I don’t know if this is one of those “strangely-believe-it” situations, but consider this: the name of former Boston WEEI News radio 59 reporter “Chip” Whitmore came to me this morning in one of those transitional stages of slumber. Fully awake now, I write to let you know that Henry “Chip” Whitmore passed away in a traffic-helicopter accident, 1977, over the Boston area. Ironically, he and the pilot were standing-in that day for the regular traffic reporter and pilot — on vacation at the time. I cannot explain why “Chip” Whitmore’s name should come to mind all these years later. I did not know him. I had been working at the radio station only for a couple of months and had been working during a different part of the day. Something very evident in the days following the tragic circumstance though was that Whitmore was very popular among colleagues and other Boston broadcasters. I had to do a “Web-search,” this morning because I could not recall the exact date of the accident — December 27, 1977. However, I learned also of an interesting coincidence — Whitmore’s birthday just passed a couple of days ago, August 28. He would have been 66 years old. On a personal note, his untimely death led to my transition from freelance to staff anchor/reporter at WEEI Radio, that year – a promotion I could not celebrate.

I returned to “The World” 45 years ago, today after a year circling the globe, courtesy of the U.S. Navy. It was my first shipboard tour-of-duty, and by way of random chance it gave me opportunity to visit 10 countries in Asia, Africa and Europe — not to mention some special time in the Gulf of Tonkin and Da Nang Harbor in March, during Tet ’69. The Tet Counter-offensive ended in June. However, by then we were well into drinking cervezas in Rota, Spain and making a good effort to avoid the attention of General Franco’s Guardia Nacional (nice hats, by the way). Back in New York City, my plan was to surprise the family in the Bronx with an unannounced return. But I was the one who was surprised. Nobody was home. The family was on a road trip out-of-state. It was a good thing that I had my house key or I might have had to sleep on the porch on my Sea Bag. That evening, two younger cousins (Gregory and David) just happened to be passing by; saw the lights were on and stopped in. At least they were surprised to see me and kept me company for a while. While talking about this and that, they told me that there was some kind of big-deal, week-end concert and festival taking place upstate that began the night before, in Bethel, New York. Well how big-deal could that have been? Right?