In fact, my career, if you want to talk about a fluke, I was the kid at Tufts University who went through every major. I came in as a math major. I moved from that to drama, to French, to astronomy. I was brought into the dean’s office who said, “Stop it, pick one.” The only one I could pick was English because that’s where I had enough credits. So I totally relate to the students out here, the graduates who might be a little scared right now. Maybe you don’t know where you’re headed. Maybe you haven’t found your passion. Maybe your parents are looking at you like, “What are you going to do?” and you’re scared. I felt all of that. I felt very lost.
And then, again in January—a lot happened in that January, I tell you, in 1975—I took a class here in broadcast journalism. It was pass/fail. I don’t even know why I took it. I had no interest, none. I didn’t see myself as a broadcaster in my future. I took this class. It was given by a reporter from CBS Radio in Boston, WEEI. Back then it was all news. I think maybe now it’s all sports but back then it was all news. And I found that I liked it. I really liked it. At the end, they had a final project. We were broken down into groups of four or five and we each had to do a mini radio documentary. We would research it, report it, write it, and then one person would narrate the documentary. I happened to be the one chosen to narrate ours.
They brought in a muckety muck from CBS to critique it, a man named Bill Shermer, a wonderful man who has since passed on. He listens to all these documentaries and when ours comes up he says, “Whose voice is that?” I raise my hand and he says, “I want to see you after class.” I thought, “Oh my God, what’s going to happen?” I go out into the hallway and he says, “Have you decided what you want to do with the rest of your life?” Now being a Tufts student, I knew— philosophical deep question, ponder for a moment. And I did and then I said, “Gee, I don’t know.” He said, “Well, I do. I truly believe if you open up your mind you have a future in this business.” And he offered me an internship. And literally, that’s all it took. It was in that moment. It was one person seeing a spark in me and opening a door that I went through. It was that simple. Had I not taken that class, I don’t really know what direction. I would have found a direction, but that’s what put me on the path.
A few weeks later I learned something that is probably the first lesson I’m going to impart to you: Remember to always ask questions. I’m an intern now, two weeks before I have to start. They give me a call and say, “You’re going to be ripping wires.” Okay, ripping wires. Radio station. Wires out of the walls. A little weird that they’d have me do that, but fine, I’ll do that. I went and I bought a new pair of overalls because I thought, “Gee, I’m going to look cute.” And actually that was the style back then. I show up to work at 4 a.m.—talk about ironies, I’m back on that schedule—I show up at WEEI and people are looking at me weird, like “Why are you dressed in overalls?” Finally it dawns on somebody about my confusion. Ripping wires, what they meant was ripping the wire services, the copy off of UPI, Reuters, AP, not wires out of the wall. Eventually they stop laughing, although if anybody that I knew back then sees me they always bring it up. I learned a lesson that day: No question is too stupid. You’re not as smart as you think you are. You never will be. There’s always room to learn. Don’t be scared to ask. Luckily for me Bill Shermer still took a chance on me, which I’m very grateful that he did.
