It wasn’t the country music legends, or the US Senators, or music icons…
A COLUMN By Kathryn Ross
Over my career as a local journalist, I have interviewed a lot of people. Some were famous. Some were not so famous. But there was one that journalists all over the world want to score, probably the biggest and most well-known. To use the vernacular this one interview is the GOAT of interviews.
My first interview was at the Allegany County Fair when I was invited into the Coal Miner’s Daughter’s RV and sat down across a narrow table from the Queen of Country Music herself – a bespangled Loretta Lynn. With genuine country charm she served me tea and cookies that she had baked. We discussed the crops, growing up hard in the country and what it was like to be world famous. When I stepped off that bus, I felt like I’d spent the afternoon with my aunt.
At the next country fair, I sat on the cramped little concrete stage with ‘Stand By Your Man’ singer Tammy Wynette during her sound check. She wasn’t as gracious as Loretta, but we still talked like we came from the same hometown.
A few years later in the cramped Fair dressing room, Charlie Pride told me what it was like to come up through the ranks to become one of the first, black, country western stars.
I’ve talked on the phone with Jimmy Osmond. I sat in a room at Alfred University with Bill Pullman and discussed growing up in Hornell and spending summers in Hartsville, and his late sister. I interviewed legendary folksinger James Taylor about life and the purpose and need behind folksongs.
I sat at my desk with the co-author of ‘Silver Bells,’ Salamanca native, Ray Evans and listened as he mesmerized a roomful of Daily Reporter employees with tales of Doris Day, Lana Turner, Bob Hope and the halcyon days of Hollywood. You could have heard a pin drop. We all laughed when he told us that the song title would have been Tinkle Bells, if his wife hadn’t reminded him of the popular meaning of the word.
I walked through Letchworth State Park with Gov. Mario Cuomo and sat under the Capitol Dome and discussed politics with former First Lady, Senator Hillary Clinton. One time I even followed the Senator to a dairy farm between Belmont and Alfred and got my photo in Time Magazine. It was just my back, but you couldn’t miss it in the gaggle of reporters shouting questions at her. Daily Reporter Sweet Spot sportswriter Jim Sweet (a classmate of mine) was the first to show me the magazine article.
I’ve interviewed generals, politicians and billionaires and a variety of interesting people from around Allegany County.
Yet there was one interview that alluded me. Like a lot of people my age who grew up in Wellsville and listened for sleigh bells and the sound of 32 tiny hooves on the rooftop on Christmas Eve, this time of year, we would visit Santa in the downstairs toy department at Newberry’s. We would sit on his copious lap and tell him what we’d seen in the Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs, that we just had to have for Christmas. When we got older, after someone, most likely an older brother or sister, had broken the news that Santa wasn’t – well you know; we would follow the big red costumed, snowy bearded man around the store and harassed him. At least I did, until like W.C. Fields he growled, “Get outa here kid.”
Still as an adult, and as a reporter, I knew it would be a coup if I could get Santa to sit down and talk with me. Who wouldn’t want to spend time with Santa? In the first modern day Wellsville Christmas parade, my seven-year-old, great, great niece Raegan, opted to ride down Main Street with Santa in his sleigh (even though ‘the weather outside was frightful’ and near zero) rather than ride in the warm SUV pulling the sleigh.
So, when Santa strode into the Daily Reporter office one day close to Christmas and through the door into the newsroom, the whole office was stunned into silence. Grown adults were kids again.
For more than an hour I sat with Santa in the newsroom. The Jolly Old Elf told me about the problem with sliding down chimneys, when there aren’t many these days, the hazards of drinking gallons of milk and eating tons of cookies and keeping a tight schedule. Most importantly he told me the meaning of Christmas, wasn’t to receive or give gifts, but is for bringing joy and peace to others.
Kathryn Ross is a Wellsville native, lifelong mediaite, community activist and pens a weekly “Golden Girl” Column each week. You can reach her anytime, kathr_2002@yahoo.com
