 Comments are back for another episode with Norman James, a veteran news reporter for WDV and then Channel 3, back with D.V., then with Governor Tom Salmon for a couple of years all four and then a public citizen. When you were with Tom Salmon, you had been a news reporter. I'm jumping all over the place, but there's a long stretch of time in that. But it's evolution, great historical memories of what his people have done. Well yours is a damn good memory. And so you're a news reporter for 13 years, 59 to 72 with WDV and Channel 3, WCX, but then Governor Tom Salmon, you were with him from 72 to 76 for four years. You're no longer a news reporter, you are a news maker. And that's a different reality. Well it is. It is. But being a former news person gives you a great insight as to what to expect for questions. That's where that plays in, you know. I used to have a game, I used to play with Rod Clark who at that time was the UPI, Presbyter for UPI. So how'd you play games with Rod Clark? We played these games. At Charliot's or before? No, no, no. This at the thrush. At the thrush. At the thrush. Less wagging distance. Right. So we played. This is really for my vengeance, Rod Clark, director of UPI is playing a question-answer game with the governor's stop assistant at the thrush. Correct. Right. This is what I'm feeling for Rod. But the game is this. Right. Okay, let's hear that. The game is this. Okay. I needed to anticipate every question that he was going to ask at a press conference. Sure. And I was doing pretty well. Yeah. And the questions were based on the issues, right? Whatever you give them. And so when I briefed the governor before the press conference, I say, well, you can expect questions about bum, bum, bum, bum. And I have them. Right. One press conference. Right. We're in the governor's ceremonial offices at the state house. And the governor's seated, and Rod Clark is over here, sitting on the side of the table. And the thing is going along and I'm smiling smugly. I've anticipated all the questions and Rod Clark says, governor, what is your reaction to the events in Nicaragua? The governor looks over at me like, Rod Clark looks over and I'm looking at myself, where did that come from? It was out of the blue, man. Well, there was an event happening in Nicaragua at the time, but all of a sudden he, Daniel Ortega or something. Oh, yeah. But he nailed me. Those were the days. But we're working in the governor's office in that capacity. Yeah, you knew what the questions were going to be. And so your obligation was to, and if you were asked questions, is be honest, be truthful. And just be honest. I can remember talking to several reporters, one late great John Irving, who was the news director for WDEV, after I left, and he was irreplaceable. Good news person. Good news person. He gave me a call one day and he didn't know the question to ask and I knew what he wanted to ask. So he's going on and we're conversing for him and I said, John, why don't you ask me, boom, boom, boom, boom, it was all out there. So he said, Norm, boom, boom, boom, hence I gave him the answer. But you see, I knew what he wanted, and it wasn't that I wanted him to work hard for it, but I wanted him to get what he wanted in the context in which it should be given. Well, your brothers. Yeah, exactly. So I'm glad you're enjoying this. It doesn't happen in Sacramento. It doesn't happen in Lansing either. But it happens here. It happens here. Six hundred and twenty thousand people in this state, right? Everybody knows everybody or who knows somebody. So when somebody says, I know a guy, you can bet on it. Correct. And only about five hundred people are in politics and news. Oh, well, it's state level, but remember, there's politicians in each of the two hundred and forty six towns and cities in this state. Sure. Yeah, there are. There are. And again, it's having the experience of being, of covering news to be able to anticipate some of the questions that were going to be asked. And quite frankly, to protect the governor and some of the things that were not correct and you set the reporter straight. And sometimes reporters don't like to be set straight because they'll turn around and say, well, so and so said, I don't care what they said. So when you were, when you were the assistant to the governor, who is the major Channel Three people at the time, Tim Los? Yes. Yes. Right. Right. It was Tim, who was also by way an alumnus of WDEV as well as Anson Tebbets. Anson Tebbets. Right. You created the tradition for these guys. I don't know about that. But yeah. They were in elementary school when you started. Well, Anson is now the commissioner of agriculture. He goes back and forth at Channel Three in agriculture. Right. Well, he takes his microphone and camera with him back and forth, I think. And Tim Lewis is a professor in the journal. I've been blended. Right. Well, I was teaching. I've been connected with the Vermont Mountaineers baseball organization