If you’re like me, and just a wee bit tired of Virginia, here’s a Christmas story you might enjoy (reprinted: it originally ran on Christmas Day in 1986).
This is a story that has everything: a dying child, an impossible request, and a gruff but kind hearted hard-drinking city editor. It is almost as if someone took many of the cliches of 1950s journalism and rolled them into a single morality tale.
He listened to the problem and told me to telephone the Secretary of Agriculture and have him clear the peaches when they arrived.
“It’s close to midnight,” I argued. “His office is closed.”
“Take this number down,” Reck said. “It’s his home. Tell him I told you to call.”