ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am a wire service man, a calling that requires writing news instantly, keeping the copy terse, and keeping yourself out of it. After nearly fifty years of striving for objectivity and avoiding personal judgments, my writing instincts were tuned to the AP wire, not to the pages of a book. Making an author out of a man with those ingrained traits required the patient persuasion of an understanding editor, for which I thank Chris Schillig at Andrews McMeel Publishing. It also required the trust and support of a publisher, in my case John McMeel, whose friendship I treasured long before my deadlines passed. I had an editor at home as well. My wife, Fran, managing editor of Gannett News Service, made my writing better by keeping it down to earth and out of the ether of political jargon. This is a book of memories shared with colleagues and competitors whose names are woven into my experience and into the stories that follow. These experiences are shared in a special way with countless colleagues in the Associated Press, the organization that was my professional home.

My thanks to all of you. Or, in the shorthand of the wire, TNX.