I know two people who have been on the Today Show, for very different reasons. The first is Wendy Goldman Rohm, a Chicago area writer and teacher who wrote books on Bill Gates and on Rupert Murdoch and rode her book tour right in there to appear with Katie and Matt.A book tour sounds glamorous to me who has never been on one. I imagine I’d love the attention and all the stimulating questions, but Wendy says a book tour is a pain. Apparently answering the same questions all day for weeks gets a little grating. On the plus side, they can never take the Today Show away from her.
On a trip to New York several years ago I spent an hour on the plaza at Rockefeller Center watching the show unfold. I watched Katie, Matt and Al out on the plaza chatting. I could look right through the window and see right where the couch is where the interviews take place. I can just picture Wendy – or me – there. This knowledge has proved most useful in my subsequent viewing.
Celebrities must count on that couch, the makeup, the bright lights to make them look their best. They always look so pleased to be perched there awaiting their segment. Last year I saw a real Today Show celebrity shocker however. All morning they had been teasing an upcoming interview with Kevin Spacey, and when they came back from commercial, there he was on the plaza with them out in the elements, as if he was a visiting weatherman. Kevin Spacey is a Big Star and should have been on that couch. He seemed to agree and made a sad crack about being kept outside. I bet he won’t be back at Today very soon.
My second Today Show personality, Emily Kohl, would curl the hair of any parent, which is probably why her story made such a splash. She would remember me only as a basketball mom. I remember her as the scrappy little guard who year after year watched every other girl grow taller and then taller yet. In response, she grew scrappier and scrappier. And that would be where my awareness of Emily would end if not for one post-college venture.
Two years out of college, six years after she had last seen Emily, my daughter received an email. Emily was raising money so that she and a friend could buy a rowboat to take them across the Atlantic Ocean. This is a super fortified industrial strength rowboat that costs upwards of $50,000 if I remember right, a bit over the budget of a couple of post-college young women.
It turns out that there are enough people driven to cross the Atlantic in a rowboat to fill up an entire race, complete with radar, communications equipment and people on shore to monitor progress. Remember when we used to fear that we were raising little girls to be timid weaklings? Cross that one off the list.
They raised the money, launched the boat, and were making decent time 46 days into the race when they were swamped by a 20 foot rogue wave. The boat turned over, water rose inside the cabin and Emily’s foot got entangled. She managed to free herself and pull out two life jackets and a sleeping bag. Despite all their grit and confidence, they couldn’t right it and had to withstand the elements and hold on for dear life.
That’s when the people on shore proved their mettle, summoning a nearby ship filled with young students in a classroom-at-sea project who sped over and picked them up – seventeen hours later.
The fact that these plucky young women had drifted all night, perched on their upside down boat in 10 foot swells and 30 knot winds, wondering when (or if) help would arrive appealed to the morning news cycle. The fact that the rescue ship shot video of their predicament and their relief at being rescued didn’t hurt. There was even a subplot: What did the family go through waiting for news? As a matter of luck or grace, Emily’s parents had been traveling and heard nothing of her peril until it was over.
So there was Emily and her rescue on the Today Show while Katie Couric, a mother herself, shook her head in alarm. Some days later, when they could make it to New York, both girls sat on that couch, getting far more attention than Kevin Spacey.
In case you breathed a sigh of relief as I did and figured that such a bullet-dodger of an experience would be a once in a lifetime thing, I need to tell you that a couple of years later they did it again and completed the race without a hitch, for which they received much less notice.
I get a boost from Emily’s story, something about embracing the thrill of riding the waves instead of huddling in fear on the shore like the rest of us. If I hear that she is trying it again, I’ll probably send another check, shake my head and hope that it comes out okay, and that her parents have another trip they can go on. And hope that my own daughter sticks with kayaking.
CBH 04/09
