As the sun sets earlier, it is possible to see Haystack Mountain with a neat fiery red top — perfect for a retired volcanic site.
And it gives rise to some great stories. A few years back, before there was the internet, there was the gossip fence. Early in my career chronicling the mundane, a great local news story fell in my lap. School had let out. Kids on the buses did what their parents did: chewed the fat with their friends.
This one particular October afternoon, a glorious, sunshiny fall day, a tale began of bizarre happenings on Haystack Mountain. Kids got home and told Mom about the tale, gleeful at the expanding eyeballs and shocked look on her face. By 3:30, one frightened mother had called the television newsroom to ask if the story were true.
As with most gossip fence tales, a mosquito bite had become the second worst plague in the history of mankind. Would there be a blood sacrifice of a young lady student on the top of Haystack at midnight on Halloween night? The panic streaming through the phone wires took much persuasion that resources would be used to put the rumor to rest.
In those days, news gathering did not wait for a press release. Sources were sought out and questioned. The police, sheriff and game wardens were polled. Realizing one of the group’s kid sister rode the bus at the time, a call was made. While this effort was unfolding, the rumor vapors had filled the air. Like a balloon, calls started to pour in. While talking with the local police dispatch, news gatherers learned that foot patrols and extra officers were on the university and vocational school campuses.
Seconds ticked by like Maxwell House Coffee, good to the last drop. Reporters were assigned. The rundown of stories for the evening news changed as priorities changed. More calls were made and story angles developed. Frantic viewers were reassured that the newsroom was on this story.
As Looney Tunes University taught so many of us, there is a reason why one does not strike a match in a dark room filled with dynamite for light. The phone at the sister’s house rang. Her mother answered.
“Hey, Mom is sister home from school?” Silence in the newsroom. Original sources are powerful.
The sister gets on the phone. She had taken the bus home. She had indeed heard the story.
It was all a big joke. They had been teasing some younger kids. The whoopee cushion of truth deflated like a raspberry soufflé. When you need the truth, call your mother and sister. There was such a moment.
The dispatch logs for PIPD for that moment in time would show intense coverage was applied to the campuses, and there was nothing out of the ordinary. Kind words and patient explanations of a tale beyond the pale calmed things down.
Haystack Mountain can still put on a show in the sunset of memories.
Orpheus Allison is a photojournalist in The County who graduated from UMPI and earned a master of liberal arts degree from the University of North Carolina. He began his journalism career at WAGM television, worked around the U.S., and later changed careers and taught in China and Korea.
