Chapter Two

2. So you wanna be a weatherman…..

Forgive me, but I need to lay these out before I get started…

“Yours is the only job I know of where you can be wrong over 50% of the time and still be employed!”

(on message machine) “Yes, hello, I just wanted to let someone know I JUST now finished shoveling 5-inches of your ‘mostly cloudy’ conditions! Thank you!”

“Do you really know what the weather is gonna be or do you just make it up?”

“I just heard you say tornadoes were coming through tonight. When is that?” 

“I didn’t say that; I said there was a possibility of some storms popping a brief funnel in South Carolina, but I didn’t say Charlotte.” 

“Oh yes you did, I heard you, just a few minutes ago!” 

“Which station were you watching?” 

“YOURS!” 

“And which station are you calling?” 

(click – hang up).

There, I feel better. Got that out of the way. You may or may not be amazed how some individuals behave when the weather gets messy or the forecast goes bust.

In much the same vein as I tell budding actors, when someone wants to become a TV weatherman, my first word is “DON’T!” Sometimes I follow it up with a “WHY???” and then laugh demonically. The drool oozing from the right corner of my mouth sometimes scares folks. Naturally I say that with a smile, as I’m drawn to work that tries hopelessly to please everyone, which we all know is an impossibility. It just won’t happen, even in the best of times.

For close to 20 years I was on the airwaves full-time (dated term with cable and satellite, now), prognosticating and palavering about what people need to wear on any given day. While an ‘ego ‘ comes with a good many public personalities, I preferred telling people, “I do TV weather because I am simply unable to work a 'normal' job.  In TV-land, nothing is normal, except for one thing: poor in-house communication. Saddle us with the responsibility to get word out to the public and we do it with aplomb, but try to find out about what’s going on within the station walls and, well, good luck.

I guess because I’ve worked so many years on the ‘visible’ side, I’ve never really understood why so many of the general public become so attached and personally involved with on-air personalities and the whole idea of stardom. There is this perceived aura of glamour and swankiness that truly is but a wisp of vapor in the night. An illusion. A very big illusion. To coin the phrase (and alter it as it pertains to bears), we all put our pants on one leg at a time.

In TV-land, I’m not sure there is any ‘good’ shift. Many make their shift ‘work’, but in general shifts entail rather significant trade-offs. For early morning weather work you go to bed at sunset and rise around 2am, or for evening shift you get in at 1 or 2pm and work through the late night newscasts, and out roughly just before midnight. If you have kids you either miss getting them up and to school in the morning, or miss having dinner and putting them to bed at night. This doesn’t include the extra public appearances and emergency stuff you’re called on to do beyond said hours.

And it’s not that such schedules are bad things…but they entail trade-offs, as does most any major decision in life. As mentioned in the previous chapter, it’s all about ‘choice’, a choice best made by going in with both eyes wide open. Given the recent trends in media, which a lot began with the 9/11 tragedy, it’s a tricky dance, being in the TV world.

I love speaking to groups. It’s a bailiwick of sorts for me. One of the invariable questions I get is, “How did you get started in TV weather?” Ah, the quintessential million dollar question. Since I rarely do anything by ‘normal’ routes, it should come as no surprise to you that I got into TV weather via the ‘backdoor’, in a way. For several years I taught various science courses at Woodberry Forest School, my high school alma mater that profoundly impacted my life, as you will soon read. Among the electives I taught was Meteorology, using a basic college text that well-covered the basics. The story begins there but gets a bit more circuitous…bear with me.

In my teaching years I just happened to also fall into restoring classic cars as a self-taught hobby. I’d had a nice turquoise and white 1957 Chevy Model 210 4-door post that I drove daily when I returned to Woodberry to teach for a second stint. While there, I kept noticing a 1957 Cadillac Fleetwood for sale at a nearby home …and after months of listening to a little auto mechanic angel on my shoulder, I sold the Chevy to purchase the Caddy, which needed a good bit of work. Another story for another chapter, that restoration.

As I got the Caddy all gussied up, there came radio ads for cars and actors for an upcoming movie in Richmond, VA involving the J.F. Kennedy era, “Love Field” . Why, naturally, my 21-foot long 1957 Cadillac Fleetwood 4-dr. hardtop fit the bill nicely for a ‘background car’ (yet more fodder for a later chapter!).

My Caddy got me into movies, and the movies got me in touch with an acting agent in Richmond, and that agent got me myriad acting gigs in myriad arenas. On a particular hospital ad shoot, I was filiming with a then-Richmond news anchor. In the course of our conversations she suggested I try to become a TV weatherman, which I’d honestly never given serious thought to. Long story short, and I do mean LONG story short, I began my TV weather ‘career’ at WRIC-TV8 in Richmond, Virginia. As the late great Paul Harvey would quip…and now, for the rest of the story…

My first appearance on the airwaves as a meteorologist was a rather surreal, unforgettable moment. I’m sure at first I was wishing I could forget it, but it makes for one heck of a story. Part of this story involves the physical layout of the studio, where the weather computers and prep area were in another room altogether. To go on-air, I would call up the show, put it in ‘play’ mode, then go into the studio and wire up. At that time, I was 100% wired with cords (as opposed to wireless mics and such)…so I went in the studio and clipped on the mic, the back-up mic, and the IFB box which fed my earpiece with words of wisdom from master control. Big, heavy, green, industrial cords they were.

