BERRY TRAMEL
Berry Tramel
The Oklahoman
I cold-called Norman Transcript sports editor Jim Weeks in September 1978. Walked into the newsroom at age 17, unknown and uninvited, looking for advice on how to become a sportswriter.
Outside of asking Trish the Dish for a first date, still the bravest thing I’ve ever done.
I was smitten immediately by the rhythmic sounds of the newsroom, the rat-a-tat-tat of journalists pounding away on the keyboards of old Olympia manual typewriters. Yep. Typewriters. It was a long time ago.
Thirteen years later, I joined The Daily Oklahoman. My first beat: Eddie Sutton’s OSU basketball team. My first game assignment: Wichita State against the Cowboys in old Gallagher-Iba Arena, on a Saturday evening in December.
What I remember most about that day is not the game, but getting there. Driving through Oklahoma City and hitting a massive traffic jam at the I-35/I-240 interchange. Christmas shoppers backed up, trying to get to Crossroads Mall. Yep. Crossroads. It was a long time ago.
Thirty-two years at The Oklahoman. Forty-five years in newspapers.
And this is my last day.
Forty-five years might seem like a long time, but I never thought it would come this quickly. I didn’t necessarily want to die on the job, but I figured I had another two decades or so in me.
In my mind, the deal was that if The Oklahoman would let me work until I was 80, I’d walk away without protest.
Of course, I only told friends and Rotary Clubs and journalism classes about my intentions. I learned long ago not to tell bosses what to do. Getting along with your superiors is great career advice whether you’re in the press box or in shoulder pads, whether your collar be white or blue.
This is not a sad day. It’s time. I’m trying to stay cool, man, but I’m so danged excited about my new opportunity, I feel like I did the night Trish the Dish said yes.
Still, this is a day of reflection over what I’m leaving. The ink of seven decades is imbedded in my fingertips.
The 1960s, when I first started reading the four newspapers to which my dad subscribed: The Oklahoman, the Transcript, the late Oklahoma Journal and the late Oklahoma City Times.
The 1970s, when the heroes of my youth morphed from ballplayers to the scribes who wrote about them. From Blackie Sherrod to Bill Connors, from Al Carter to Al Eschbach, I dreamed about the exotic career of writing for the rolled-up newsprint that hit our grass day after day after day.
The 1980s, when I started writing stuff that readers might actually understand.
The 1990s, when I jumped to The Oklahoman and found a statewide audience.
The 2000s, when the internet provided a global audience for loyalists of the Sooners and Cowboys and Thunder.
The 2010s, when that same internet fractured newspapers’ economic model.
The 2020s, when newspapers still fight the good fight, still lift the torches of freedom, still stand as the most American of enterprises.
More:Tramel: Jim Harbaugh gaming the system, which Dez Bryant didn't get the chance to do
Count ‘em up. Seven decades.
But here, at 62, it’s time to do something else. I’m young enough to have the same kind of bravery I showed cold-calling Jim Weeks; old enough to know when the time is right.
You’ll know soon enough the details of my new adventure. Just know that I’m not leaving Oklahoma; Rodgers & Hammerstein remains my ringtone. Not leaving my readers, who are the wings beneath my wind. Not even leaving my colleagues.
We had a farewell Friday at that most Oklahoman of places, Eischen’s in Okarche, for a fried-chicken feast. I didn’t even really say goodbye to anybody. I’ll see them on road trips or in pressboxes or in solve-the-world lunches at Italian Express in downtown OKC.
The Oklahoman has been a whale of a place to work. It must be. I’ve been there since George Herbert Walker Bush was in the White House, and seven newsroom colleagues had seniority on me: Darla Smith, Doug Hoke, Clytie Bunyan, Carla Hinton, Todd Pendleton, Linda Lynn, Nolan Clay. It’s always comforting to be around people who remember the rhythm of the newsroom.
Carlton Fisk played 11 years with the Red Sox. Then he jumped to the White Sox and caught in Chicago for 13 years. I thought of Fisk in early 2005, when I realized I had worked longer at The Oklahoman than I worked at the Transcript.
But now I’ve worked virtually 2½ times as long at The Oklahoman as I did the Transcript. Seems not that long ago that I had to learn to tie a tie for my first day on the job up on Britton and Broadway. Life is but a vapor.
I’m not a complicated person. That vapor is filled by three things: my family, my church, my job. My friends come from those branches. Since 1981, I’ve had two full-time jobs, lived in two houses, attended three churches, driven four trucks and been married to one woman.
I don’t have any hobbies. Don’t have any secrets that would interest anybody. Got no book to write. I’ve been trying to tell everyone everything I know for 45 years.
So I’ll be doing the same things I’ve been doing since “Welcome Back, Kotter” was a primetime staple.
