Chapter 7

In the time Craig Randall has been at Channel Four, several things have happened. Most of them Craig thought were for the better.

Burt Radisson was true to his word when he said Craig would sub for Mona when she was off from work. Normally Craig’s doing his weather presentation was no different if he was doing it on a weekday or the weekend. There was however a different approach to his doing the weather one time when he was subbing for Mona on the early evening news.

When Paul Conners, the main newsreader-commentator turned to Craig to do the weather, it became somewhat interesting. Craig started to do the weather and showed on the live radar a line of storms that were approaching the television station’s northern viewing area. Craig stopped his normal presentation and started to talk about the formation he was seeing on the radar as to these approaching storms. He said he didn’t like what he was seeing and this could indicate a tornado was forming.

Paul interrupted Craig to tell him that the National Weather Service had now issued a tornado warning for the area that Craig was concerned about. The viewers were seeing a tornado warning flashing on the lower part of their television screens. This warning of a tornado on the ground resulted in Paul and Craig discussing back and forth about a tornado’s formation, and its destructive power. Craig talked about what the viewers’ preparedness should be in the event of this occurring and what they should now be doing. This discussion went on for most of the news broadcast and eliminated Larry Simon’s reporting on sports.

When the regular news broadcast time was over, Burt asked Craig to stay on the air and continue to track this storm. He asked Craig to continue to do this until this band of storms was out of their viewing area which Craig did.

It was reported by a viewer that there was inch-size hail falling. Craig mentioned that viewer’s report of hail. For something different to say since he didn’t want it to look that he was repeating himself, he said that he was told by an automobile body repairman that if there were minor dents in cars because of the hail, parking the car in the sun over time may cause some of these minor dents to vanish as the heat of the sun could cause the smaller dents to rise and disappear.

After these storms were out of their viewing area Burt told Craig he thought he did an excellent job in doing this weather reporting as this is what they should be doing to warn their viewers. Craig felt good in that he gave his viewers sound advice on how to protect themselves. In retrospect, he thought he didn’t need to make the comment about hail damaging a car.

Craig had taken Jill Stryker out to dinner several times and he could say that he had developed a relationship with her. He had been hoping this would be friends-with-benefits-relationship. What it turned out to be was that this was a friend-without-benefits-relationship. Jill certainly was a good-looking and intelligent woman. The problem was his attraction to her was that she was more like the sister he never had which prevented any progression in their relationship to that of a sexual nature.

This relationship he had with Jill ended when she informed him that she was leaving UT and would be teaching at a Big Ten University starting in the fall. She said the reason for this new teaching position was that her contract at UT was expiring. For her to stay at UT, she would need to apply for and receive tenure. Tenure she said would probably not be granted as she hadn’t published any articles. If she applied for tenure and it wasn’t granted, that would be a black mark against her and probably would stop her in the future from receiving tenure no matter where she taught.

She said this transfer to a different university would be a fresh start for her and that she needed to get off her butt and start publishing.

“Instead of the Big Ten, why not apply to a university in a State like California with its warm weather,” asked Craig.

“The problem with doing that is that California long ago abolished the requirement of high ACT or SAT scores needed for entering specific colleges. Those scores were a good indicator if the student would be successful in the schools of business and engineering. By California eliminating that entrance requirement, all students who apply will be admitted into those schools. It falls on the teacher to weed them out by not giving them passing grades. The student’s normal reaction will be to blame the teacher for not being a good teacher rather than doing an honest assessment of their not having the ability or putting in the time and effort necessary to pass the course. I don’t want to be called a bad teacher or have hassles with students about grades since I won’t lower my standards and pass students who haven’t earned a passing grade. I would just as soon teach at a school where the students have shown they are qualified to be in the class.”

Craig could understand what Jill said. He wondered if there were professors who didn’t want the headaches and gave out passing grades to avoid having students give negative comments about them. The “dumbing down” of our educational system could be happening. Yet, judging by the number of foreign students who are here, they understand how good our universities are.

Needless to say, Craig was sorry to see Jill leave as he considered her to be a good friend.

Craig was in the process of writing the outline for his next novel. This one would center on the assignment Ric Nolan is given to find out what happened when a one-star general who is in charge of a new weapons system development program is found dead in an alley behind a sleazy strip club. His laptop computer is missing and it has been determined that he was a frequent guest of the motel across the street from this club. Of course, Ric is going to get involved with a female, but Craig hasn’t yet figured out who that would be. He knew he was getting stale in doing his writing and he needed a break.

Thinking about what he could do to refresh or revitalize himself he decided to take a drive and go back to Waco. He would visit with some friends and see what was happening at the television station there.

It was an easy drive to do. He stopped to talk with his former elderly neighbor in the apartment across the hall from his old apartment. This lady had some medical problems and he wanted to see how she was doing. After talking to her for a while he went to the television station. The evening news team was in a meeting along with the field reporters where assignments were given out.

When the meeting was over he said hello to all the people, most of whom he knew. There was some kidding being done of him coming down here to meet this news team. Craig told them he had many nice memories of his time here.

He was anxious to see Sara and was not disappointed. She was the good-looking lady he remembered her to be, maybe even better. She said she was given the assignment to cover a school board meeting which will be shown on the late evening news. This meeting could be a little volatile because some parents wanted certain things done that this liberal school board wasn’t doing. Her report would look like it was live but it was being recorded for showing on the late news. If things went as planned she could meet Craig for drinks later at the Wishing Well.