by Hoda Kotb
I did have a bad habit in New Orleans of leaving my personal checkbooks around the WWL newsroom. My desk, the assignment desk, other people’s desks. I can’t explain or defend it—it just happened. So, as a little joke at my going-away party when I got my job in New York, my clever colleagues made a trip to Kinko’s. They blew up one of my checks and had sandwich boards made for people to wear. News producer Tia Landry actually attached my real checks to her blow-up version and wrote “NSF” (nonsufficient funds). She wrote out others for $1,000,000. Priceless, right?
Check, please!
• • •
One might say that my current office at NBC is, well, flawed. I still feel sick to my stomach when I think about one particular incident that unfolded there. Remember the story I told you about earlier? When I was sent to Pakistan right after the September 11 terrorist attacks? Well, as you might imagine, I was rushing to get ready for my trip. So, naturally, I began jamming stuff under my desk. My theory was that if anyone walked by while I was overseas, my office would look decent. Keep in mind that I accumulate lots of papers, old scripts, old videotapes, work clothes, stuff that people send me, and other sundry items. Well, while I was gone, a horrible situation unfolded: A letter with anthrax in it was sent to the NBC offices. Many of the executives were told to clear out of their offices and relocate so an investigation and decontamination could begin. As fate would have it, one of the relocated staff members was then executive producer of Dateline, Neal Shapiro. He needed an office. And guess whose office was available? Yep. The office of Miss Amiss. Imagine your boss being handed the master key to your Closet de Chaos. In Pakistan, when I received word of the “relocation,” I began to calculate whether 7,000 miles was enough distance between me and New York City. All I could picture was Neal Shapiro attempting to maneuver around all of my shit. How’s he possibly going to carve out a place to use my mouse?! I panicked.
I had flashbacks of a trick played on me at WINK-TV in Fort Myers. The five o’clock anchors secretly sent a photographer into my apartment for their weeklong “Disorganized!” series. They surprised me live on the air with the “home movie” of my domestic chaos. Are you sensing a theme here?
Anyway, poor Neal. During a very stressful time at NBC, he had to work in a landfill. I imagined him jiggling his knees around under my desk, trying to find a tiny piece of real estate, and then bending down—looking under there . . .
“What in the hell?” he’d blurt out.
Neal did manage to peck out an email to me (I’m sure from a contorted position) that read: “I’m sitting at your desk and can’t seem to get tucked into it.”
Something like that. I may have blocked out the exact words, but suffice it to say, just seeing his address pop up on my BlackBerry screen was horrifying. Neal is a genius at what he does and is also a little hard to read, so after I scanned the message, I felt a disturbing mix of humiliation and relief.
Neal, may I say again that I am so sorry. (And I think you may have left a Diet Coke can on my desk. C’mon. A little help?)
Suck the Head and Pinch the Tail
People who live in New Orleans like nothing better than to watch you get “deflowered” by a crawfish. They love the look on a newbie’s face when all those legs and two black eyes approach the eater’s mouth. “Suck the head and pinch the tail!” they yell, training and taunting at the same moment. I remember my first crawfish, and I’ve lost count of how many I’ve sucked and pinched or pinched and sucked over the years since then. At first, crawfish are intimidating—and then they’re addicting. Sort of like the people of New Orleans. They’ll throw you off a bit when you arrive. I was so confused when I moved to New Orleans and people would say, “Where you at?”
“Well, I’m at right here.” (What?!) I would learn soon enough that “Where you at?” is simply “Hey, how you doin’?” I also learned that people in New Orleans desperately want you to love them and their city. “She loved that étouffée,” they’d say, watching me scarf down a bowl. “She loved it!” It’s almost like having an insecure friend who wants you to show her you love her again and again. And you’re thinking, This is the best city in the world. How could I not love it?
