Ink By the Barrel

No Such Thing As A Bad Hamilton Jordan

New Years Eve in 1979, I went to the bar at the Nine O'Clocks party held at the Piedmont Driving Club to get a drink and saw another gentleman ahead of me. I was not a member of the Nine O'Clocks nor the PDC and neither was the man whose face I instantly recognized when he turned around: Hamilton Jordan. The Chief of Staff to President Jimmy Carter had been a major focus of study for me as I followed his career in the media during my college years and then as a newspaperman.

As a rule, I generally shy away from celebrities. I don't see much to gain from my spending a few minutes talking with them and I respect their privacy enough to generally steer clear. But this was different. From the moment Jimmy Carter announced his run for the presidency, I had been reading and admiring from afar the architect of his meteoric rise. So I introduced myself to Hamilton, chatted for a while and told him I had been a volunteer in their campaign when I was a college student. Now, as a reporter for The Augusta Chronicle, I told him I would be honored if he would let me interview him sometime.

"I don't do interviews with the press," Hamilton said.

"I know," I said. "I've read that. But I'm interested in hearing your side. I'm offering you a chance to tell your side of the story."

As we both stood there in our tuxedos, alone at the bar, Hamilton stirred his drink and thought for a moment. "Here's my card," he said. "Call me sometime and I'll speak with you."

I was stunned. As a young reporter, 18 months out of school, working for my second newspaper, I had just scored an opportunity of a lifetime: a rare interview with a private man who shunned publicity and had the scars to prove it. I couldn't wait to get back to my managing editor in Augusta and begin making my plans. Boy, was I disappointed.

"We don't have any money in budget to send you to Washington," my boss said. "Just do it over the phone."

Again, I was stunned. What kind of two-bit newspaper was I working for? This was a Georgia newspaper and this was an administration run by Georgians. I continued to bargain. I contacted Hodding Carter, whose family newspaper I had worked for previously in Greenville, Miss. Hodding was then the press spokesperson for the U.S. State Department – a position that would guarantee one anonymity, except for the fact that he appeared before the cameras each day as the government's only spokesperson on the Iran Hostage Crisis. The intense media scrutiny given to the kidnapping of U.S. personnel in Tehran was unprecedented, leading ABC to establish "Nightline" at 11:30pm to keep the ratings going. Hodding also agreed to an interview.

But my boss wouldn't budge. So I pulled out my third pitch: I scored an interview with my parents' friend and recently retired Attorney General Griffin Bell. Here was a trilogy of Carter Administration icons, but it didn't matter to a small town paper ruled by a focus on profit, and keeping expenses to a bare minimum. Newspaper editors are objective, so I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that The Augusta Chronicle was the most Republican newspaper in the South.

So I took a gamble. I took the time off as vacation, drove to Washington, stayed with Donna and Mike Egan, whose son was a lifelong pal. Mr. Egan was Associate Attorney General, working for Griffin Bell.

True to his word, Hamilton allowed me to interview him, though my dreams of a White House moment were slightly dampened when he told me to meet him across the street at the Executive Office Building. We talked a lot about how the press had treated him. His focus on work and desire not to get involved in the Washington social whirl only made him more fascinating to the media. The stories ranged from his living in his car as a student at the University of Georgia to illegal drug use to insulting the wife of the Egyptian ambassador.

I asked Hamilton about these rumors and reports and he was open about them. He not only denied them, he was stunned that the press could publish them with no basis of truth. He answered all my questions with honesty, integrity and with such a believable candor that I came away with an even greater appreciation for him than I had already. As I prepared to leave, I asked him what he thought about the fact that Election Day 1980 fell exactly on the one year anniversary of the taking of the hostages in Iran. He looked taken aback.

"Honestly, I never realized that until you just mentioned it. I imagine that will get some media attention," he said. And it did. The crisis became a metaphor for the entire presidency and Ronald Reagan exploited it perfectly during the campaign to end Carter's presidency at one term. My series of interviews with all three men ran in the Chronicle, to great acclaim. Eventually, my editor agreed to reimburse me the vacation time and mileage that I had invested.

I ran into Hamilton a few more times in the following decades, once at Christ the King for Easter services, as we each chased our then toddlers, my daughter Sally and his son, Hamilton Jr., on the Peachtree Road lawn as Mass was performed inside. I saw him last a few months ago when he courageously spoke to a packed Atlanta Press Club session, talking about his 20-year battle with three kinds of cancer.

