Gone with the wind

All this Oakland Press talk reminded me of a great story I covered in Pontiac back in March 1985.

A wet, heavy snowfall piled up on the roof of the Silverdome. As I recall the fans and pressure units in the Silverdome either were not up to full capacity or failed. Whatever the reason about 11:45 a.m. the large "muffin" cover over the Silverdome collapsed.

Ice and snow rained down onto the seats and field, nearly hitting Detroit Lions quarterback Eric Hipple who was playing a little spring pitch and catch on the Silverdome floor at the time.

Reporter Julie Jacobson and I heard the police dispatch and we headed out the door and into my car for the Silverdome. We were right on our final deadline.

Sidebar: Before afternoon newspapers were overtaken by computer technology our late deadlines ran almost to noon. Translation, we could get breaking news into the newspaper right up until noon. After all the great technology came to being, our deadlines slowly eroded until the afternoon paper had to be wrapped up by 8:30 a.m. Go figure!

Back to the Silverdome. Julie and I raced east on M-59 and I remember my reaction as we crested a hill and the familiar "muffin top" of the Silverdome was gone. "Holy, crap," I said.

Pulling into the expansive parking lot, we both rushed to find someone, anyone, who could give us a quick lede and quote so we could call in the breaking story.

By noon, Julie and I were at pay phones (this was well before we had cell phones) calling in to a rewrite person (Jean Saile, I believe) so we could remake Page 1 with the breaking story.

Photo editor Ed Noble, who was one of the finest newspaper photographers I ever worked with, wanted to get a photographer up above the Silverdome for an aerial shot. In those days, the Oakland Press was a Captial Cities/ABC property as was WJR radio.

WJR had a helicopter for traffic and the pilot requested we get permission for him from Silverdome officials to land on the Silverdome parking lot.

I found Clayton Jones, then the executive director of the Silverdome, sipping wine in the Elias restaurant in the Silverdome, but I was pretty sure if I asked him straight up for permission he would say no. Reporters learn that most people will naturally gravitate to "no" rather than yes. So the trick is to ask a question in such a way that "no" means "yes."

"Mr. Jones, if we land a helicopter on your parking lot you won't shoot it down, will you?," I asked.

Puzzled, Jones said he wouldn't shoot down a helicopter. That sounded like a "yes" to me and I told Ed we had permission to land, although if anyone knew how obtuse a question I had asked they probably would have fired me.

When the helicopter came down to the parking lot, Mr. Jones asked "who let that guy land here?" I reminded him that I had asked him about landing a helicopter and that he said it was OK. He looked puzzled, but didn't argue further and we got our picture.

During the next few days, high winds further shredded the roof leaving a $10 million roof in tatters.

In the weeks and months to come the story about the repair consumed a lot of our coverage, but I'll never forget that first few hours of that Silverdome collapse.

Next, I'll tell you about the "Fatal Attraction" lady in Rochester Hills who met Ed Noble and I in her "teddy" for a photo at her front door. Oh yeah, that was also a day to remember.