Mornings With Barney by Dick Wolfsie (e book reader .TXT) 📕

Katie Couric did a spot for Carnival Cruise Lines and a bad batch of calamari wiped out the entire early seating. That puts Katie in a very awkward spot that evening reporting the news.

Barney changed the rules. We were both for sale.

The first gig came out of my middle-age crisis. I had wanted a motorcycle, but my wife said I could take piano lessons instead.

We compromised and I took the piano lessons. I signed up with a well-known instructor at a music showroom up the street from the station. It was always mortifying to sit outside the teacher’s studio waiting my turn only to hear a well-rehearsed seven-year-old playing a Mozart concerto. I also knew full well that the seven-year-old who followed me would have to listen to my rendition of “Born Free” for a fifth consecutive week.

Barney accompanied me on every lesson, trying to snooze in the corner of the room. Whenever I played, I imagined the scene from Our Gang comedies when Butch, the black-eyed mongrel, would cover his ears and eyes with his paws when there was an unpleasant stimulus.

After several months, I could play “Born Free” and maybe two other songs, but the owner of the store thought it was cool that Dick and Barney were at his studio taking lessons. And so, the first print ad was born, a photo of Barney and me on the piano stool with the tag: “If Barney and Dick can learn to play the Clavinova, anyone can.” The ad was a hit.

Requests for Barney (and me) to do personal appearances started to climb—even from corporations that had local ties to Indy but were headquartered elsewhere. This often led to some confusion....

“Hello, may I speak to Barney Wolfsie?”

“Excuse me?”

“This is Cal Larson from CVS Pharmacy in Minneapolis. I’d like to talk with Barney Wolfsie, please.”

“Yes, he’s here, but look, he’s a dog. Do you still want to talk to him?”

(Long, long pause.) “You say he’s a dog? There must be some mistake.”

“Well, I don’t know whose mistake it would be. We both feel pretty good about the whole arrangement,” I’d reply.

(Another long pause.) “This is CVS Corporate and we’re opening a new store in Indy. The store manager has a budget for a local celebrity to appear and he gave us Barney Wolfsie’s name.”

“Well, this is Dick Wolfsie.”

“Do you work for your brother?”

No matter what I said, it didn’t seem to sink in, like I was talking to an Irish setter. He wouldn’t let go. “Hmmm. Does Barney make personal appearances?”

“That’s the only kind he makes!” I said.

“I see. Would he be available on August 18 at around 2 PM?” CVS Corporate was not taking “no” for an answer.

“Let me check my calendar. Yes, we’re available.”

(Another pause.) “Oh, do you go with him?”

I explained the situation again, and again, and again. I thought I had finally made it clear. Barney and I made our appearance that summer. We stood in the doorway and greeted customers. Many had indeed come by to meet us in person. Although, based on the age of the turnout, the sale on Depends might have been the bigger draw.

When I received the check from CVS Corporate, you guessed it: it was made out to Barney Wolfsie. The next day at the bank, I anticipated trouble. Barney still had a hell of a time using a ballpoint pen and we had never opened an account for him, despite his ample income. I put Barney’s paw print on the back and countersigned it, and the nice people at Bank One cashed it for us.

Contract Sports

Every year or so, depending on the length of my contract at Channel 8, it was time to see how much more money I could squeeze out of my employer.

I would nervously walk into News Director Lee Giles’s office and edge into my seat in front of his desk. At that point, Barney would hop into the chair next to me, sitting straight up in his seat. Barney never snoozed during these discussions. I don’t think he trusted me. I was kind of a pushover in this area.

I liked the fact that Barney was with me because he was a visual reminder that I brought to the table something different—a shtick no other reporter had. And Barney always liked being brought to the table. The week before the meeting, he’d made his contribution to the cause during an early morning snowstorm. Luckily, that day Giles was in the control room.

This was generally a bit early for the blue suits to be at the station, but bad weather meant huge ratings. Even non-TV viewers gravitated to the screen for school closings and driving conditions, so our coverage of the inclement weather could be used to attract new watchers and distinguish ourselves from the competition.

During my segment, I tried to give a sense of what the situation would be like for commuters. On this particular morning, snow had drifted several feet in spots, and I was standing knee deep in a pile of white stuff to demonstrate its depth. Suddenly, I heard Giles screaming in my ear from the control room. “Where’s Barney? Show how deep the snow is compared to a beagle.” I am confident this was the first time in TV history these words were ever uttered by a news director.

Barney, who had been trudging along sniffing the snow like a pig searching for truffles, plowed chest first into a drift. The snow was up to his neck, his head now poking out, his nose twitching like a man smelling bad fish.

“Perfect,” said a gleeful Giles, in love with his last-minute decision to use Barney as a yardstick for people deciding whether to don galoshes or chance it with loafers. Once the segment ended, Barney retreated to the car and barked to get back inside.

Lee was right. The next day in the supermarket, a procession of people in line to buy salt and snow shovels asked if Barney had