Godspeed, Edwin

Edwin O. Park, the most beloved copy boy to ever work at The Indianapolis News, died yesterday in a Hamilton County (Ind.) hospital. He was recently diagnosed with advanced cancer in his liver, bladder, colon and lungs. This seems an appropriate time to reprise the blogpost I did on March 21, 2007 when Maria and I were both working at the Crawfordsville (Ind.) Journal Review:

Last night, as I asked Maria to take a sports page proof that I had just edited across the newsroom to the sports editor, I flashed on the old days at The Indianapolis News when we wrote with typewriters and had copy boys to do all the gopher work.
In that bygone era, before college degrees were considered important, being hired as a copy boy at a large newspaper was a first step toward becoming a reporter. When you finished a story, or in the case of a breaking news story, when you finished a page of a story, you yelled, "Copy!" and a copy boy would hustle over to carry your news copy (hence the name) to your editor for his scrutiny. Copy boys also made coffee, distributed newspapers throughout the city room as the various editions came off of the press, and carried stuff back and forth from the newsroom to the Statehouse bureau about four blocks west when the Legislature was in session.
We had a variety of copy boys in those days ranging from a photographer's young son whose chief interest seemed to be getting drunk as often as he could so he could brag about it the next day, to a scrawny little hillbilly with a tough guy surly attitude, to a gay black kid who dressed up in women's clothing and cruised Indiana Avenue on weekends, to Edwin.
Edwin O. Park was at The News when I started on Feb. 6, 1967, and he was there after I quit in October, 2000. At least I think he was still there. I'd been working in a suburban bureau since 1985 and lost track of the folks downtown to a large degree.
Edwin, I was told, was a graduate of Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis who came down with some horrible fever that left him brain damaged with the intellectual capacity of a 10-year-old. We loved Edwin and reveled in his quirks and habits. And we collected "Edwin stories."
His wardrobe was a kaleidoscope of stripes, plaids, polkadots and odd combinations. One day he showed up with a particularly hideous combination of bowling shoes, plaid pants and striped shirt. Copy boy Tom Healy announced Eddie's arrival, saying, "Do not adjust your set!"
Edwin wore short-sleeved shirts with a pocket protector and a half-dozen ballpoint pens,none of which worked. He used a handcart to haul stacks of newspapers around the building for distribution and kept his distribution list in that shirt pocket.
One day when Eugene C. Pulliam, the owner of the paper and an Arizona resident, was in town to visit, Edwin arrived at the elevator at the same time as Gene.
Eddie had his arms full of newspapers and had no idea who Gene was. He glanced at Gene, who was dressed in slacks and a Hawaiian shirt, and told the owner, "Hit three for me, will you buddy?" Gene, being a good sport, pushed the button for the third floor.
Sometime in the early 1980s, Eddie's dad died. On the day of the funeral, Edwin came back to the office after the services, still wearing a suit. A reporter, expecting Edwin to be overwhelmed with sadness, asked him how it went at the funeral.
"I came out pretty good on that deal," Eddie said, brightly. "I got my dad's watch."
Edwin continued to live with his mother, riding a bus downtown from their home on the far northside.
One morning he was called to the phone. Watching him take the call, we could tell it was something serious. After he hung up, someone asked what was the problem. "That was my mom. I forgot to turn her oxygen on last night."
Wendell Trogdon, who was city editor at the time, was solicited by the author of a popular Book of Lists to offer the name of a distinguished journalist to be included in the next edition of the book. When the next edition appeared, there was a paragraph about Edwin O. Park, full of bogus credits, right after the paragraph on TV newswoman Jessica Savitch.
So it was no surprise last weekend when I got an e-mail from fellow Newsie Skip Hess, who had gone to the funeral of former News television critic R.K. Shull. Shull wrote a TV column and also responded to letters from readers in a sidebar called Shull's Mailbag. In characteristic fashion, the subject line of Skip's e-mail was "Shull's Bodybag."
Skip said he and another News alumnus, Gerry LaFollette, had dropped by the nursing home where Edwin now lives to tell him of R.K.'s passing.
Here's the text:
He was playing bingo in the dining room with 10 others scattered about.
"Got five quarters," he said when we walked up.
"G 48," said the caller.
"We stopped to tell you that R.K. Shull died and we are going to his services,"Gerry said.
"We had one die here," Edwin said.
"B 10," said the caller.
"They're dropping like flies, huh, Eddie?" I said.
"Well, see ya later," Eddie said.
Visiting time: 2.20 minutes