Thursday, October 22, 2015

THROWBACK THURSDAY


In 1963 I was a young, wide-eyed, Marlboro-puffing television reporter in Aberdeen, South Dakota.

Early in the morning of September 14th, I was awakened by a telephone call from UPI Movietone in Chicago asking if I had any film of the quints they could buy.

I was then made aware that five new babies had come into the world on that day - the Fischer Quintuplets, the first surviving quintuplets ever born in the United States.

A large part of the national and international news media soon swarmed the small town, many of them coming from only a short distance as they had been in Bismarck, North Dakota, covering a speech by Bobby Kennedy.

The rest of that time is a mystery lost in the shrouds of time. I can only remember a few incidents.

But it did launch me into a new job in Bismarck and many more adventures in a career that lasted some 30 years.

The picture above was taken as we, the media, waited for a news conference to begin in St. Alexius Hospital, where the four girls and a boy were born.

After only a few years of publicity and attention by the Pope and President Kennedy, among others, the quintuplets retreated to a quiet life with their protective parents and the SIX other children in their family.

6 comments:

  1. Riding the news wave. Good on you.

    Steve

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  2. The idea of smoking in a hospital seems odd, now.

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  3. Smoking in a hospital does seem strange. When my little sister was born I remember visiting Mom in the hospital and she and her friends were smoking and laughing. Baby Sis was safe in the nursery. My ex is a Nurse Practitioner specializes in cardiology and she says the number of cardiologists and chest crackers who smoke is pretty damn high. They have a smoker's tent outside the hospital where she works.

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  4. When I drive by the hospital in "our town", I see nurses standing way back from the Emergency Entrance puffing on their cigarettes. Makes you wonder.

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  5. Great anecdote...you were a true eyewitness to history

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  6. It's exciting to see you in the thick of breaking news.

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