This past Sunday morning, I was packing for a trip to a PRSA Counselors Academy conference in Naples, FL and running late. As I grabbed my suitcase and laptop, I realized I didn't have a book or a magazine to take. So I looked in a pile of books near my dresser and I saw Hamilton's "No Such Thing As a Bad Day," his memoir about his battle with cancer that had been a New York Times bestseller. He gave out autographed copies at the Press Club. I tossed it in my suitcase and left for the airport.

Yesterday morning, I woke up in Naples and began packing for my return. I IM'd with my wife Jan, who informed me that Hamilton had died unexpectedly on Tuesday night. I was stunned.

I've been unfaithful to my blog as of late. I've been feeling quite guilty about that as I've focused more on work and family. It seems a number of my recent entries have been about people I knew whose death surprised me. Hamilton's did as well. As I sat down on the Delta jet to return to Atlanta, I opened his book and began to read about his time in Vietnam, in the White House and in the numerous hospitals in which he fought his battles. He traced his first cancer to Agent Orange, an herbicide sprayed recklessly by the U.S. government to defoliate the jungles of Vietnam. Hamilton and thousands of other Americans (and no doubt many more Vietnamese) later contracted cancer.

I was burdened by his loss as I left the plane and walked to the MARTA station to return to my office. There, in line to purchase a train ticket, was Mr. Egan. He looked a little bewildered by the Breeze ticket machines, which is my reaction every time I step up to them. I had purchased a few extra ones on my way out of town. I offered Mr. Egan an extra and we rode back to the city together. I told him of Hamilton's death the night before. He had not heard.

"I always loved Hamilton," Mr. Egan said. "He was one of my favorite people in Washington."

I've been so blessed in my life with good health. Though my Dad died at age 78, my mother is still going strong at 91. All of my siblings and our spouses and children are all alive and healthy and I thank God for that gift. But the older I get, the more often people I have known and admired leave us here on earth. A piece of me dies with each of their departures. I'm a bit strange that way. I think about the people who have left us as much as the ones who remain. I firmly believe I will see them all again when I, with God's blessing, embark on my own journey to Heaven.

I'm burdened today by Hamilton Jordan's departure. He was such a modest, measured, surprisingly soft spoken, quiet, yet incredibly strong, gifted and visionary strategist. He was mistreated and his talents were under-appreciated by the media of which I was a part and with which I still work as a public relations professional.

Hamilton left his family and those of us who admired him too early, but due to his life's work, he left us much better than he found us. As I enjoy a Memorial Day Weekend with my family, I will undoubtedly add him to my long list of people I think of fondly – and without whom our lives will not be as rich.

Breakfast with Bo

I am blessed with a large family, with dozens of cousins all over Atlanta. One I try to keep in regular contact with is my cousin Bo Spalding, who is just two years older. We had breakfast this morning to catch up on our respective families and firms.

Bo is a prince of man, with a dry wit and keen insight into media and PR. He comes by his intellect and charm naturally, being the fourth in a line of three gentlemen before him, each of whom was a managing partner of the law firm, King & Spalding. (We share the same great-grandfather, who co-founded the law firm in 1885.) We went to Georgetown Prep together for a year or two together.

Six years ago, when I left the newspaper business, Bo asked me to lunch at Colony Square in Atlanta, where his and Glen Jackson's firm, Jackson Spalding, was then located. I had just sold my newspaper business to my business partner, Tom Cousins, and I was trying to figure out what to do "when I grew up." Bo asked what plans I had.

"I'm not quite sure," I told Bo over lunch at Houlihans. "I may start another publication, I may start an ad agency or maybe I'll move to the coast and write a book."

Bo thought for a second about those choices and said, definitively, "I have two words for you, son ... Public Relations."

"Public Relations," I said. "I never thought about that." My only contact with PR firms had been on the receiving end of numerous phone calls to my newspapers from young members at larger firms, asking me if we "had received the press release" they had faxed us recently. That's one of those calls that editors do not enjoy (more about that some other time).

"It's a great business," Bo said. "And you'd be a natural. Of course, I can't hire you, you're a cousin, but I'd be happy to refer you to other PR executives in town who could give you a feel for the business and maybe they'll hire you."

