,
June 6, 1988
The
company I had been working for since 1980, TCS,
went bankrupt last October. The bank took over and continued
to operate the weekly Penn State Football show through the end of the
season, which was the Florida Citrus Bowl in Orlando on New Year's
Day. But then the facilities were sold to another company,
NEP. And since NEP doesn't produce any programs but only
provides equipment, the few of us who were left in programming were
called in to work only on an as-needed basis. I became a
full-time freelancer.
Of
course, I had done freelance work for other production companies
before, so this wasn't a drastic change. I now have a little
less income but a little more free time, which I consider a fair tradeoff.
The
old TCS gang had gotten together one more time in February to
produce "Starting Another Century," a Penn State football
video using our footage from the 1987 season. This
time, we
were working as independent contractors.
Here
are parts of my script for the narration of this 48-minute tape. |
1986
was the one-hundredth season of Penn State football. An
outstanding year.
Quarterback
John Shaffer. All-American linebacker Shane Conlan, with two
interceptions against Miami in the Fiesta Bowl. The number-two
rusher in Penn State history, D.J. Dozier. And Penn State's
second national championship. (Call of Giftopoulous interception)
The
Nittany Lions were honored in Washington. (President Reagan
speaks; applause)
But
1987 was a new season, with new stars. Matt Knizner led the
Lions into their second century. There were other fresh heroes,
like linebacker Keith Karpinski. And, with the third best
rushing season in Penn State history, tailback Blair Thomas.
The year climaxed with a crucial win over Notre Dame. (Call
of unsuccessful Irish extra-point play)
This
season's reward: a trip to the Magic Kingdom!
The
Nittany Lions of Penn State. STARTING ANOTHER CENTURY. (Theme)
The
1987 Nittany Lions were invited to Orlando for the Florida Citrus
Bowl. The players arrived before Christmas and had a great
time. At Sea World of Florida, they met penguins and posed with
whales. They rode in a parade down Main Street of Walt Disney
World's "Magic Kingdom." At EPCOT Center, the Penn
State and Clemson teams met for an orange-juice squeezing contest.
After
more than a week of fun in Florida, it was time for the football
game. Penn State's 25th bowl appearance marked the 12th time
the Nittany Lions had played on New Year's Day, but just the first
time they had played Danny Ford's Clemson Tigers.
The
final score was Clemson 35, Penn State 10. But the Lions could
still hold their heads high.
Senior
punter Chris Clauss set a Florida Citrus Bowl record with a 51-yard
average, including this 62-yard boomer out of the end zone.
Penn State pulled off one of the most exciting plays of the game, a
46-yard pass to Michael Timpson.
The
offensive line, led by All-American guard Steve Wisniewski, provided
excellent pass protection. Clemson had sacked opposing
quarterbacks 35 times during the regular season. They did not
get a single sack against Penn State.
And
two freshman tailbacks filled in well for the injured Blair
Thomas. Leroy Thompson gained 55 yards, in addition to catching
three passes and returning six kickoffs. Gary Brown added 51
yards. So the Lion tailback tandem ran for 106 yards against
the number-two rushing defense in the nation. Penn State
finished 8-4, and six seniors went on to post-season all-star
games. (Dip to black for "flashback" to August)
When
fall practice began for the 1987 season, no one was sure where it
would all lead. The Nittany Lions were the defending national
champions, but 30 lettermen from that 1986 team would not be
returning. Joe Paterno's team needed leadership from a new,
younger group of players.
Blair
Thomas, the junior tailback, was great in the final game of the
regular season. Joe Paterno agreed. (Paterno press conference)
Thomas
has the look of those great Penn State running backs. (You've
Got the Look music piece, including Fran Ganter)
So
those were the Nittany Lions of 1987. Starting the second
century of Penn State football, they were brilliant in some
aspects. They showed much promise in others. With more
talented young players on their way to the top, there's a lot of
excellent football to look forward to at Penn State. (Future
piece, with credits:)
Executive
Producer |
L.
