Where I Was the Day Nixon Resigned

Do you remember what you were doing 51 years ago on August 9, 1974, the day Richard Nixon resigned the presidency?

Thanks to the website newspapers.com, I do.

The website allowed me to look up all the stories I wrote as a rookie cop reporter for The Times of Thomasville, NC. I’d been on the job for two months when Nixon quit.

I contributed to two Nixon reaction stories that ran on an inside page.

One story said Davidson County leaders, like the mayors, the president of Carolina Underwear Co., and the owner of Joe’s Sandwich Shop, were “uneasy” about Nixon’s resignation.

The other story quoted regular people and said “Resignation no surprise to Chair Citians.” (Thomasville was called The Chair City
because it was a furniture town.)

I also wrote some regular cop stories, such as "Jamestown man faces 14 counts resulting from high-speed chase" and "Man gets 4-month term for theft of hosiery." (No, he didn't snatch the tube socks off somebody's legs. He ripped off a few cases of merchandise from a warehouse.)

August 9, 1974, is also a major date in my life as a fiction writer, because that’s the day my novel, “The Accident Report,” opens. The central character, Ronald Truluck, is a young reporter itching to find a homegrown scandal, since the paper he works for, The Eagle of Millerton, NC, only covers local news.

To be fair, the paper I actually worked for back then, The Times, did carry national and international news, but did it in a very weird way.

The Times editor didn’t allow local news on Page One. He called it “the wire front” because it was full of Associated Press stories and nothing else. When Nixon quit, the wire front was all Nixon and the top  headline said, “Ford becomes 38th President.” The headline the day before roared, "Nixon resigns, Ford's oath at noon."

Stories I wrote went on “The Local Front,” which was usually the back page of the A section, or were scattered around the inside pages. It seemed wrongheaded to me even then, but what could I say? I was green as grass.

When Nixon quit, I was proud to be a newspaper reporter, even though I was only a buck private in the Woodward and Bernstein brigade. Unlike Ronald Truluck, I never tried to be an investigative reporter. I was happy writing crime news and finding a weird story now and then.

But Watergate provided a lively theme that runs through “The Accident Report.”