No one would have been made happier by Indiana University's outright humiliation of Alabama on New Year's Day than my good pal and mentor Max Moss, aka "The Silver Hammer," as I christened him during the years spent together in Clarksville at what was the oldest newspaper in Tennessee, founded 1808. It's now the oddest paper in Tennessee and ditched all journalism credibility so as not to feel bad about being a piece of shit. That's an aside from an old man who learned from Max how to use a scale wheel and pica pole ("just jam it up Washer's ass and then twist," he advised me on my first day at the L-C.) That's not true, but I like it, so from now on it will be true history.
Max also taught me how to handle scorebooks and how to count "heds" aka headlines, an art that now is lost in the techno age where heads are made to fit but not necessarily made to make sense by the computer and its "operator" (formerly known as "copy editors"). He also taught me how to use a 35 mm and a 4-by-4 camera and how to soup film in the deep tank, print it wet on the enlarger, develop it long enough for the image to hold to the camera room. And, regrettably, how to smoke like a fiend. I quit for a year by September 12, 1974, when I went to work at the L-C. From the first day, it was apparent that I was the only person who had heard the tales of cigarette smoking being bad for you. Even fat old Jim Monday (guy on right) smoked back then and he was a burrhead with no beard and liked to spend free time at Trice's Landing or speaking in tongues at his Assembly of Cronar Church on Fort Campbell Boulevard. I kept in touch with Jim, as I really did like him despite all the true or false weird tales, until just after he died. I used to call him and say: "So, how're you doing, Fat Boy?"
Anyway, Max was my mentor, so when he offered me a smoke, I grabbed one of his Winston Reds. I began my typical obsessive behavior and smoked up to three packs a day until I quit at the turn of this century.
All of this is good-natured joking. But completely true.
I do remember that when I was associate editor, Max was managing editor, and I was in charge of Sunday's newspaper. Max would come in around 10 a.m. or so to review the opinion pages and to visit with me. One day, The News Brothers were filming our "Mission: Impossible" scene. It was just Rob and me in the scene. Jim Lindgren or Jerry Manley was holding the Super 8 mm movie camera I'd stolen from my Dad for filming. The scene focused on instructions/threats from The Big Guy, our publisher. In M-I fashion, the instructions had to be burned. Which we did, over a waste can. Rob burned his hand as well. Another scene involved our murder of "Newspaperman" Wendell Wilson. We all ganged up on Wendell (he was just the eyes in this scene, filmed from his viewpoint at his desk.) When I see it now, I marvel at the hatred in our eyes and how vicious our punches when we mimed hitting down at Wendell (I think it was Larry McCormack who was lying on the floor by Wendell's desk and filming "up" at us. I never felt as alive as I did when we killed Wendell. If it wasn't Larry filming it may have been the late, even then, W.J. Souza, but I doubt it.)
During these filmings -- we filmed on Saturday mornings and went to work at noon on Saturdays -- Max sat quietly in his glass-lined office, looking and smiling at the group of rascals.
Then he came out of his office and told me he needed to talk with me a minute. I had to close the door behind me. I thought he was angry. Nope. "Just make sure the fellas don't destroy the building," or something just like that, he said. I don't think killing Wendell bothered him, but he had feared that Rob and I would burn down 200 Commerce Street. Figuratively we did, of course, beginning our life's journeys that ended with us being labeled "unfit" for newspapers.
I could go on and on and I have, recollecting Max's influence on my life. The biggest thing he taught me was how to be an honorable journalist. He also told me I was the best writer he'd ever known (I remain proud of that, course I don't know who he knew). And he took me into his family, as every Saturday night we'd buy Whoppers with cheese and frostees and go out to the Moss Compound near the post. We'd sit there eating and watching Archie Bunker and Mary Tyler Moore, then wash it all down with a cold Sterling and head back downtown for the remaining 5 or 6 hours until the paper came off the presses.
Now, as I did mention at the top, he would be (and may be, as he was a devout believer in heaven) very proud after his Hoosiers took the Crimson Tide down, stealing their jockstraps and dignity on the way.
Max was a proud IU grad, and usually his Hoosier football sucked, but his pal Bob Knight continually bullied his way to basketball success. I thought Knight, who I knew, was a bigger asshole than Wendell Wilson, but Max forgave him. "That's just Knight being Knight," he'd shrug of the violent actions of the booger-faced asshole who coached the basketball team.
This all leads me back to the reason I posted this in the first place: I don't know what the Hoosiers will do as the football playoffs continue, but Max would have been so delighted. Hell, he probably is, as I note earlier. He probably fired up one of those Winston Reds (God allows smoking, as it can't harm you if you are dead, and asked Glover Williams for a can of Sterling, as the Hoosiers rolled. "Sounds reasonable, eh pardner," he'd say as Glover offers him a menthol cigarette as a change of pace.
I am hoping for continued success for Hoosiers football if only because it gives me the opportunity to recall, in 100 percent factual fashion, my relationship with "The Silver Hammer."
I still love you, old friend. I'm sorry you couldn't convince me it was fun to sit in a boat all day for one or two eight-ounce fish. Of course, it was fun to smoke out there on Lake Barkley, suck on a cold Sterling and laugh.
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