Budd Thalman |
Producer |
Thomas
V. Huet |
Writer |
Tom
Thomas |
Associate
Producer |
Jack
T. Sedlak |
Editor |
Mike
Kobik |
Electronic
Graphics |
Lisa
Cirincione |
Commentators |
John
Sanders
George
Paterno |
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Monday,
June 6, 1988
I
continue to do graphics at MISL indoor soccer games for Prime Ticket
on the west coast. They usually hire me for games that the Los
Angeles or San Diego teams are playing in this part of the country;
but this spring they were short of experienced people, so I worked
games as far away as L.A. and Tacoma.
For
the second year, I'm traveling around the country for KDKA-TV
telecasts of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
NEP
hired me for a New Year's Eve celebration from Sea World in Florida
(since we were there for the football game the next day), as well as:
the setup in New York City for an Ekiden (a Japanese relay marathon,
depicted at left),
and a teleconference from Howard University about the movie School
Daze.
Before
Spike Lee described his movie, our TV crew shared dinner at a long
table with several Howard students as well as actors Ruby Dee and
Ossie Davis (right).
Decades
later, in May 2016, Davis was remembered by legendary soprano Jessye
Norman in her commencement address
at Oberlin College, parts of which went like this: |
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I
fear we are too often separated into groups that celebrate only one
part of ourselves and we need to experience this day, together.
It
happens that Carnegie Hall opened its doors on the fifth of May 1891
and has just celebrated its 125th anniversary. A year after
this opening season, that prized stage would be graced by the
performance of an African American, Sissieretta Jones a voice
so pure and beautiful that hers was compared most favorably to the
reigning European soprano of the day. History, inclusion.
But
then you had the Daughters of the American Revolution in Washington,
D.C. who, decades later, did not see fit to have the great Marian
Anderson to sing on the concert stage of the era, Constitution Hall,
which they owned, and which they still own to this day.
It
took the sheer will and determination of Eleanor Roosevelt, who
might have had a word with her husband, to turn this slight, this
sign of prejudice and intolerance, into an historical moment
something that can be referred to easily as Americas first
protest concert, by a woman whose art and demeanor offered only
serenity, her deep faith and humility. Marian Anderson, Easter
Sunday 1939, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, not singing for a
few thousand but for tens of thousands surrounding the area and the
reflecting pool. And the very first words out of that splendid
throat on that day: My country tis of thee, sweet land of
liberty, of thee I sing. Her graciousness, my gratitude.
The
wonderful Ossie Davis happened to have been a freshman student at
Howard University at that time, and I had the grand privilege of
having him tell me of this momentous occasion that it was a
cool morning, but as the crowds were so huge, all tight together, he
said, we kept warm and happy.
May
I ask of you and of todays momentous occasion that you take
your academic diploma under one arm and, with your other hand
outstretched, offer to all comers the teachings of your heart and
mind, this music of your soul. And imagine, if you will, the
harmony that this could bring to our world. |
I
worked the heavyweight championship boxing match between Mike Tyson
and Larry Holmes on HBO in January, and I'll be back in Atlantic City
later this month for a closed-circuit telecast of the Tyson-Spinks
title fight (right).
The
Tyson-Spinks fight was the biggest event that you could imagine.
Bigger than the World Series. Bigger than the Super Bowl. Bigger than
the NBA championship. ...When Tyson fought, everybody stopped to
watch. The world stopped. Nothing compared to a night that Mike Tyson
was fighting for the title.
from
the 2021 ABC documentary Mike Tyson: The Knockout |
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And
NBC has hired me as one of 30 Chyron operators who will travel to
Seoul for the 1988 Summer Olympics.
So
I'm traveling, working on prestigious events, and enjoying not being
tied down to the weekly grind of the Penn State Football highlights
show. Things seem to be going fairly well here.
The
Chryon model 4100 could not easily capture video from an outside
source, such as artwork for team or sponsor logos. I found
that I could achieve better results when I created logos pixel by
pixel inside the machine.
However,
this was tedious and time-consuming, and as a freelancer I didn't
have much "slack time" to work on the Chyron. So I
tried this technique, using my home computer for an intermediate step.