here. And I always go to Tim Lewis to get our play-by-play broadcaster. And he's given us two. The very first one he gave us in 2003, Tim Haggerty. Tim Haggerty was our play-by-play on the radio play-by-play announcer. And he is now the number one announcer for the El Paso Chihuahuas, which is the AAA ball club for the San Diego Padres. Don Arsillo, who was a play-by-play guy for the Boston Red Sox, went to San Diego. If he hadn't gone to San Diego, Tim Haggerty would have that top job. That's great. I'll say how that all works out. So this year, coming here in 2018, this season, again, Tim Lewis reached into his livestock barrel up there and pulled out a young guy who was going to be coming to us. It was very, very good. And so we're all set for another season. There's another story. It's the WDV Channel 3 connection, the alumni. Exactly. And that's what it all is. We have a momentary technical question here. We'll be right back. Can you hear me? You didn't—the time clock, when we started—so maybe tell me where we are and then you can edit the break, because I need to know how much time we have left. I wonder why you were looking over there all the time. Oh my God, we're in—it's always stopped. Tell me when you're ready. Hold on a second. Okay. Tell me—give me like five seconds. The Montpelier-Martineers get their play-by-play people through. Norman James and Tim Lewis. Well, through Tim Lewis, anyway. But it's your alumni from— But that's a connection. By the way, all of them former news people. All of them former news people. That's a skill set that I think that anybody who is in public service ought to have. Absolutely. You can ask a question and when you're looking for the answer, you're not looking at it verbally, you're looking at body language. There is such a thing as body language. Absolutely. You're looking at tone. You're looking where the eye is. You're looking at whatever the demeanor is. And you put that all in and it—through a filter and it comes out, this is the answer. Right? Whether it's terse or whether it's calm, those kinds of adjectives come from that kind of an answer. You can discern it. So I would—Steve Patterson was with the Vermont Press Bureau. Yes, he was. Howard Coffin. Howard Coffin always went to a press conference without a patent pencil. They called him Casky, remember that? So who was the associate of press then? Oh boy, I'm trying to think. Before Chris Graff, right? Before Chris Graff, Bill Moran. Bill Moran was with the AP and then there was a guy that stepped in, John somebody or other and I think he went on to me. No, Mike Sinclair was with Channel 3, didn't get the AP. Right. And then I think it was Chris Graff that followed Mike Sinclair. After you wrapped up at Middlebury, you know, some other things. Yeah, right. Oh, Chris Graff, you know, he's a great reporter. Yes. And his son, Garrett, has written a couple of books. Even on the FBI director who's the special prosecutor. Yeah, that's— This is great stuff. It is great stuff. People ought to take advantage of it. Don't sit there and listen to me. Go get the book. Google. Vermont-born. Yeah. Before we conclude with Thomas Salmon, when he first ran for governor in 72 in November— He ran for attorney general, too. He did in 1970. Right. And Jeffords beat him. The slogan was, let's gather around Tom Salmon. I remember this. Yeah. And then in 1970 he ran for governor. Yep. And Jim Jeffords and Fred Hackett had a primary hack at one. Jeffords came back two years later, became a congressman in 74. And Hackett was one of the few Republicans or Republican states that lost. Simon had a huge victory. But just so we have a little sample, there was a Liberty Union candidate in 1972 who ran for the special election in January. Proudly had died in November of 71. Yep. There was a special election in January of 72 for U.S. Senate. Yeah. And it was Bob Stafford, the Republican. Andy Major, U.S. Minister of the Democrat. And Bernie Sanders, a 28-year-old or 29-year-old Liberty Union, he got 2% of the vote. Right. And then enjoyed his time running for office. Right. He went to this meeting he knew nothing about, came back to the U.S. Senate candidate. Ironically, it happens to be the very seat he holds today. Well, I didn't know that, really. It's the same one. Yeah. And then in November of 72—he ran for governor—went from 2% of the vote to 1% of the vote. And Bernie Sanders, you remember him in the beginning a little? Oh, I do. I do. I remember interviewing him. And his message is the same today as it was back then. Yeah. But that's the credibility factor about our United States Senator now. It always has been. And when he toppled Gordy Paquette in the Mayoral race in Burlington— 81 in March. By 12 votes? 10. 