And thus began my transition to PR. I spent a year working freelance for other firms and, after a four-month stint as general manager for one small firm, I thought I had gathered enough experience to start taking on my own clients. So next month marks the fifth anniversary of my firm, Schroder Public Relations, and I suppose I owe it all to Bo. While I had worked for newspapers in a number of jobs, from reporter to editor to marketing and in-house PR, I had never worked inside a firm.

Bo was right, it is a great business. I enjoy the creativity, the writing, but mostly I enjoy being a business partner to our clients and a counselor on a whole range of issues, from media relations to communication to an Internet strategy. And the business model is a lot more successful these days than newspapers, I'm sad to say. I love newspapers, read numerous ones each day and I sometimes miss being on the planning end of a great issue, so it's hard to watch the shrinking of that industry. But I can work in PR for years to come, even past the normal retirement age, should I – and my clients – so choose.

And, I hope, to continue to enjoy occasional breakfasts and lunches from my cousin and mentor, Bo.

Photo: PR Executive, and cousin, Bo Spalding

The Reluctant Speaker

A few weeks back, when I read the email from the Atlanta Press Club that John Huey, editor-in-chief of Time, Inc., was coming to speak today, I immediately signed up for three tickets. Not just because John oversees 140 different magazines and has one of the most interesting media jobs in the world, but because he grew up on East Wesley Road next door to Tom Murphy.

Tom is an old friend whose family I knew back in the old elementary school days at Christ the King. Many years later, when I started a neighborhood newspaper called Atlanta 30306 in the Virginia-Highland neighborhood (later renamed Atlanta Intown), Tom was one of the first people I visited to try to convince to advertise in the start-up. He did, for many years. In the process, we renewed our friendship and became best buddies.

A few years ago, I was having a beer with Tom when he was discussing the upcoming 25th anniversary of his restaurant. I suggested he publish a book, recounting his many entrepreneurial adventures, but he was reluctant, wanting instead to print a book of recipes. I kept pushing him. "This will brand you in ways you'll never predict," I said. "The very fact that you have a book about your restaurant will elevate your brand, but it will be a great book because you have so many great stories. Besides, I know the perfect writer."

So thus began the long journey of Tom and my former editor and later bride, Jan Butsch Schroder, of compiling the book now known as Murphy's, 25 Years of Recipes and Memories. The book published to great acclaim and a large, front-page story on the front of the AJC Living section. It is full of great recipes, photos and, most of all, stories ... stories about being embezzled, robbed, about having to fire his wife after she threw a wet towel at him when a patron kissed Tom on the cheek, about the many great chefs who got their start at Murphy's.

Tom, like Jan, is a private person, whose nature is not to step in the spotlight. And he hates public speaking. Once, when he had to introduce Hank Payne, president of Woodward Academy, Tom was too intimidated by the thought of standing in front of fellow classmates at Leadership Midtown and introducing the former college president. So when I suggested producing a video instead, Tom jumped at the chance.

As a child, Tom also had the distinction of growing up next door to John Huey in Garden Hills in Atlanta. As Tom tells the story, John grew up in a nice Southern Baptist household, but next door were the wild and crazy New York/Irish Catholic Murphys, with five children. Not only that, Tom's parents also housed unwed mothers and, later, when Castro took over Cuba, dozens of Cuban refugee families. People were coming and going at all hours of the night at the Murphy household. John would look out his window and just shake his head at all the activity.

So when Jan began to assemble the book, getting quotes from celebrities who once ate there was one of her many tasks. Katie Couric, a frequent visitor to Murphy's when she worked in Atlanta, was a non-starter. Her office said she was contractually obligated not to endorse restaurants. John Huey, after a number of emails, wrote back a wonderful quote that we included on page 10 of the book: "I grew up next door to the Murphy family. They were an exotic family, to say the least. Dad ran a cheese business out of the back yard and did a lot of ministering to the poor. Mom was a nurse and there were lots and lots of kids. Tom, or Tommy, as we knew him, was always my favorite because of that personality he still has today. My most vivid memory of him is as a young child, standing down by the curb of East Wesley Road, selling hot dogs from a little stand he had cobbled together. As you might expect, they were good. And they sold. So maybe Murphy's is really a lot older than 25."

