Every year Western Kentucky University sponsors something called the Mountain Workshops. Dozens of photojournalists pay to go to some little town in Kentucky and photograph the people and the place for a few days. They work with professional editors and hopefully learn a little about visual storytelling. At the end the faculty produces a nice book of their photographs as a keepsake.
One year WKU asked Randy and me to lead the editing team in producing the book. Any time I got a chance to work elbow to elbow with Randy I took it. He was one of my very best friends, ever. The first year we were in some little southern Kentucky town. I really don’t remember the name.
But we ended up having to do high-end production work in a barn at the county fairgrounds. We had these huge Macs sitting on rickety folding tables on dirt floors. We had to set up an editing room using blue tarps as walls to get some privacy and keep the photographers from looking over our shoulders and slowing us down.
Randy and I promised ourselves at the beginning that we would deliver a finished book before we left. We got it nearly finished but we left some work on the table and we were pissed at ourselves. Neither one of us was used to failing.
WKU invited us back the next year and the workshop was in Muhlenberg County. I remember that because John Prine once wrote a song about it. This time we were on a military reservation and they hated having us there. We understood. Having to host the “liberal media” was very uncomfortable for them. What we didn’t understand was all the yellow police tape they set up to block hallways and entrances where we had no interest in going.
This time Randy was more than ready. He had templates designed for the cover, table of contents, inside pages, everything. He made it so easy it was like a paint-by-number book. Also WKU added our good friend Mark Edelson to our team that year and he was the best picture editor in the country. We worked until about 4am every night and it’s funny . . . you get tired but not fatigued working with those guys.
The only problem was we were Scotch-less in a dry county and that wouldn’t do. It was 80 miles round-trip to the nearest liquor store and none of us wanted to drive it. We drew straws over breakfast and I lost. I came back with a big bottle of Clan McGregor the only Scotch the liquor store stocked. Clan McGregor is described as a good value for the money and sipping a glass or three of the Clan became a nightly ritual for the three of us.
We had the book project on track and Mark needed to leave and get back to work. So Randy and I stayed an extra day to finish the book. Like it always goes there are a ton of details to finish a project like that but we got it done in the early morning hours on the day we had to catch our flights.
We were housed in a row of barracks on the base. It was arranged so that each room shared a bathroom with the room behind it. When you needed to use the can a bright light would go on in the adjacent room to prevent any embarrassing encounters.
In the early hours of that last day Randy and I were sipping our last scotch together when the light went on. Some poor grunt was in there grunting and all of a sudden Randy was energized. He jumped to his feet, eyes twinkling brighter than Santa Claus and excitedly announced “We have a visitor!” I asked if he’d met his potty partner. “No,” he said. “But I’ve been trying. I’ve been slipping notes under the door all week and he won’t answer.”