Having felt the pulse of New Orleans with my own two fingers for years, I’m now very protective of the city. I cringe when I see a typical movie depiction of the Big Easy. Oh, look—it’s three dirty cops in a swamp. Is there corruption? Is there crime? You bet. Just like in all large cities. New Orleans is just more transparent and open about it all. I’ve always preferred to focus on the city’s strengths and the huge hearts of the people who live there. One Sunday while working at WWL, I was scheduled to give a speech about the news business. I was provided a street address but hadn’t determined the exact location by the time I got into my car. Minutes later, I pulled up to a church. Oh—now I got it. I’d been asked to speak at a small, black church in a very rough part of town. We’d covered plenty of break-your-heart stories in the neighborhood. These congregants had been through a lot. As I walked up the steps, I began to feel overwhelmed. What could I possibly have to say to these resilient people, dressed in their lovely church clothes and fancy hats? I would normally talk about television and journalism, but somehow that seemed too shallow. When I walked up to the lectern, I looked out at the small crowd of about forty people and was speechless. I stood there in silence—and then I lost it. I stood up there and cried. That’s clearly not what they signed up for; but I cried. I felt so ill prepared. Then, an old black woman sitting in the front pew began to clap slowly. In her stylish hat and with her delicate, aged hands, she sat there and clapped. Then she announced to me and the congregation, “It’s okay, baby. You take all the time you need. We’ll wait.” That made me blubber even more.
The generous spirit of New Orleanians is admirable. I felt it from people who had everything and from those who had little. When I announced that I was leaving for the network in New York, people sent me the kindest gifts. One woman actually took the time to knit me a soft, warm blanket because she knew how cold it would get up north. I still get birthday cards from people there, more than a decade after I left. My connection with residents of that city is for life.
Karen
One of my favorite takeaways from New Orleans is a woman named Karen. (The same girl I was having breakfast with the morning people at work thought my apartment got rolled.) We met in 1993 at WWL when I was anchoring the ten o’clock news and Karen was anchoring overnight news updates. I loved her instantly. Karen Ronquillo is a drop-dead gorgeous, smart-as-a-whip, funny, caring woman who thinks she’s a plain Jane. It makes zero sense, but it’s an endearing quality because she has such a hilarious way of downplaying her extraordinary into ordinary.
“I feel fat. Look at these jeans. I ate a whole box of potato chips and I’m about to have another one . . . and I don’t care . . . and I’m not working out.”
But you still look like Miss America. What are you possibly talking about?!
Karen and I worked and lived in New Orleans at the same time for six years. We shared a love for the city and our jobs until, eventually, we both pursued new opportunities. I moved away first, to New York. Karen moved to Boston seven years later to coanchor a morning newscast. Miles don’t matter. Barely a day goes by that we don’t talk to each other. I hear from her almost every morning at 4 A.M. as she’s driving into work and I’m having my tea. This is a typical conversation: “God! A dead skunk should be pictured next to me on my driver’s license!” Karen says, dodging early-morning critters. “Dammit! I am driving through this hideous stink. What are all these skunks doing out here?”
Karen and me, 2009
When you talk every day, that’s the kind of ridiculous stuff you discuss. Funny how the mundane is actually the glue that keeps friendships alive. Time and distance have had no effect on the depth of my friendship with Karen, because we’ve been caught up on each other’s daily life for nearly twenty years. Along with a simple shared joy of knowing
each other, one of the many reasons that Karen and I are dear friends is that I’ve been lucky enough to be along for her ride, checking off the milestones of her life. And she alongside me. I was there when, as a WWL reporter, she spotted a handsome detective working a crime scene.
“Hoda, he’s sexy and looks like Hunter from the TV show!” she told me excitedly when she got back to the station.
Hunter was actually John, now Karen’s husband. I still remember her running to show me the ring when John proposed. Later, I knew of their struggle to conceive and then shared in their joy as they welcomed Catherine, their sweet daughter, into the world. Karen got to know my boyfriend in New Orleans, watched me marry him, and was there for me during my divorce. She’s close with my mom, my sister, my brother—the whole shebang of my world.
Karen is a big believer in living life with great depth. She loves deeply, her faith is rock-solid, and her passion for joy is strong. That’s why she gives me so much grief when I seek out more angst than life naturally serves up.