The weather ‘wall’ was located beside the main anchor set, which sat atop a platform. I would begin my weather forecast at the main desk on a shot with the other anchor(s). I would pitch to the forecast and walk to the keywall, deliver my forecast off the top of my head, then return to the main desk, sit, and with a quick cross-talk ended my forecast. Ah, if it were only that simple…

There is nothing like the ‘first time’ for anything. ANYthing. For my first “on-air performance” I was truly nervous and anxious. Ready to go, but knowing all kinds of things could befall me. I set my show into ‘play’ mode. I went into the studio minutes before I went on. I wired up. I checked the camera settings at the wall and then sat in my chair at the desk. I looked to my right back at the set to make sure all was ‘okay’. I turned more to my right to look at the set behind, which was a ‘smoked’ glass front covering multiple TV monitors…I carefully peered and saw that my monitor did have my first graphic in play and ‘visible’. I continued to turn to my right as I chatted with the anchors.

And so I waited through a couple of commercials before it was D-Day. The anchors kept me calm with small talk, which was greatly appreciated. I was not shy in front of a camera, just nervous as in live TV there are no ‘second takes’…this was the real-time, real-McCoy. The last commercial was ending...

“5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 – “

We were ‘live’.

In that moment, the world stopped, or at least slowed to the slowest of forward motions. I had reached the TV stage through a non-traditional route, and now the time had come to put the proof in the pudding, to prove I was meant for ‘live’ work, to deliver the weather and make viewers come back for more. I wanted to put a smile on their face.

Boy, did I.

“Time now for the weather, and we’d like to introduce to you the newest member of the TV8 weather team, Bob Child…” The voice trailed off, I was on front and center, said a few words of thanks with a smile, and I turned in my chair to go to the wall and graphics as I knew I had to grab the bull by the horns.

I had a mission. I moved with purpose. I stepped down from the platform and strode to the keywall. In an instant I realized what that big ‘tug’ was as I did so. In ultra-slow motion my brain had an “Aha!” moment of extreme clarity: I had managed to turn a complete circle in my chair with all my wires on. That rolling chair had no choice but to join me as I went to the wall.

The ensuing ‘crash’ and outright mad laughter off-camera from the anchors and camera operators was priceless. Bob lunges to the set. Bob’s chair lunges after him. Bob has deer-in-the-headlight expression. Bob’s chair makes a helluva lot of noise when it hit the concrete floor. Bob’s chair is hopelessly tied up in big, heavy, green industrial cords. Bob’s face sports multiple shades of red.  Lovely.  Just lovely.

My response was automatic and…it was unrehearsed…it was natural, and it was all I could come up with on such an instantaneous notice. Putting on a big smile and even laughing at myself, I looked into the camera. “Well, folks, now THAT’S what I call making an entrance! Give me a second to undo my cords and I’ll tell you what to wear tomorrow….”

Humor is my default in life, certainly for TV weather work. Viewers appreciate ‘truth’. I learned right then and there, at the drop of a hat, not to take myself that seriously and always be ready to be humble and laugh at myself. No more sage advice could once dish up for me. I got through the forecast and went on to do wilder and crazier things as my time there wore on, but nothing could top that crashing chair.

Or all that raucous laughter.

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I’ve learned not to take myself so seriously, and I’m thrilled I can laugh at myself. I get plenty of opportunities to do that, too. If it weren’t for my chosen inability to deal with late night hours and cigarette smoke I’d be well into the night-time comedy club circuit by now. I have so much material to work with I wouldn’t know where to begin…except relating stories like this.

I later worked on-air at The Weather Channel for 3.5 years, and for my first on-air segment there I had yet another one of those ‘first’ moments. Being seen in central Virginia was one thing; being seen across the U.S. and beyond is something of a wee bit bigger scope. Friends and family were tuned in to watch my big national debut, which was doing a short weekender segment of 4 upcoming events with the forecast.

To the side were several big-wigs and engineers for support should something go awry…the preview monitors showing the frames were all properly loaded…and so I went ‘live’ in front of the first panel, nice big warm smile and all, and segued into the first event frame, which if I remember was a golf tournament in Milwaukee.

It was black. Totally black. I was standing in front of eternal darkness.

“I’d like to ‘enlighten’ you with the forecast in Milwaukee where there is a chance of….” The humor switch flipped on. You go. You talk. You run your mouth and act like it’s all in a day’s work. You hit the advance button and the next frame pops up normally, and you breathe a sigh of relief after that 2 minute segment that seemed like an hour. Not nearly as entertaining as the chair incident, though.

As it turned out, the boo-boo graphic had been created by an intern but was not saved properly as a file suited for the airwaves. Of the 400+ graphic files the engineers checked, that happened to be the only bad apple.

Just my luck.