For thirty-three years Robert Curley worked as a reporter and photographer for newspapers in Rome, Oneida, and Syracuse, New York. In this colourful memoir he vividly recounts the many remarkable events and personal encounters of his long career and rich family life. Through a series of imaginary dialogues with his alter ego 'Win', Curley (aka Professor Quirky) examines the politics, history, and popular culture of the last two decades. There are opinions galore here, plus prognostications and some Irish blarney as well. One might assume that a newspaperman in central New York State would be confined to issues of only regional interest. But in fact Mr Curley had opportunities to meet and interview several world-class newsmakers, including Robert Kennedy; New York Governors W Averell Harriman, Nelson Rockefeller, and Hugh Carey; New York City Mayor John Lindsey; Henry Kissinger; Mikhail Gorbachev; and, author Alex Haley. Among the highlights of these meetings was a handshake and 'photo-op' with Mikhail Gorbachev, Henry Kissinger predicting in an interview that the Soviet Union would collapse, and a gift from Alex Haley of an unpublished chapter from his soon-to-be released biography of Malcolm X Many more similar episodes of interest fill this work, along with political commentary and much appreciation for his wife of many years and family of six children and numerous grandchildren.