“Is that sad music? Turn it off,” she’ll demand over the phone. “Are those damn journals open? Shut ’em.” Karen prefers to listen to her darling Bruce Springsteen or watch a movie like Planes, Trains, and Automobiles that makes her laugh. “Why are you going to that sad movie? Why don’t you just go dive onto a hand grenade?”
This is the same girl, though, who I came across on her knees in my bedroom, praying to my dad and to Mother Teresa when I had a health scare. Karen is the whole ball of wax—someone you want in your life for the rest of your life. I think that’s why we never have and never will exchange birthday or Christmas gifts. We know that our friendship is the gift. Or, maybe we’re cheap asses. But I don’t think so. I know she’ll cringe when she reads this, but too bad. It’s payback for how great she’s been to me since Day One. Even now, with her busy life, she always makes time for me. If I’m having a lonely weekend, I’ll call and say, “Hey, what are you guys doing this weekend?”
“Book it,” she’ll say. “Book it now.” And then she’ll call me the next day: “Did you book it?”
I know she has a lot going on—a daughter, a husband, a job—and there’s probably a much better time for me to be dropping in on them. But she always says, “Book it.” Every single time.
I can only hope I’ve been half the friend to Karen that she’s been to me. When I make mistakes in my life, she stands by me. When I have a win, she celebrates it. And when I get on the bandwagon of something I really love, she rolls with it. For about a month, I talked ad nauseam about a book I’d read and fell in love with called The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. I talked about the rewards of living in the now as if I’d found the Rosetta stone.
Karen’s take on the concept, as we shared a public restroom in Boston, was “In the now, I’m pulling the toilet paper off the roll,” I heard echoing from the next stall; “In the now, I’m flushing the toilet . . .”
That’s exactly who I want in my life for the rest of my life.
I love you, Karen.
Big Easy, Big Personalities
Along with my best friend, in New Orleans I also met one of my favorite characters in the city. He was a Big Easy native named Harry Lee. Residents also called him Sheriff Lee. They elected him in 1979 and reelected him six more consecutive times. Lee, an outspoken Cajun-Chinese American who said it like he saw it, certainly had his share of controversy in office. That’s one of the reasons why Harry got reelected so many times—New Orleanians like their politicians spicy.
Do you remember in 1991 when former governor Edwin Edwards was in a gubernatorial runoff debate with David Duke, the highly controversial neo-Nazi and former Ku Klux Klan leader also vying for the governorship? Local news anchor Norman Robinson was mediating the debate and said to the candidates, “We’ve heard you guys talk about how different you are, but what do you think you have in common?” Edwards, known as a lover of the ladies, answered, “The only thing we have in common is that we’re both wizards beneath the sheets.” The voters loved it and Edwards won reelection by a landslide.
Sheriff Harry Lee was that kind of voter’s dream, and was as well-loved as his long-time city colleagues Harry Connick, Sr., the district attorney, and Frank Minyard, the city’s coroner. The three men combined have served the citizens of New Orleans for more than ninety years. In every other city I’ve worked, the local politicians lived relatively low-key public lives. Not so in New Orleans. I remember the first time I walked into a nightclub and saw Frank Minyard on stage, blowing a trumpet. My God, is that the coroner? I thought. I would watch Harry Connick, Sr., prosecute one of the biggest cases in New Orleans, and then there he’d be, moonlighting as a crooner at a club in the French Quarter.
Harry Lee died in 2007 after a short battle with leukemia. To this day I’m reminded of him when I look at the several Harry Lee magnets on my refrigerator door. He had them made every year—the Fat Harry one year, the Slimmed-Down Harry the next. He was such a character, such an original. Several years ago, I had to fly back to New Orleans to cover a murder mystery for Dateline. Part of our story included an interview with Sheriff Harry Lee. When we wrapped up, Harry said to me and my producer, Soraya Gage, “Hey, I wanna give you two some Harry Lee dolls.” Harry had look-alike dolls made that year. He brought out a big box and gave it to us. We said our goodbyes and threw the box into the trunk of our rental car. As usual, we raced to the airport to make our flight back to New York. We dropped off the car, boarded the flight, and watched as the mobile air bridge was rolled away from the plane. All was going as planned, as we taxied back from the gate. Then we felt a jolt. The pilots had put on the brakes and the plane lurched forward. We began to feel the aircraft changing directions—this time back toward the gate. We could see that the ground crew was rerolling out the air bridge to the plane. What is going on? we wondered.