10 votes. By the recount, it went down to 10. And that was just so shocking, but not to an awful lot of people around the state. They said, okay, the time is coming. And we've got to be prepared for this. And what Bernie has done, I think, and people may be complete disavow, his etiology, his thoughts, his comments about what socialism is all about. The fact of the matter is, despite being a candidate has been the wake-up call. For people must become involved if they want to create a better society for themselves and for their neighbors. And I hope people will say mainly for their neighbors. That's how I look at Bernie Sanders. In 1972, you ran for governor. In 1974, you ran for Senate against Leahy and Dick Mallory. Right. And then in 1976, you ran for governor again. Right. And it was Dick Snelling and Stella Hackle. Oh, that was that primary. Stella Hackle beat Brian Burns and John O'Brien. That was divisive. Very. But I remember the Bernie Sanders speech of 1972, which is many—that's like 45 years ago or 46 or more. You were young then. I was pretty young. It's the same speech you gave today. It's the same speech you'll give tomorrow. It's the same speech. Right. It's the same Bernie. Amazing. Right. I don't know if any other politician in Vermont or across the country who for 50 years has been very clear on the same speech. It's the same speech that he took across country in his presidential campaign. It is. Before he got waylaid by the DNC. Amazing part of Vermont history. Absolutely. We heard it way back when. Yep. Yeah. Nothing blurred for Bernie. Yeah. Political gadfly at that time, too. Bill Meier? No. No. Peter Diamonstone. Oh, right. Peter didn't do quite as well as Bernie. Well, he didn't. But he was persistent. He was. He was very persistent. Entertaining. And he was that. As was John Franco. Oh, yeah. Well, I didn't know too much about John Franco. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Where are we going to go now? So anyway, so any more about the Senate administration that you want to speak of? It was, you know, those were the years when John Boylan was the senator from Essex, Orleans up there. Uh-huh. The Senate Appropriations Committee. Uh-huh. And he had a very sharp scalpel. Right. But we were faced with really tough economic times. The revenues were down and the expenses were going up. And we had to cut the budget. And that's what we lived through in the first two years. We kind of leveled out after that. But the first two years we just, and I can remember Bob Wilson who was the commissioner of administration now would be known as chief of staff. Right. Right hand man to the governor. He would come into the governor's office and he'd say, oh, it was either Peter Giuliani who was the chair of the Ways and Means in the House who wanted to raise taxes. Right. Or John Boylan who wanted to cut the budget. I mean, which way do you go on there? Very much later. Yeah. So, by the way, we dealt with that. We dealt with that. And we got by it. Yeah. And it was, personally, it was very exciting. I mean, what other human being can say that I stood at the right hand of the governor? I'll tell you something else. For four years. For four years. I'll tell you something else that happened just recently. I was doing some part-time stuff just a couple of weeks ago. With Associated General Contractors in Vermont. I was with them for five years before I retired this past October. And one of the programs I did was called Project Road Safe. And it is to provide classroom teaching for young drivers. Anybody between the age of 15 and 25. And there was a system to set it all up. But my point is this. Just recently, Associated General Contractors had what they called their Construction Career Day. And that's at their campus, which is just west of Montpelier on Three Mile Bridge Road. They brought, and the association brought in students from technical career schools around the state. And we had about 420 kids on this campus. And we had heavy equipment. We had all kinds of construction activity that goes on during construction process. And groups of kids were going from station to station to take a look at it all. One of the stations was a golf cart demonstration. And it was stop texting. In other words, it was to prove that you can't drive and check because you knock over a column. Well, they gave me a call and asked me if I'd come and do that. Absolutely. No question. So that went on in the morning, all morning long. And I used to take the kids out, give them a talk, take them on the route and so forth. And they have a general conversation. Fast forward to lunchtime. The Governor, Phil Scott, is there. And he's talking with kids and so forth. And I noticed that one of the kids walks up to the Governor. And it's the same kid that, I asked this kid. I said, during my time with him, I said, so what frustrates you about driving? And he said, people that won't pull over for emergency vehicles. He's a senior up in the Northeast Kingdom. And he's on the volunteer emergency squad. And to get to where he's got to go. And he's got a light. His car is all tricked up. And he's got a light and so forth. But people just don't pull on his light. So he's really frustrated