Malcolm's Memories: Behind Johnny's Desk, Before Ford Was POTUS, and a Dog Makes Her Rounds

In my much younger days, rookie reporters were like expendable cannon fodder on a battlefield. Throw them out there and see what happens. They'll learn quickly. Or perish. I was assigned to cover more crap than a dairy barn holds.

An anti-war protest in the rain at St. Patrick’s Cathedral that attracted more reporters (four) than protesters (three). Take a clicker to a protest parade. Count how many demonstrators march by in six hours. Can I expense a giant finger blister?

Send the kid to a crowded city hospital, see how long he waits for a doctor. A senior reporter wrote an advance story from a politician’s dinner speech. Here’s the story, kid. Go to the dinner. Make sure he actually says all the quotes in it.

On occasion, if someone potentially newsworthy was a guest on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, I was sent to the 5 p.m. taping in case they made news for the 9:30 deadline. This was before Johnny moved the NBC show from Rockefeller Center to Burbank. (I call him Johnny because I shook his hand once, and he appeared on my bedroom TV some nights.) 

I don’t recall anyone ever said anything newsworthy those times. But, hey, you never know. Send the kid. And I've always enjoyed being backstage anywhere.

You may remember Johnny’s desk where he tapped his pencil for 30 years of nights. The chair for the new guest. And then the couch where Ed McMahon and the previous guest sat. Hanging behind the couch then was a curtain.

I was right behind the curtain where I could hear everything, unseen.

Also unseen back there was a lighted lectern of the show’s longtime director, Fred de Cordova. He wasn’t always there, and, you know, maybe a curious reporter looked it over.

On that lectern every night – are my naïve eyes seeing correctly? – was a script. The talk show, with all that casual, seemingly spontaneous banter and Johnny’s hilarious spur-of-the-moment quips, had a script!

Johnny would ask a guest something like, "Somebody told me you had a luggage problem in Paris recently?"

Nobody told Johnny that. It was right there on paper. Some assistant producer pre-interviewed the guest or his agent and asked what they wanted to talk about.

"Well," the actor replied to Johnny, "I was in Paris last summer making a new movie (insert title here). It comes out this weekend, by the way. It’s a romantic comedy with (insert co-star name)." The guest informed 15 million or so viewers that everyone would like it.

The actor said he got into his Paris hotel room. The airline sent up his suitcase. It looked like his. But when he opened it, a pile of women’s underwear fell out (pause for laughter).

Johnny would wait for that to die down and then say something like, "Well, did it fit?" (Laughter). 

"We’ll be right back after these messages." Taps his pencil.

One night, John Lindsay was on the show. He was a political star at the time, a Republican mayor of New York City, recently reelected. My editor told me, "He might say something."

He didn’t.

But after the show, the mayor asked if I wanted a ride back to my newspaper. He had been very impressed with my intellect and appearance. 

Just kidding. Working for The New York Times brought lots of access back then, even for a rookie, who wouldn't always be a rookie.

Anyway, no story. But I did get a personal, hour-long tour of Manhattan at night with the city’s mayor and his bodyguard.

When I was in graduate school back in the day, I endured an interminable period in Washington, D.C. A lot of that time was spent on Capitol Hill, often in one of the Press Galleries.

It seemed that every time I turned around, there was Gerald Ford, then Republican House Minority Leader during his 25 years representing Michigan's Fifth District. 

He was the most personable, casual, normal public figure you’d ever want to meet, full of interesting stories about college football and life aboard a World War II aircraft carrier in the Pacific theater.

He would often sit around for quite a while, his feet on a chair, swapping stories and actually listening to others, even the youngest of us. I realized later that he might have been schmoozing with media for a purpose. But he was quite genuine in person.

Soon after, of course, Ford would become a replacement vice president. And then with Richard Nixon's unprecedented 1974 resignation, Ford became the historical anomaly of an unelected president. In 1976, Jimmy Carter saw to it that Ford never would become an elected president of the United States.

All presidents get involved in controversies naturally. And Ford had his share, including the chaotic end of the U.S. presence in South Vietnam. His big one, of course, was ending "our long national nightmare" by granting a full pardon to Nixon for Watergate crimes. 

The Gerald Ford I saw on television then was a completely different person from the one I had chatted with so comfortably. 

I've never really figured it out. But I will forever ponder if the office so drastically changed the man I saw on TV from the one I had experienced firsthand. After a lifetime of similar experiences, I now suspect it's actually the TV camera that distorts the reality that gets transmitted into our eyes and minds. 