One thing Jan tried to secure was a photo of John. But she couldn't find one on the Internet and his assistant said, "There are no photos of John." So we published the book without one, one of many loose ends we were never able to tie up before printing.

So, two years later, when I saw John was to speak to the press club, I bought tickets to the luncheon and VIP reception for me, Jan and Tom.

When the big day arrived, today, we drove down to the Commerce Club and took the elevator to the 18th floor reception. I brought along a copy of the book. We had sent one to John's office, but we were always unsure if he ever received it. When he recognized "Tommy" and shook his hand and started telling old stories, we asked if he had ever seen his quote in the book. He said he didn't. I said we weren't able to get his photo to publish and John said in his dry humor, "No, there are no photos of me." So we showed the book to him, gave him the autographed copy and walked away. I then saw Spark St. Jude, a photographer snapping away at the reception, so I went over and asked her to shoot a photo of the two boyhood neighbors, holding the book. She was able to take one or two, when an alarm went off.

The fire alarms went off in the Commerce Club, so we all had to walk down 18 flights of old dirty stairs to the street. A crowd of people stood on Broad Street downtown until the firemen came and inspected each floor. We were finally later able to get back to the 16th floor for the luncheon and the speech by John Huey, which was hilarious.

"Normally that fire drill trick works so I don't have to give a speech," John dead-panned. "In New York, if people walk down that many flights of stairs, they just go on back to work and the speech never happens. It didn't work here.

"When the Atlanta Press Club invited me to speak, I said 'no.' (pause) I still feel that way," he said to great laughter. He went on to tell many great stories of growing up in Atlanta, working for The Atlanta Constitution, and working with Alexis Scott, now publisher of the Atlanta Daily World. John claimed he had been duped into giving the speech after turning it down, when Alexis called to ask him to give a toast at the 10th anniversary of her being named publisher. Next thing he knew, he said, he was being promoted as giving the press club speech. So he proceeded to give Alexis her well-deserved toast, as well as talk about other aspects of journalism and Atlanta today.

At the end of his speech, John reached down and grabbed the Murphy's book and told the crowd to buy it, as it contained "many great stories about Tom's excellent restaurant in Virginia-Highland ... and a quote from me on page 10."

And there, many years later, I felt my prediction had been reinforced in spades, that Tom's book would help brand him and his restaurant. For here Tom was being endorsed from the podium to a sell-out crowd at the Atlanta Press Club by the editor-in-chief of Time, Inc.

Now, if I can just get that photograph ...

Photos: The book and the co-authors at earlier Atlanta Press Club Author's Party, Jan and Tom

PR Prayer Breakfast

This morning my staff attended the first annual Atlanta Public Relations Interfaith Breakfast at Twelve at Atlantic Station. Organized by a committee of several PR firms, the vision for the breakfast came from Glen Jackson, a partner in Jackson Spalding, one of the largest independent firms in town. Glen's partner is my third cousin, Bo Spalding.

Atlanta has a number of annual interfaith breakfasts and the tradition goes back decades to our city's legacy as a beacon of civility during the turmoil of the Civil Rights struggle in the 1960s. One of the most successful of these is the Atlanta Rotary Club's Prayer Breakfast, which I attended for the second year in a row this year. The speakers are always inspirational, but I especially look forward to the dramatic presentation by Tom Key of the Theatrical Outfit, one of the great treasures of this city. Glen happened to chair this year's Rotary breakfast and I congratulated him afterwards. He told me about the planned PR breakfast, so I quickly bought a table.

Another successful industry prayer breakfast is the Real Estate Prayer Breakfast, which we also support with the purchase of a table. This one was originally started in honor of the life of Mark Christopher, an amazing man of faith who battled cancer in 1996 and whose optimism and daily recorded inspirational messages of hope through the last months of his life touched many lives. He was scheduled to speak at the first RE prayer breakfast in May 1998, but he died that month. I knew Mark from my Friday Morning Men's Fellowship and we visited him in the hospital once. We all went to support him, but he, instead, supported those of us crowded in his room.

This year's PR Prayer Breakfast was highlighted by wonderful music by Third Day, several members of which flew the red eye from LA to participate. The most touching moment, though, was when Brenda Wood, a local TV anchor for 11 Alive, gave a very transparent testimony of the value of faith and prayer in her life. Interviewed by Beth Bragg of the DeMoss Group, she had the sold-out room riveted silently listening to her having been "broken" several times and how God and her faith saved her. Her facial expressions and body language were amazingly mesmerizing, as much as actress of stage or screen. Yet she's a TV anchor here in Atlanta, and a great one – and a jewel of a role model of faith for the rest of us.

