HISSSSS......

Adam Urbanski.

Behold, Adam Urbanski (“Er-BAN-skee”), head of the Rochester teacher’s union.
Urbanski is a very well-respected educator, and has written works more becoming an education authority, than a union president.
He has instituted various programs to mentor teachers, and improve the output of school-systems where many of the students are poor — e.g. Rochester’s urban school system.
It’s a shame he always comes off negatively in TV-interviews.
He always sounds like a Nazi — dead serious and unsmiling.
Every time he appears my wife and I go “hisssssss........”
I suppose the local TV-news outlets consider him a good interview.
Report anything remotely discussing education, and they interview Adam Urbanski.
Media outlets are like that.
The Syracuse basketball team has a talkative player they always interview after every game, win or lose.

Peter Revson.

I never could master the press interview, although I always thought it a sham.
Years ago I interviewed two auto-race drivers, Peter Revson and Graham Hill.
Revson had been brought to Rochester by the Canadian Grand Prix; Hill by Watkins Glen.
I watched as various news junkies interviewed Revson and had no idea.
Yada-yada-yada-yada. With ultimate polish and grace, they were getting nothing at all. A taping for future airing on the radio.
Then it was my turn — and I was the one making Rochester media outlets cover auto-racing, because I had started it.
Presumedly I was most favored — I had published directions on how to get to Mosport from Rochester.
My so-called interview crashed mightily in flames.
My pretext was utter amazement about how Revvie could boot a CanAm McLaren to over 190 mph on Mosport’s kinky straightaway.

Graham Hill.

This went over like a lead balloon of course; 190+ mph in a CanAm car was standard operating procedure to Revvie.
Most auto-racing fans identify with the driver, but me to the technology, particularly the car. Revvie liked that.
What we ended up doing is my wishing him well in the Canadian Grand Prix, and he won it.
My interview the following year with “Grime Heel” (Graham Hill) went slightly better, but still crashed mightily in flames.
I had to manufacture both interviews — neither made any sense.
The one with Graham Hill gravitated to jawing about old racing technology. (“How could I have ever raced this thing?”)

My wife of 40+ years is “Linda.”

“The Canadian Grand Prix” was one of a series of world-wide (mostly in Europe) auto-races, and the Canadian Grand Prix was held jointly at the “Mosport” road-racing course near Toronto — it alternated each year with St. Jovite near Montreal. The United States Grand Prix was originally held at the “Watkins Glen” road course in western New York. The Grand Prix series still exists.

RE: “Because I had started it......” —In the early ‘70s, I began covering area sports-car racing in City/East newspaper, a small weekly newspaper in Rochester. My coverage was the impetus for other area media outlets to begin car-racing coverage.

The “CanAm” was a series for unlimited sports-racing cars: two seats with fenders. At first many cars were powered by hot-rodded Chevrolet V8s, later turbocharged Porsche flat-twelves and flat-sixteens producing over 1,200 horsepower. To me, it was greatest car-racing series ever. I can still hear Denny Hulme booting his CanAm McLaren-Chevy out of the hairpin at Mosport. Porsche domination essentially ended the series.