Story Frame 2 – A PBS Mind in an MTV World *

“Hello, you don’t know me, and I don’t know anything about fundraising, or even television for that matter,” I said, in what I hoped was a bright and confident tone. “But would it be possible for me to come in and talk to you? I think I might be able to help you.”

I was speaking to the receptionist at WNVT, a PBS station in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. Having just witnessed what I thought was a rather meager pledge drive the night before around Baryshnikov’s Nutcracker, and even though I had no idea what I was doing, I thought surely, I could help them raise more than $265.00.

I had no way of knowing this simple phone call would launch a whole new set of adventures that would involve a set of Sophia Loren’s bedsheets and a private island owned by nudists somewhere off the coast of Bermuda.

The receptionist put me through to someone named Andy, who – to my great surprise – invited me to come over to the station and talk to him.

I showed up on the appointed day wearing what I hoped was a professional enough looking outfit, hastily cobbled together from recent finds at Goodwill. I felt an anticipatory thrill of excitement just walking into the television station, dwarfed as it was by the enormous telecommunications tower that loomed over it with its colorful twinkling lights reaching far up into the sky.

Andy, a tall and affable young guy with blonde hair, turned out to be the person in charge of fundraising for the station. He glanced over my résumé: former vice president of a Scandinavian furniture & textiles importer, director of development for two architectural firms, and independent fundraising consultant for MENC, a national children’s music education non-profit. After a few questions and pleasantries, he offered me freelance work raising money for the station on commission, mainly for their annual televised auction which would be coming up in a few months.

I can work from home, be with my kids, and still earn money I realized, trying to mask my internal state of euphoric disbelief. But there was still more to come.

“If you have a minute,” Andy said with a smile, “there’s someone else I’d like you to meet.”

“Sure,” I said, having no idea what to expect.

Andy led me through a warren of offices filled with people talking in small clusters or gazing at computer screens, past rooms filled with lighting apparatus, camera gear and equipment, past edit suites, across the floor of a darkened television studio, and past the glass-enclosed darkened room filled with computers, knobs, dials and switches I would soon learn was called “master control” – the heartbeat of a broadcast station. I had no idea how any of this worked. I just knew I really wanted to be here, in the midst of it all.

We eventually reached the darkened office of what Andy identified as the station’s vice president for operations. He paused just long enough to hand me off to Dave Gallagher, a grey-haired, robust, Scottish-looking man of indeterminate age with a well-groomed beard and piercing eyes. Gallagher greeted me, grasping my small hand in his enormous paw, and pulled me into his office.

Less than an hour later, I emerged with a second freelance contract, this time to bring in sponsorship money – also known as underwriting – for the station’s regular programs, as well as some of their specials.

Shaking with excitement that I would suddenly be working at a television station, while trying to ignore that voice in my head that kept reminding me I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, I drove home to share the good news with Steve.

* title by Jimmy Buffett

What to read next: Story Frame 3 – Sophia Loren’s Bedsheets