One morning about a
month ago my home phone rang, and I picked it up to hear a familiar rasping
voice begin: “It’s Keeter.”
That much was
intelligible, but the rest of the message was muffled and broken up by the
regular aspirating sounds of the ventilator to which, as I knew, Terry Keeter, a
victim of pulmonary disease, had to attach in order to stay alive. I was able to
make out that he had a hot news tip that he wanted to impart, so we agreed
finally that I would drop by his Midtown address to say hello.
Once
I got there and was admitted by one of his attentive nurses, the “news tip”
turned out to be, as I had suspected, the same old, same old gossip about one
politician doing another politician wrong that Keeter and I had discussed two or
three times already — once via sentences he would chalk and underline on a
portable blackboard, tapping the words he considered most urgent.
On
that same occasion, I had asked Keeter his opinion of the work of several of his
successors reporting political news at The Commercial Appeal, his home
base for several decades, during most of which he was a local legend. He
scratched out his answers, and, when he came to a certain female reporter
(probably not the one you’re thinking about), he bore down hard and
energetically with the chalk.
I
looked to see. “Nice ass!” he’d written, underlining it twice. That was Keeter.
When I told this to the reporter in question, who has since moved on to other
work in another town, she was delighted. Keeter was old school and unregenerate,
and people somehow cut him extra slack. He drank too much, smoked too much,
cussed too much, and caroused too much, and there was no wonder that he’d
developed a serious case of emphysema that already had him somewhat hobbled by
late 1997.
That
was when he contracted the pneumonia that almost killed him and left him
permanently disabled, largely confined to his bedside or a wheelchair.
On
this day a month ago, he was holding a ventilator cord up to a hole in his
throat periodically to draw enough breath to make his next statement. The
arrangement took a little getting used to, but after a while, Keeter and I were
gabbing in earnest about old times and the past and present foibles of political
folks in the news.
As I
said in the obituary note I posted on the Flyer Web site last Friday:
“Until he was sidelined by illness, Keeter, 66 at the time of his death, was a
well-connected, well-informed reporter … who knew everyone in politics there was
to know, as well as everything they did worth knowing, both public and private.”
I had
learned of Keeter’s passing early Friday from Sylvia Holder, the elegant and
delightful former jazz chanteuse who is the mother of state Supreme Court
justice Janice Holder, Keeter’s friend and companion during his last good years
and his steadfast rock of support during his declining ones. These are the kinds
of associates, top-drawer by any estimate, who vouched for Keeter by example.
As
the impresario of the annual Gridiron shows, which raised scholarship money for
local journalism students, scathing satirist Keeter showed no mercy to members
of the local political community — a habit that carried over to his private
relationships.
Once
he and I were sitting around in a poolside group at the tag end of one of the
annual Republican women’s picnics, which drew a host of well-known local
politicians. One of them, who later held a high elective office indeed (and
whose identity I withhold here out of simple mercy) came over to bloviate.
Keeter listened to a little of this and finally exploded: “You’re not full of
shit, are you, ______?!!”
It
has to be said that the politician in question was always dealt with fairly in
print by Keeter. Maybe even generously.
The
story I like to tell that best expresses what Terry Keeter was all about —
sourpussed, salty, bawdy, agile-witted, and often hilarious — concerns another
time when he and I were sitting around a table with a group of political women
gathered at the home of the late Democratic eminence Bill Farris.
A
minor earthquake had just occurred, and people were giving their matter-of-fact
reminiscences of it when Keeter interrupted: “Hell, I was up at my cabin
masturbating, and I was just about to get off when it started, and I looked up
and said … ” — Keeter turned his eyes heavenward and fairly shouted the next
words — “Was it good for You, too!’”
Only
Keeter would have told such a story, only he could have got away with it, and,
for damn sure, only he would have presumed to link himself in such a way to a
cosmic circumstance.
I
will not presume to speak for the Almighty, but, as for his tenure among us mere
mortals, I can safely say, yes, Terry, it was good for us, too.
[i
Meanwhile, important things are
brewing on the political scene. Here are some of them in capsule:
At least one local insider contends
that a petition drive to force a recall election for beleaguered Memphis mayor
Willie Herenton could go mainstream. The effort is so far being advocated mainly
by local bloggers such as Mike Hollihan and Thaddeus Matthews.
Herenton raised eyebrows by being absent from last week’s Chamber of Commerce
luncheon and from a subsequent gubernatorial joint announcement with local
government officials by Governor Phil Bredesen. But Hizzoner was in good form at
his own annual Christmas party later in the week at the Convention Center, where
he reasserted his intention to seek another term. A potential opponent,
Councilwoman Carol Chumney, had a party the same night.
Between the two of them, they had one attendee from the council — Scott
McCormick, at the mayor’s bash.
A consensus is developing in
political circles that enough doubt has been raised about local voter rolls — at
a hearing here Monday and elsewhere — to make the state Senate’s decision in
January about the contested state Senate District 29 special election a tossup.
Republican Terry Roland is challenging the seating of Democrat Ophelia Ford,
whose election-night margin was 13 votes.
Two
possibilities, which overlap: The Senate (which has a one-vote Republican
majority) might void the election, calling for a new one, and the Shelby County
Commission might be asked to name an interim appointee.
Asked last month about the possible
incidence of deceased voters’ names remaining on the rolls, Election Commission
chairman Greg Duckett conceded to the Flyer: “If somebody died outside
Shelby County, it’s entirely possible they’re still being carried.”
The holidays are a lull before an
expected storm of candidate announcements for the 2006 election season. A likely
one: two-term Memphis school board member Wanda Halbert, for Juvenile Court
clerk.
On the eve of a decision
to be made by the Election Commission and county commission about purchasing new
voting machines, sentiment in Democratic ranks may lie with contender E, S & S;
that among Republicans with Diebold.
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