I seriously wonder often about the mysterious, invisible, and pervasive powers of TV. I do so especially every fall weekend when the cyclops eye sweeps low over a football crowd and normal people get very silly for it. 

It can't all be the beer. 

I’ve always been drawn to shelter dogs. My first, at age 7, was a St. Bernard, a gentle giant who could romp slowly and then cuddle like a kitten. 

So, years later, when I heard about an ASPCA therapy program for seniors in suburban New York, a visit became inevitable. It involved shelter dogs, basically abandoned pets, dozens of them, who would individually visit assigned senior homes in Westchester County every week.

Nursing home staff told me the dogs’ visits sparked animated conversations and memories for days among patients. Also anticipation and pretty much the only excitement.

It gave both the institutionalized dogs and the institutionalized old folks something to look forward to. And the interactions with adoring humans improved the dogs’ social skills, increasing their chances of adoption.

Studies show that human health and longevity improve with animal interactions. What I witnessed that day confirmed that. I looked up some numbers. There are about 74 million children under 18 in the country today. And 162 million pet dogs and cats.

Agnes was 96. She spent most of every day quietly in her wheelchair in Room 109, reading, snoozing, staring, waiting.

But Tuesdays were different. On Tuesdays, she was up and dressed. She ate. She was alert. And ready.

Right after lunch, Agnes started. “Here comes Mattie! Here she is. Hello, Mattie. Hi, Mattie. You came! How are you today?”

Mattie loped in. She was another lost soul of sorts. A stray, she had been collected from the streets four years before. All that time, she had waited alone in a pen for someone to take her home, or at least visit. 

No one did.

But Mattie had a job now. Every day in different senior homes, she had people to entertain and pet her and say her name and, yes, hand out treats.

Let’s be honest, though. Dogs are just animals, right? It’s sentimental tripe to attribute human characteristics to coincidental animal behavior. A dog trotting royally down a long hallway couldn’t possibly make any sense out of rows of wheelchairs with people talking sweetly and reaching out.

“Oh, look, everyone. Here comes Mattie! Hi, Mattie.”

“Hi, Mattie.”

“C’mere, Mattie.”

It looked like Mattie was nodding at everyone as she meandered down the hall. Every outstretched hand drew a pause, often a lick, in exchange for pats. “Aren’t you a good girl? Yes, you are. Oh, thank you. I love you, too.”

It was probably coincidence that Mattie made a right turn, two lefts, and then another right to position herself by the bed drawer in Agnes' room. It so happens that drawer always contained cookies saved from recent meals. Silly Agnes believed Mattie remembered.

Later, Mattie trotted into Room 321. “You’re late,” said Marian. “I have a surprise for you.” She opened a tin box. Out came chocolate chip cookies. 

As it happens, chocolate chip cookies are Mattie’s favorite. The dog is not at all surprised. She crunches them gently while Marian pets her.

However, chatting with a visitor, Marian was a little slow handing out the usual third cookie. Mattie placed a paw on the woman’s knee. Marian laughed for the first time all week. And obeyed.

When Mattie continued her rounds, Marian got up and watched her all the way down the hall.

Mattie’s last stop before returning to her shelter cage was Pearl’s room. Pearl wasn’t well. Her tearful daughter said the 92-year-old woman stopped eating days before, after her son died. 

Eyes open, Pearl just lay there, never moving. “She just wants to go,” her daughter said.

Mattie seemed unbothered. She put her chin on the sheet. No response. Mattie placed her front paws on the bed-rail. She stood up and leaned over the mattress, panting near Pearl. 

Slowly, Pearl’s head turned. A spotted hand moved. She caressed the dog’s floppy black ears. Mattie licked the bony fingers. Pearl smiled.

But that was probably just coincidence. 

This is the 36th in an ongoing series of personal memories. Links to all the others are below.

A Hooker in the House, Whistle War, and Ann Landers' Worst Mistake

More Neat People and a Nuclear Sub I've Met Along the Way

Malcolm's Memories: A Toddler's First Fourth  

Malcolm's Memories: Train, Streetcars, and Grandma  

The True Story of an Unusual Wolf, a Pioneer in the Wild

That Time I Wore $15K in Cash Into a War Zone 

I Fell in Love With the South, Despite That One Scary Afternoon 

Wildfires I've Known 

More Memories: Neat People I've Met Along the Way 

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