Wild about Harry (with his wife and son), Chinatown, New York City, 2004
Imagine this sight: a Jefferson Parish sheriff’s deputy came bounding up the steps of that air bridge and onto our plane. In his hands, the box of Harry Lee dolls! In our hurry, we had forgotten the dolls. Turns out, the rental car company had found them and called the sheriff. “Hoda left her dolls in the trunk, Sheriff. We got ’em.” You have got to love that passion. Soraya still tells me how her sons used to fight over who got to be Superman and who got to be the beloved Harry Lee. Steven Seagal can relate. During an appearance on the Today show, Steven told me what it’s like to live in the shadow of Harry Lee. He said that each year, Harry would ask him to ride aboard a Mardi Gras float with him. “I used to hate it,” joked the action-movie superstar. He said that invariably people would yell from the crowd, “Who’s the guy up there with Harry Lee?”
It’s tough to top Harry. He was a big personality with an even bigger heart. Just ask my mom. Whenever he came across an article about me in a magazine or newspaper, Harry had a blown-up wall hanging made of the feature. He did it for my mom and sent her several over the years. Even after I left New Orleans. She still has two hanging in her apartment and one at our beach house. For me, he’d often send a beautiful framed poster celebrating that year’s Mardi Gras. What a guy.
Right before I left New Orleans, Harry took me out to lunch at Commander’s Palace in the Garden District. At the end of the meal, he stood up. The sheriff then proceeded to sing in front of everyone in the restaurant, a well-known tribute to his city.
“Do you know what it means, to miss New Orleans, and miss it each night and day . . . ?”
I had tears streaming down my face. Frankly, his version was not that great, but I was so overwhelmed by such a dear and genuine gesture. And yes, Harry, I do know what it means to miss New Orleans. After six years of waking up to the clip-clop of the buggy horses’ hooves, walking to Croissant D’Or for incredible coffee, running along the banks of the Mississippi River, and watching men wear panty hose for Mardi Gras, my heart has given the city its key. Even now, when I fly in or
out of New Orleans, the longing is palpable. My heart pounds.
That’s why it broke so fully in 2005.
10
HURRICANE KATRINA
I have watched plenty of tragedy through a camera lens, but in 2005, for the first time, it was my job to tell horrible stories about the people I knew personally and loved dearly. That August, when Hurricane Katrina left her watermark on the Gulf Coast and all of history, I was working at the network in New York.
I was in California getting ready to interview Raquel Welch for Dateline. News of a building Hurricane Katrina was swirling about the airwaves and newswires. The monster storm’s rage was directed right at New Orleans. I was calling my bosses at the same time they were calling me. I knew I had to immediately leave the West Coast and fly toward the storm. NBC knew New Orleans was my “backyard” and I could find my way around. If I needed, say, a boat in a pinch, I could get one. Nothing would keep me off that story, and only now can I say that I truly had no idea what a tale of terror it would become. (I never did interview Ms. Welch.)
The NBC News crew and I got to New Orleans by flying into nearby Baton Rouge and driving an hour and a half to the ravaged city. Our first stop was I-10 in Jefferson Parish, where rescue crews were dropping off people they’d plucked from rooftops and remote areas. It was simply a spot on the highway that became the epicenter of chaos for tens of thousands of people. Buses would stop by, load people up, and head off to somewhere—anyplace but there. The rain was pouring down, there were no bathrooms, there was no food, no water, no medical supplies. People had been stuck on that highway for days.
“Hoda?” A familiar face I couldn’t place was suddenly standing next to me. “I’m the principal of Bonnabel High School. You spoke at our graduation.” She gestured toward a woman slumped down on the ground. “My mom needs insulin.” Then another man. “Hoda, I’m a cashier at Circle Food. My dad is over there . . .” There wasn’t enough of anything and too much of everything awful. I knew these people—they were my neighbors, my friends.