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I
drew a grid over a photocopy of the logo. Then I wrote a
program for my computer that reproduced two boxes of the grid on the
screen (here rows 41 through 60, pixels 6 through 215) and allowed me
to blacken the desired pixels.
Finally,
my program printed out for me a list of which pixels in each row
were blackened (for example, Row 41: 15-24, 81-96, 192-201, and
210 to the edge of the next box).
When
I was able to get to the Chyron, it was a simple matter of coloring
in the specified pixels, with no need to waste time on making
creative decisions. |
Thursday,
August 25, 1988
I
finally added air conditioning to my apartment this spring, after
living here without it for 7½ years. Actually it's just a
window air conditioner, but it helps. I certainly picked the
right year to do it.
In
September of 1988, I traveled to South Korea. Click here
for the story. But most of my trips were much shorter.
Let
me give you an idea of what it was like. Gleaned from the
paperwork that I saved, here are some of my travels over the year
following the Olympics.
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Sat 10-29-88 |
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HBO
Boxing, Julio Cesar Chavez vs Jose Luis Ramirez, at the Las Vegas
Hilton. My room was actually at the Alexis Park Resort some
distance away. Until then, I had not been a coffee drinker, but
I decided to figure out how to use the Alexis Park's in-room
coffeemaker. I've been drinking coffee occasionally ever since.
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Fri 11-11-88 |
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Golden
State at Phoenix for Turner Sports.
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Thu 11-17-88 |
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Horse
racing at Garden State Park, Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
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Fri 11-18-88 |
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I
drove to the Philadelphia airport, flew to Fort Lauderdale, and
drove to Pompano Park to make a 1:00 pm crew call for the Breeder's
Crown harness race.
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Sat 11-19-88 |
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I
visited my high-school friend Terry Rockhold before catching an
evening flight to North Carolina.
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Sun
11-20-88 |
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Crew
call 6:00 am for an ESPN soccer game at North Carolina's Setzer
Field. 6:20 pm flight back to Pittsburgh.
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Fri
1-13-89
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More
NBA basketball on TBS:
Chicago
at L.A. Clippers.
L.A.
Lakers at Philadelphia.
Washington
at Philadelphia (Christmas Day).
.
MISL
Indoor Soccer in Dallas for Prime Ticket.
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Sat 1-14-89 |
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LSU
at Kentucky basketball for ESPN. I arrived in Lexington at
11:15 am and proceeded over icy roads to the Hyatt Regency hotel and
the adjacent Rupp Arena, where my crew call time was 2:30 pm.
The
mobile unit was Challenger I, the director was John DeLisa, and the
producer was John Wildhack. There was no graphics
coordinator. I was paid $200 plus per-diem.
Here's
a sample full-screen scoreboard from the ESPN instruction sheet, in
this case for a football game. The specification was for a
4100-series Chyron using 510E software (Sports Fast).
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Sat 2-25-89 |
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HBO
Boxing at the Las Vegas Hilton, Mike Tyson vs Frank Bruno.
It
might have been on this trip that, on the morning of our day of
preparation, I looked across the street from my hotel and saw the
event site right over yonder. The giant white convention center
appeared to be maybe six blocks to the north, so I decided to walk.
Luckily
I allowed a full hour for my stroll so I could arrive early.
The low-humidity desert air had deceived me, and it was actually two
miles from the Alexis to the Hilton. |
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In
2021 Josh Frulinger recalled a similar experience. The first
time I went to Vegas, my friends and I stayed in a hotel off the
Strip. We decided to not take the free shuttle and walk there
instead, because it seemed so obviously close to where we were.
You could see all the hotels and everything! Turns out that was
an optical illusion because all the hotels are so absurdly big.
We walked on a dark road lined with warehouses a block
from the Strip for several miles. |
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Sat
4-22-89 |
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Blue-White
spring football game at Penn State. I had to put the graphics
package together from scratch.
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The
squad was divided into two teams. One wore blue jerseys with
white numbers; the other, white with blue. Usually players are
identified with name, number, and team logo, but these two teams
didn't have two separate logos. So I got out my graph paper and
created 20 digits for uniform numbers. The color scheme shown
here was for a Blue player; reversing the palette gave us White.
