My chat with Susan Stamberg

It was election night, 1972, and George McGovern was getting creamed. A week earlier I'd received a phone call from Susan Stamberg of National Public Radio and had agreed to be called on election night to share my thoughts and feelings about what was happening. She had my number because I'd entered some kind of NPR essay contest or other and had been a finalist. She was looking for "common folk" to report on election night, and I guess I represented the Northwest McGovern camp or something.

At any rate, McGovern was getting creamed. I had forgotten about the phone call coming and was not waiting for it. In fact, when it came, I was not near the phone. I had to be fetched. When I answered, there was Susan Stamberg, that unmistakable voice. She said we'd go on the air in a minute. She asked how I was feeling. Rotten, I replied. She said she could imagine. Did I think it would be such a lopsided election? No, I didn't. Any minute, she said. I felt a pain in my gut. Did I really want to share my defeat with the radio world? I regretted agreeing to do this.

Sometimes the gods hear you. Just a minute, said Susan Stamberg. There was off-phone talking. When she came back on, she apologized. There was breaking news, McGovern was about to concede, we weren't going to have time to share my thoughts and feelings with the radio world. Thank the gods! It's been nice chatting with you. Click.

I went back to the party, the kind at which you drink down your frustration and sorrow. Somewhere across the country, the bombing of Cambodia was being planned. Or so I thought later. Massachusetts was the only state to go for McGovern. And DC as well. 17 electoral votes, to Nixon's 520 (1 to a Libertarian). McG got 37% of the popular vote. Well, I knew about defeat. After all, I'd played football at Cal Tech. We had a perfect season without victory. We lost to Whittier College, Nixon's alma mater, 75-0 in a mud fest and driving rain storm. I took solace in the fact that McGovern did a tad better than this.

Susan Stamberg never phoned again, to ask me about an election or anything else. I stopped sending essays to NPR.