about that. But I saw him approach the Governor. And then I walked over. And he had his arms folded. And he said, Governor, I want to talk to you about guns. And the Governor said, sure. And all of a sudden, a crowd of young boys were on. And they had a great conversation back and forth. Some of the facts that the youngster had were not accurate. And the Governor didn't say they were not accurate. He talked around them just in so many words to say that that's really not accurate. But they got done. But they got done with all of that. And so I walked up to him later. I said, how did you like that? And he said, it was good. I said, do you know of anybody else who could walk up to any other Governor in any other state and do what you just did? Well, he'd never thought about it, obviously. But I wanted him to have the seed in his mind that that doesn't happen. That's right. You know, there's a phalanx of security guys around every Governor. In here, we got one guy. And our Governor has always been, regardless of political stripe, accessible to the electorate. And that's something that this state really ought to be very, very proud of. And spends time with average voters? Absolutely. Yeah. Even 10, 20, 30 minutes? Oh, yes. Yeah. And he was stopping you to have this picture taken. Can I have a picture taken? Sure, fine. You know, it's like an athlete doesn't have time. Forget it. Well, this is a different thing. You've paid millions, right? Yeah, everyone. And you worked with highway safety and young people through various career changes. Yeah. I've mentioned that I went to the Barry Grant Association as their executive after a short session at International Coins and Currency. And this was after the Governor's office. Went from the Governor's office in 77 to ICC and, excuse me, I went to the State Energy Office for two years, right? And this is 79. And then 1980, I went to International Coins and Currency. But 1981, I was hired as the executive vice president of the Barry Granted Association. And I stayed there as first as editor of the Barry Life Magazine. Great, great magazine. And then as their executive vice president until I think it was 1989 or something like that. And Chris Barbieri hired me at the Vermont Chamber of Commerce to be as vice president of programs to manage the big business and industry expo that they've been sponsoring for the last number of years over in Burlington. It was during the last five years of that that I applied for a grant from Governor's Highway Safety Program for this program called Project Road Safe to provide classroom training for young drivers. Figuring that our members at that time, the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, had many members who had young employees who were on the road. And if we could provide that service, yes, they've had driver training. But this goes a little bit beyond that, more nuances of what life is on the road and how do you deal with people who don't pull over for emergency vehicles. And that program was well done. And well, when I retired from the chamber in 2005 and wrapped up the program, took it back to Governor's Highway Safety and they put it on the shelf. My retirement lasted for six months. I was getting itchy and I gave them a call. I asked them if they still have the program. Yeah. Gave a call to Pat McDonald who at that time was the commissioner of labor. I gave my elevator speech for her. And she said, let's bring it on. And so I was there for five years just with this program. And they were great sponsors for it. And again, operating on the federal grant from agency of transportation. Not this agency, but now it is yet for all intents and purposes. And then I moved over to Associated General Contractors. Again, with the same premise that there are young drivers out there that are employed and some by the AGC members. And so as a part of the overall workplace safety curriculum, AGC put this into the mix. That's where all that came from. I have been a very, very big advocate of helping youngsters understand what the mechanics are of driving a car rather than slamming that sucker into D and trying to get to 0 to 60 in four seconds. Which all the boys do. Well, they do, but they, you know, they don't understand. Some of the data shows, yes, okay. So we have X number of people killed on the highway. But what was really never publicized and it is available are the thousands of people who are injured incapacitatedly. Which means that they're the breadwinner, there's no bread. Right. There's no taxes. There's no mortgage payment. There's all this, right? There's whatever that means. If you're incapacitated. Disruption. Yeah, in a life. And if you've got a family of four kids, hey, some, it's a real issue, real issue. So what the intent of the program is also to explain to them that a person is not fully developed until they're about the age of 23 or 24. And the last part of the body to become fully developed is the brain. And that's the thinking