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Tue
5-2-89
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More
NBA basketball on TBS included at least five games in February
through April, followed by these four contests:
NBA
Playoffs, Utah vs Golden State.
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Wed 5-3-89 |
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NBA
Playoffs, L.A. Lakers at Portland. I then flew down to San
Diego for a weekend Pirates baseball series. (I would work 50
Pirates games for KDKA-TV that season.)
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Wed 5-10-89 |
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NBA
Playoffs, Milwaukee vs Detroit.
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Fri 5-12-89 |
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NBA
Playoffs, Milwaukee vs Detroit.
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7-20/23-89 |
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LPGA
Boston Five Classic (golf).
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Mon 8-28-89 |
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WWF
Summer Slam wrestling at The Meadowlands, New Jersey.
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Sun 9-10-89 |
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Miller
High Life 400 NASCAR race at Richmond, Virginia. After the
telecast, Steve Smeryl and I were the first scheduled to fly
home. We had tickets on a 7:05 pm flight, which was presumably
the last Richmond-to-Pittsburgh flight of the day. World Sports
Enterprises not only allowed us to leave as soon as the show was off
the air, they even used their chartered helicopter to speed us to the
airport. Eighteen others had flights scheduled for 7:45 or
earlier, but they presumably had to drive to the airport,
fighting the post-race traffic. I got there so quickly that I
was able to rebook for an earlier flight.
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Sat 9-16-89 |
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Football,
Clemson at Virginia Tech.
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Sun
9-24-89 |
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Expos
at Mets, French Canadian feed.
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Tue 10-17-89 |
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In
Pittsburgh Music Awards. The local CBS affiliate, KDKA
channel 2, produced a live special from the Graffiti nightclub
featuring local bands. Partway through the hour, KDKA had to
interrupt our show for a CBS news bulletin: there had been a
major earthquake in San Francisco. A few minutes later, Dan
Rather was back with another update. Finally, the last portion
of our show was pre-empted completely for earthquake coverage.
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Sat 10-21-89 |
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College
football, USC at Notre Dame for Prime Ticket. Afterwards, I
drove back to Chicago's O'Hare Airport with analyst Mike
Garrett. A little more than three years later, Garrett would
start a 17-year stint as USC's athletic director, but he's best known
as the USC tailback who won the 1965 Heisman Trophy.
And
now back to some actual letters.
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Thursday,
June 1, 1989
Since
the Olympics, I actually haven't worked in Pittsburgh all that much,
but I've done a lot of other events around the country, from Los
Angeles to Boston and from Portland, Oregon, to Pompano Beach,
Florida. I'm lucky enough to be considered sufficiently good at
what I do that companies will send me to a lot of interesting places
to do it. And being single, with no pets or anything, I can be
almost as happy in a hotel in Phoenix as I am at home in my
apartment. I'm really enjoying what I'm doing.
In
honor of your upcoming birthday, I'm enclosing an example of the
latest French fashion, imported directly from Paris by way of New
Jersey. I understand that the design commemorates a comedy
routine on the French television network Canal+, in which a team of
newscasters spend all their time on introductions and never actually
get around to reporting any news.
NULLE
PART AILLEURS
EN
CLAIR SUR CANAL+
Les
titres du JTN Bonsoir, je suis Bruno
Carette
Bonsoir, je suis Chantal Lauby
Bonsoir, je suis Alain Chabat Des images
qu'on
aimerait voir plus souvent Nulle
part
ailleurs Jé souis pas oune machine
Décidément,
Moscou n'a pas fini de nous
étonner
Et puis, y a eu la reu Lepic De
notre
envoyé spécial Yvan Duteuche
Les
faits, rien que les faits De bien belles
images,
en effet Dominique Farrugia:
une
météo très particulière ce soir, en
effet
Tous ces titres ne seront pas
développés
dans cette édition Les Nuls.
