As a young TV broadcaster in Green Bay, I got to see a lot of the Packers greats up close and personal.
I was thrilled when Bart Starr greeted me with, “Hi Glen,” in his southern accent before we were even introduced. Later he dressed me down for an investigation I was doing about some of his players. And still later, Bart assisted me in a project helping kids without fathers.
Later, I worked at another Green Bay TV station where massive Forest Gregg did his show as coach. I was kind of scared of him when he stormed passed me in hallway with his eyebrows twitching.
I was even a guest in the home of Ray Nitschke. He had a big oil painting of himself in uniform hanging in his beautiful living room....
Now as an old, wrinkled member of the Wisconsin Broadcasters Hall of Fame, I am still meeting famous Wisconsin sports personalities.
At our annual dinner this week, I got to shake hands with Eddie Doucette who called the games when the Milwaukee Bucks won their 1971 national championship with 7-2 center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson.
Jun 25, 2011
Eddie Doucette's Hall of Fame induction
Jun 24, 2011
Looking for a good newsroom administrator?
I worked with Lee Hitter when he was Chief Photographer at WFRV-TV in Green Bay.
Excellent photographer...even better father of two...and a friend to every one who knows him.
What kind of man is Lee Hitter? When he was filming two kids close drowning in a dangerous river, he put down his camera, jumped in and rescued them!
Lee Hitter is one of the best men I know.
He has been news director at WFRV since the early 1990s, setting a record for longevity. He needs a new job because his station has new owners who are letting go more than 20 people.
You can get in touch with Lee Hitter at WFRV-TV in Green Bay: (929) 437 5411
Jun 17, 2011
Jun 10, 2011
Because he attended Beloit College, I wanted to make a video about actor James Arness. And I wrote to him a month before he died.
His web site said he enjoyed letters from fans. I am a fan, having just watched 174 of his old TV Gunsmoke shows on Netflix.
Although these westerns were made a half century ago, they are still good stories. But when you watch an episode or two a day for months something else happens to you along with being entertained.
You find yourself becoming a resident of that dusty frontier community of Dodge, Kansas with its cattle herds, horses, mules, buggies, stagecoaches, covered wagons, telegraph offices, hard drinkers, brawls and gun fights.
Your family is James Arness aka the stern Marshal Matt Dillon, Kitty, Doc, Chester, and Festus. These characters care a lot about each other and you care for them, too. It is almost too much to endure when outlaws take kind Kitty or grandfatherly Doc hostage.
Gunsmoke has strong stories and characters and occasionally first rate music by movie composers such as Franz Waxman.
But the show used the same background over and over again… no matter where the location is supposed to be--Kansas, Texas, or Mexico--you always see the same cabins, meadows, trees, and the same mountains. The horse with the white neck spot shows up with a different owner every episode. I'm not complaining about this. It made me feel at home.
In the saddle, Marshal Dillon is a rugged giant and his spurred heels almost scrape the ground. Yet he rides a beautiful horse with a fluffed up hairdo. The animal prances along the prairie during those long trailing-the-bad-guy scenes.
At the end of the trail, Dillon almost always wins the gun fight, but is often bloodied. His New York Times obituary said he was wounded 30 times in Gunsmoke.
James Arness was actually severely wounded in the leg during World War II.
He remained a patriot the rest of his life. Here is an excerpt from an Armed Forces film he made in his prime.