part right here. I know I've gone from politics to brain. But this bent my road and this is where I am today. And tell us, Norman, that when you left the governor, when you were talking about family of four, you left the governor's office in January of 77. Right, looking for a job. You were a public citizen. Yeah. You had been in the governor's office for four years, a news reporter for 13. Right. You have four children. Yeah. And I imagine there's a grocery bill and a green mountain power bill and a phone bill. Right. All of the above. Property taxes. And so what was that transition like coming back into regular life? Well, obviously, you know, you look for a job. I mean, I remember being interviewed by a reporter right at the end of the salmon administration. So what are you going to do, everybody? What are you going to do? I said, I understand that the unemployment office is open on Monday mornings. And I went to the very unemployment office. I drew unemployment, checked around for jobs, and so forth. And I even went and had an interview for a job driving the wise potato chip truck on the route that covered White River Junction and back. And the guy that I was interviewing me said, what are you doing here? And I said, looking for a job. And he says, in your background, you're over-skilled. Sorry, I can't help you. Wow. Wait a minute. I want to work. So anyway, that was part of all of that. And then when I left the Berry Granite Association, I had 52 interviews before I found a job. Finishing Second does something with you. You know what? About halfway through all of this, about three quarters of the way all the way through, I found it to be very pleasing to interview the person who was interviewing me. The question was, well, OK, I'm applying for a job with you. But you tell me why I should work for you. Tell me about your company. Back being a newsman. Well, that's it. That's that skill set. Oh, yeah. So coming in second in the interviews and coming in first, what's the slight evidence that track was? To be at the right place at the right time to have the skill set that is needed. With the right person hiring. Well, yeah, that helps. Well, that's true. You need the inside track. Yeah, it does. But if anybody's looking for a job, persevere. Persevere. And I can't say enough about education. And I can't say enough about technical career education. Many of the guidance counselors, and it's the wrong title, I'm sure, but advisors will put them this way, of kids that are coming, going into high school, coming out of high school are just targeting college. And there are many students that are not prepared for college, but they are prepared for a technical education, which applies math, which languages are applied, sciences applied to use construction or electrical construction, whatever it is. I would strongly encourage more support for the technical career centers in this state. Once upon a time, it was called shop. Right. Metal and wood. Metal and wood. And you know what that was? Did you know that it spalled it when you were in high school? It was there. I didn't do that. But it was there. It was there. And they went up to the auditorium in Barry. It wasn't the auditorium. The building was there. It was next to it. It was where shop was, anyway. And they'd walk back and forth. Get a winter. Walking back and forth. But that whole trade has been for too long treated as the bastard child of education. The elite part of education is going to college and getting sheepskin. I don't think so. It's an achievement. It's an achievement. But so isn't a plumber's license. And so isn't a master carpenter who can build you a house where you keep you warm. Electricians master. That's an achievement. So should we get it. All right. So those are to be your achievements. And they can produce paychecks. They can. And communities. And families. But anyway, that's where I am with that. I've had a long checkered career. But one thing I've taken out of it is that I've never, I never wanted to lose the opportunity to learn something. And so wherever anybody goes, if you just take time to listen, that's the new thing now. You know, that's a three-letter, a six-letter word that should be in everybody's vocabulary. And it should be practiced all the time. But that should have been done way before WWI. I'm not going to go there about the political things that I feel that I have. On a future show, Brad. On a future show. I guarantee you that. But will you enjoy these memories, dreams, and reflectments of remote politics, history, and events that you had at front row seats? I did. And I've enjoyed it very much. And thank you very much for this opportunity, Ken. You've done great things in your life. I think the next show ought to be me interviewing you. Okay, deal. So that's enough for today. There'll be future episodes. Thank you for this part of Vermont Community Commons with Norman James, a veteran, rare, extraordinary Vermonter. See you next time.