{"id":37866,"date":"2019-07-10T00:00:12","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T00:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=37866"},"modified":"2019-07-10T00:01:34","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T00:01:34","slug":"time-of-my-life-part-37-they-used-to-actually-like-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=37866","title":{"rendered":"Time of My Life, Part 37: They used to actually like us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I have written on this blog about the good times and the fascinating characters I met while practicing journalism for nearly four decades.<\/p>\n

A recent blog post noted one of those individuals, the late Ross Perot, who saw value in communicating with the media.<\/p>\n

My writing about Perot brings to mind another sharp-minded Texan I had the pleasure of meeting. It was a spontaneous encounter in front of the Jefferson County Courthouse in Beaumont, Texas.<\/p>\n

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Perhaps you remember the late Richard “Racehorse” Haynes. He was a flamboyant trial lawyer who defended celebrities, big hitters and individuals of enormous wealth. He was, as I understood it, a tremendous courtroom thespian, known for a dramatic flair.<\/p>\n

Here’s what happened during one sweltering day in downtown Beaumont …<\/p>\n

I was walking toward the courthouse when I ran into a fellow I knew well, a lawyer named Gilbert Adams, who at the time also served as chairman of the Jefferson County Democratic Party. We chatted for a moment. Then Adams asked if I wanted to meet Racehorse Haynes. Do I? Of course I would<\/em>, I said.<\/p>\n

Adams yelled at the gentleman standing about 30 feet away, “Hey Race!<\/em> I want to introduce you to someone.”<\/p>\n

We approached Haynes and Adams said, in effect, “John, this is Racehorse Haynes. Race, this is John Kanelis. John is the editorial page editor of the Beaumont Enterprise.”<\/p>\n

Here is where it got real interesting in a hurry. When Adams told Haynes I worked for the newspaper, which in the late 1980s and early 1990s was still a significant media presence in the Golden Triangle, Haynes’ eyes expanded to the size of saucers. He opened them wide and seemed, as I recall, to nearly drop the pipe he was smoking out of his mouth.<\/p>\n

He then regaled me about his relations with the media, how he generally trusted the media — if you can believe such a thing in today’s climate — to report matters accurately and fairly.<\/p>\n

Haynes talked, talked and talked some more. He talked so much that I — not this famous lawyer — was forced to cut the conversation off. I had somewhere I needed to be; I guess Racehorse Haynes had a lot of time on his hands.<\/p>\n

I remember meetings like that one with fondness, if only because it reminds of a time when journalism — and those of us who practiced the craft of journalism — played critical roles in telling their communities’ stories.<\/p>\n\n

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I have written on this blog about the good times and the fascinating characters I met while practicing journalism for nearly four decades. A recent blog post noted one of those individuals, the late Ross Perot, who saw value in communicating with the media. My writing about Perot brings to mind another sharp-minded Texan I … Continue reading Time of My Life, Part 37: They used to actually like us<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[8761,8762,8760],"class_list":["post-37866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-jefferson-county-courthouse","tag-jefferson-county-democratic-party","tag-racehorse-haynes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37866"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37870,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37866\/revisions\/37870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}