In addition to my staff, I invited Jae Stephenson of Resource Real Estate Marketing, and Sharon Goldmacher of Communications 21, who have recently referred business and offered advice to our five-year-old firm.

Jennifer Sheran, our general manager, my wife Jan and I were excited to invite our staff to the table. For many of our young team members, this event broke the ice of discussing faith at work. It's always a delicate balance, knowing when to profess your faith and when to run a "strictly professional" firm. Thanks to Glen and the organizing committee for this and other breakfasts in Atlanta, who have set the table for those discussions to continue into the day, well after the warmth of the breakfasts have begun to wane.

Photo of our staff at the PR Interfaith Prayer Breakfast, from left: Evelyn Anne Johnston, Devin Releford, Reid Childers, Jan Butsch Schroder, Mary Martin, Lila Campbell, Jennifer Sheran and me, Chris Schroder.

Ink By the Barrel

Mark Twain coined the original phrase, I named this blog after it, but the first time I heard the words, "Ink By the Barrel," I had just finished a plate of warmed-over baked chicken, mashed potatoes and green peas at the Kiwanis Club of Augusta, Georgia.

Then-Richmond County Sheriff J.B. Dykes was addressing the civic club and I was in the audience, sipping very sweet iced tea, along with lots of other radio and newspaper reporters. As J.B. said to start his speech that day in 1980: "My daddy always told me, 'Never pick a fight with lawyers, doctors or men who buy ink by the barrel.' " In case we didn't catch his drift, J.B. went on to say, "I see there are a lot of reporters, so I better watch what I say here."

The Kiwanians loved it and we in the media squirmed. J.B. seemed like a nice guy, but I certainly never wanted to pick a fight with him. Well, as it turns out, he had good reason to keep reporters at arms' length. A few years later, he was charged with taking bribes to fix warrants for driving under the influence of alcohol. He eventually pleaded guilty to two federal charges of obstructing justiice for firing a secretary and threatening to kill a deputy – both of whom were cooperating with federal agents. The sheriff was sentenced to four years in prison.

I've spent more than 25 years in the newspaper business, from editing my high school and college papers, to working for six daily newspapers in the South, to starting my own neighborhood papers in Atlanta in 1994. I eventually sold the papers to Atlanta developer Tom Cousins in 2001 and moved on to the Public Relations business. I've run Schroder PR for five years now and a month hasn't gone by when someone didn't stop me and mention how much they miss my newspaper and my monthly column. I always say I miss it too and maybe I'll write a book someday. Of course, I'm too busy with PR client work and not disciplined enough to write that book. The latest was a lawyer in Austin, Texas, named Hamp Skelton, a high school classmate, who wrote me last month: "I miss your column. You should do it as a blog."

Here I am in PR, urging and selling my clients on writing a blog and I don't have one. The cobbler's son has no shoes ...

So here it is, the start of my blog, named after what I would have named my book. I knew the minute J.B. Dykes said those words that "Ink By the Barrel" would be the name of my memoir. I'm not sure my life has been that interesting to write a memoir – at least not one people would pay to read. But it certainly rates the name of my blog – and it's free to you and your friends.

All of my columns from my seven years of publishing neighborhood newspapers are housed here for your – and Hamp's and all the other fine folks' who have encouraged me through the years – enjoyment. Today, the phrase still applies ... I don't print a newspaper, buying ink by the barrel to print on newsprint, but my professional team tries each day to get my clients all the "ink" they can.

Today begins my new path of writing – not a book, not a newspaper, not a press release, but a blog. Enjoy, visit often and post your own comments.

And thanks to my lovely bride, Jan Butsch Schroder, a published author who got tired of me complaining about me not following my bliss and engaging my passion – writing. She started this blog, posted my old columns and said, "Here, now start writing."

Thanks to J.B. Dykes (Sheriff, wherever you are, I hope you're well) and Mark Twain, too, for the title. Thanks for reading. Stay in touch.

Photo: My lovely bride, Jan Butsch Schroder, a published author in her own right, who inspired me to re-publish my columns and start my blog.