My
guess at a loose translation:
SEEN
EXCLUSIVELY ON THE "MORE" CHANNEL
JTN
headlines Good evening, I'm Bruno Carette Good
evening, I'm Chantal Lauby Good evening, I'm Alain Chabat
Pictures that we'd like to see more often Exclusively
I am not a machine Definitely, Moscow never ceased to
amaze us And then, there was Lepic Street From our
special correspondent Yvan Duteuche The facts, just the facts
Quite beautiful pictures, indeed Dominique
Farrugia: A very special weather forecast tonight, indeed
We'll have details of none of these stories in this edition
The nothings
One
of the catchphrases seems to be "I am not a machine!"
In French, this would be "Je suis pas une machine."
But on the T-shirt, three vowels are slightly different:
"Jé souis pas oune machine." Eez zees pairhops
I mean, is this perhaps an indication that the character is
speaking with a foreign accent? |
I
don't know that for sure, of course, because I myself don't speak
French. But that didn't stop a local production company from
hiring me to do the graphics when Canal+ came to Garden State Park
(east of Philadelphia) to televise an international harness
race. A French horse named Ourasi was entered in the event that
night. The French network wanted to televise the race live, at
the unlikely hour of 4:45 AM European time; so they sent over a few
of their people and arranged for an American TV crew, which included me.
I
couldn't understand a word of what the announcers were saying,
although I could follow the general drift of what they were talking
about. Well, I did comprehend one word: when we finally
went to a shot of a horse that they had been discussing, the voilà!
came through loud and clear. But fortunately the bilingual
producer and his assistant had written out all the graphics that they
wanted me to put on the screen, and I had studied up on the special
software required to add the âcçènts which we
never have to worry about in American TV. So we got through it
fairly well. Ourasi, however, lost.
After
the show, one of the Canal+ people was handing out shirts as
souvenirs. Since I don't wear T-shirts and can't read this one,
I thought that maybe I should pass it on to Wisconsin, where there
are people who might be able to make some sense out of it.
Happy birthday.
Monday,
July 24, 1989
To
general manager Norman W. Johnson, WAGM-TV, Presque Isle, Maine
Earlier
this month I submitted a bill to NEP's Pittsburgh office for my
three-day trip to Presque Isle July 5-7 to demonstrate the Chyron
4100 to your staff. But Deb Honkus now informs me that I should
bill you directly.
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When
I went to Maine, I thought that WAGM wanted me to teach its staff
how to operate the Chyron. It turned out that they only wanted
an in-depth demonstration. |
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My
agreement with Deb was for a fee of $250 a day, plus $35 per diem to
cover expenses. However, WAGM paid for all my expenses while I
was there, including hotel, meals and transportation. So you
owe me just for the three days, a total of $750.00.
I
enjoyed meeting everyone and showing them some of what the 4100 can
do. I hope you're able to follow through on your plans to
purchase either a 4100 or a Scribe. If properly used, the new
machine will go a long way toward enhancing the look of your
commercial productions and newscasts.
On
the last day of the 1980s, a near-riot broke out in the huge 500-foot-tall
atrium of the downtown Atlanta hotel where the crew of the Pirates
Television Network usually stayed. This was before the days of
the Internet, but I used my 300-baud modem to download the AP story
from Compuserve. Excerpts:
ATLANTA
(AP) -- At least 15 people were hurt and about 50 arrested after a
New Year's Eve party at a downtown hotel turned violent and drunken
revelers threw potted plants, fire extinguishers and bottles from balconies.
"At
midnight it was literally raining bottles. I got hit in the
back of the head with a bottle," said Police Sgt. J.R. Collins.
About
2,000 young people were celebrating in the 1,685-room Marriott
Marquis hotel. Guests reported there were fights, they were hit
with fire extinguisher blasts when they walked out of their rooms and
they were trapped in elevators when vandals managed to short-circuit them.
The
hotel offered a special New Year's Eve package deal and sold out its
rooms, and many of the younger revelers apparently brought friends
into their rooms. Most of those arrested were from 17 to 21
years old, police said.
Paramedics
said as many as 15 people were treated for injuries ranging from
broken teeth to cuts on the head. One was knocked unconscious,
apparently by a falling object. |
I'm
uncomfortable in rooms with high
ceilings, even under normal circumstances. I was glad that
baseball season was still three months away.
My
story continues in The Nineties. |
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