This week’s bad postcard has a
bit more of a story about it.
The postcard shows us Fort Riley in
Kansas – from a great distance. We’re so far away that we can’t make out
anything other than it appears an interstate runs alongside of it.
That’s a shame, because the fort
has an interesting history – including that Jackie Robinson was once station
there. But so were Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, which is why I once
stayed nearby.
That brings us to a tale from the archives. You see, 20 years ago today I was
sitting in a microbrewery at Coors Field in Denver, eating a burger and
watching the first televised reports of the Oklahoma City bombing.
In town for an education writers conference, I had no idea that I was about to
embark on adventures that had a little bit of danger and, of course, baseball.
The first thing I did after checking in at the Westin was to walk to Coors,
which that weekend was to host its first ever game with real players, an
exhibition game between the Rockies and the vile Yankees.
This was the year following the baseball strike, and the start of the season
was delayed nearly a month because a deal was reached near the end of spring
training. Before the deal, the owners had threatened to start the season with
replacement players, and Coors had already hosted an exhibition game between
the replacement Rockies and replacement Yanks.
After lunch, I walked around taking photos of the outside of the stadium and
raiding the gift shop of inaugural year merchandise.
Passing the box office, I thought, "What the heck," and asked if
there were any tickets available for the game, which was scheduled for the
following night, the same time as the keynote address of the education writers
conference.
My experience is that when you’re asking for just one ticket, you can sometimes
get in to a game that’s listed as being sold out, especially on the day before
the game. Teams hold back tickets for players and VIPs, and if they're not
going to be used they send them to the box office. But I surely didn’t expect
there to be anything for a first game at a new stadium.
But the patient woman behind the glass said that she could indeed get me in,
and with a pretty good seat, too.
This was a pretty heavy decision. And a lot of things weighed on my mind. I’d
have to miss the keynote address of my conference. But this was the first game
at Coors Field with real players with a seat behind home plate.
Indeed, these things weighed on my mind for a matter of three or four
nanoseconds before I slipped the required cash under the window.
Coors is
an absolutely wonderful stadium, beautiful with its exposed brick and green
ironwork. There’s a row of purple seats in the upper deck to note when you are
a mile above sea level, and you can see the spectacular Rocky Mountains if you
face away from field.
Before the game I bought an official souvenir ball with both team’s logos on
it, and future Hall of Famer Wade Boggs signed it for me.
The vile Yankees won 7-2. Scott Kamieniecki -- my neighbor for a short time --
started the game, and Dante Bichette hit the first of what was to be many Coors
homers for him.
After the game I was excited to find out that the Yankees were staying at our
hotel, I saw Don Mattingly at the front desk.
The first two days of the conference were pretty informative. Then on the
afternoon of the third day I was sitting in a conference room attending a
session when the phone on the wall started ringing. This was before we all had
cell phones. It was one of the Flint Journal editors. "There’s a Flint
connection to the Oklahoma City bombing. Rent a car and get yourself to
Kansas." I explained that Colorado and Kansas share a border, but they’re
huge and it’s not like driving between Michigan and Ohio. "OK, check out
and catch a flight."
I spent my first night in Kansas in the same
motel where Timothy McVeigh stayed a couple days before, and passed the place
where he rented the Ryder truck that he filled with explosives to blow up the
Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City.
I wasn’t trying to be dramatic -- there just aren’t
too many places to stay in that part of Kansas.
My assignment was to cover the court proceedings
involving Terry Nichols, and to try to find out as much as I could about the
man, who used to be a farmer on the fringes of the Flint Journal’s circulation
area.
The next morning I drove down to Herrington, the
small town where Nichols lived. I was a day behind the media horde that
descended on the town, and it worked out better than I could have hoped.
Police blocked off the streets around Nichols
small home the day before as they searched the house for bombs and clues. But
this day life had more closely returned to normal and people where back in
their homes. I spotted some of Nichols’ neighbors talking in their backyard and
they invited me to talk.
Later that night a local church hosted a
memorial service for the bombing victims in the biggest room in the town. I
sensed a mixture of shock, shame and hurt. I think people had a hard time
dealing with the idea that one of their own was somehow involved with such a
horrible crime.
Herrington is one of those small Midwestern
towns that John Mellencamp sings about. Everyone knows everyone. And I think
people were shocked that they didn’t know what this man was capable of doing.
The service was
an outlet for these people, as if to say this man was from this place, but he
was not one of us. There were a lot of tears. Reporters are supposed to be
observers. I felt like an intruder.
I spent much of the next week in Wichita, the
closest city and site of the court house where Nichols preliminary hearing
would be held. Since we didn’t know which day that would be, I was essentially
staking out the courthouse all day.
There were a couple of other reporters doing the
same thing, and that leaves time for friendly banter.
I got to know
the court people a little bit since I was hanging around the building all week.
And late in the week they let me know that Nichols would be coming in the next
afternoon and showed me the big courtroom where the proceedings would take
place.
Early next day the media horde arrived. The
court activity wasn’t going to take place until 1 p.m. but people started
setting up to get a glimpse of Nichols being hustled into the building.
A deputy told us that we could start lining up
to get into the courtroom at 10 a.m. I planned to hang outside with the others,
and I knew the courtroom was plenty big. But something inside told me to get on
line. After burning through the Journal’s money all week, if I did not get into
that court I’d have a lot of explaining to do once I got back to Flint.
The court officers lined us up on a bench in a
lobby down the hall from the courtroom. I was No. 11 on line, with an artists
hired by television stations to make the courtroom sketches, an Associated
Press reporter, a writer from the Wichita Eagle-Beacon and a woman from a
Detroit television station.
We had nice time sitting there gabbing, taking
turns going on food runs and letting the artist warm up by sketching us. The
line got longer and longer as time passed – I counted well more than 100 people.
A bailiff announced it was time
to go in. He looked at the front of the line and counted off. “One, two, three,
four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11 and 12, follow me.” I thought they
were taking us down in small groups.
Walking down the long hall, the guy from the Eagle-Beacon joked that we were
going to be “In the front row,” saying it in the famous Bob Uecker voice.
We entered the court and I could feel the door close behind me. The big
courtroom was already filled with every lawyer, court employee and person with
connections who wanted in. We were not in the front row. We were in the last
row – and no one else was getting in.
The Eagle-Beacon reporter shot me a wide-eyed look that was part amazement and
part sheer joy. We waited on line three hours and got in. People who came
minutes after us were down the hall with the people who walked in right at 1
p.m. – and we could faintly hear the angry screams of people who would have to
explain to their editors why they did not get in that courtroom.
The proceedings started, and the key testimony was someone who said Nichols
told him that “something big was going to happen.”
There at the defense table sat Terry Nichols. I was struck that he looked so …
ordinary.
Even after talking to his neighbors, I think I expected a monster. McVeigh,
after all, with his buzz cut, focused stare and unrepentant expression, looked
the part of someone who could blow up a day-care center.
But there sat a slight man with metal-framed glasses. He didn’t look like a
killer. He looked scared.
The proceedings lasted a while. As a person left the room, a harried and
grateful reporter who was nest in line was allowed in. And when it was over,
people trapped outside swarmed around the Associated Press reporter and pinned
him against a wall as he read from his notebook.
I hurried to find a payphone—again, no cellphones at the time. My adventure had
taken me away from home for nearly two weeks and it was time to dictate my
story and head home.