I’ll just be doing them for something other than a newspaper. I’m going to keep reading The Oklahoman, going to keep subscribing, and I hope you will, too, because the rat-a-tat-tat still rings through my soul.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
Tramel: Goodbye to newspapers, which will always live in my soul
Berry TramelThe Oklahoman
I cold-called Norman Transcript sports editor Jim Weeks in September 1978. Walked into the newsroom at age 17, unknown and uninvited, looking for advice on how to become a sportswriter.
Outside of asking Trish the Dish for a first date, still the bravest thing I’ve ever done.
I was smitten immediately by the rhythmic sounds of the newsroom, the rat-a-tat-tat of journalists pounding away on the keyboards of old Olympia manual typewriters. Yep. Typewriters. It was a long time ago.
Thirteen years later, I joined The Daily Oklahoman. My first beat: Eddie Sutton’s OSU basketball team. My first game assignment: Wichita State against the Cowboys in old Gallagher-Iba Arena, on a Saturday evening in December.
What I remember most about that day is not the game, but getting there. Driving through Oklahoma City and hitting a massive traffic jam at the I-35/I-240 interchange. Christmas shoppers backed up, trying to get to Crossroads Mall. Yep. Crossroads. It was a long time ago.
Thirty-two years at The Oklahoman. Forty-five years in newspapers.
And this is my last day.
Forty-five years might seem like a long time, but I never thought it would come this quickly. I didn’t necessarily want to die on the job, but I figured I had another two decades or so in me.
In my mind, the deal was that if The Oklahoman would let me work until I was 80, I’d walk away without protest.
Of course, I only told friends and Rotary Clubs and journalism classes about my intentions. I learned long ago not to tell bosses what to do. Getting along with your superiors is great career advice whether you’re in the press box or in shoulder pads, whether your collar be white or blue.
This is not a sad day. It’s time. I’m trying to stay cool, man, but I’m so danged excited about my new opportunity, I feel like I did the night Trish the Dish said yes.
Still, this is a day of reflection over what I’m leaving. The ink of seven decades is imbedded in my fingertips.
The 1960s, when I first started reading the four newspapers to which my dad subscribed: The Oklahoman, the Transcript, the late Oklahoma Journal and the late Oklahoma City Times.
The 1970s, when the heroes of my youth morphed from ballplayers to the scribes who wrote about them. From Blackie Sherrod to Bill Connors, from Al Carter to Al Eschbach, I dreamed about the exotic career of writing for the rolled-up newsprint that hit our grass day after day after day.
The 1980s, when I started writing stuff that readers might actually understand.
The 1990s, when I jumped to The Oklahoman and found a statewide audience.
The 2000s, when the internet provided a global audience for loyalists of the Sooners and Cowboys and Thunder.
The 2010s, when that same internet fractured newspapers’ economic model.
The 2020s, when newspapers still fight the good fight, still lift the torches of freedom, still stand as the most American of enterprises.
More:Tramel: Jim Harbaugh gaming the system, which Dez Bryant didn't get the chance to do
Count ‘em up. Seven decades.
But here, at 62, it’s time to do something else. I’m young enough to have the same kind of bravery I showed cold-calling Jim Weeks; old enough to know when the time is right.
You’ll know soon enough the details of my new adventure. Just know that I’m not leaving Oklahoma; Rodgers & Hammerstein remains my ringtone. Not leaving my readers, who are the wings beneath my wind. Not even leaving my colleagues.
We had a farewell Friday at that most Oklahoman of places, Eischen’s in Okarche, for a fried-chicken feast. I didn’t even really say goodbye to anybody. I’ll see them on road trips or in pressboxes or in solve-the-world lunches at Italian Express in downtown OKC.
The Oklahoman has been a whale of a place to work. It must be. I’ve been there since George Herbert Walker Bush was in the White House, and seven newsroom colleagues had seniority on me: Darla Smith, Doug Hoke, Clytie Bunyan, Carla Hinton, Todd Pendleton, Linda Lynn, Nolan Clay. It’s always comforting to be around people who remember the rhythm of the newsroom.
Carlton Fisk played 11 years with the Red Sox. Then he jumped to the White Sox and caught in Chicago for 13 years. I thought of Fisk in early 2005, when I realized I had worked longer at The Oklahoman than I worked at the Transcript.
But now I’ve worked virtually 2½ times as long at The Oklahoman as I did the Transcript. Seems not that long ago that I had to learn to tie a tie for my first day on the job up on Britton and Broadway. Life is but a vapor.
I’m not a complicated person. That vapor is filled by three things: my family, my church, my job. My friends come from those branches. Since 1981, I’ve had two full-time jobs, lived in two houses, attended three churches, driven four trucks and been married to one woman.
I don’t have any hobbies. Don’t have any secrets that would interest anybody. Got no book to write. I’ve been trying to tell everyone everything I know for 45 years.
So I’ll be doing the same things I’ve been doing since “Welcome Back, Kotter” was a primetime staple.
I’ll just be doing them for something other than a newspaper. I’m going to keep reading The Oklahoman, going to keep subscribing, and I hope you will, too, because the rat-a-tat-tat still rings through my soul.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
