AADL Talks To Veteran Ann Arbor News Reporter Bill Treml

Thu, 10/20/2011 - 1:00pm

Bill Treml spent forty years at the Ann Arbor News working the police beat--"chasing cops and robbers," as he puts it. In that time he saw and reported on many of the stories we remember: the Coed Murders of John Norman Collins, UFO sightings, a bank robbery in Ypsilanti that left one police officer dead. Much of what we remember we remember from what he wrote. We got a chance to talk to Bill about some of those stories and what kept him at it through all those years. Treml's self-effacing manner cannot hide the fact that he went places most of us have never gone and witnessed things most of us never want to see. He stood in mud in his pajamas at murder scenes. He chased down paddy wagons. He took a front row seat to riots. He sat across the table from one of the worst serial killers in Michigan's history. Treml shared his stories of years as a reporter and told us what it takes to be a great reporter in any age of news reporting. 

Transcript

• [00:00:01.83] ANDREW: Hi, this is Andrew.
• [00:00:03.21] AMY: And this is Amy. And in this episode, AADL talks to veteran Ann Arbor News reporter, Bill Treml.
• [00:00:14.65] ANDREW: Bill Treml was a reporter on the police beat for the Ann Arbor News for nearly 40 years. We talked to Bill about life in the newsroom, covering big stories like the John Norman Collins murders, and what it takes to be a great reporter. When and why did you choose to go into journalism?
• [00:00:34.16] BILL TREML: I don't know, I guess when I was a kid. I always thought it was very romantic. I used to see movies with reporters with long coats on and I thought, I have to have one of those coats. And I don't know, I always had a yin for it. And I'd read every newspaper. And in my infantile wisdom, I'd say, that isn't right, that should be written differently. Criticism, 15 years old, you know everything, right?
• [00:01:05.79] But no, I always liked newspapering. And finally, Butler University, they play basketball down there, I understand-- I mean, they missed by that much-- said we'll take a chance on you. You sound pretty dumb. But they took me. And it was the best start I ever did. I mean, they taught me a lot of things down there. When you graduate on Monday and you get married on Saturday and you have no job and no money, that's dumb. But that's what I did.
• [00:01:43.10] Anyways, first newspaper job was Richmond, Indiana. Richmond Palladium-Item, owned by a very eccentric millionaire who hated the British and hated-- what else did he hate? Hated the Indiana State Police because they wouldn't unload the trucks when they were overweight. Now, that's a world-shaker. And then the United Nations, it's a wonder they didn't collapse, because when the wire stories came over that said the United Nations, all the copy desk guys had to put United Nations in lowercase letters. He didn't want it in capitals. I'm sure that shook them. And of course his hero was not god or anybody, it was McCormick, that ran the Chicago Tribune. And he thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. And we hated the Tribune, but he loved it.
• [00:02:35.25] What he used to do is have his editor-- the poor guy died of a stroke, naturally. He used to have him put the Chicago Tribune and the Indianapolis Star and our morning paper beside each other on a desk. And he'd compare. And if the Tribune had something that, naturally, we didn't have-- we were a one-horse operation-- he'd call up the managing editor. I wonder he didn't have a stroke long before. He'd be on the phone to him for an hour, saying, well, I see the Tribune had that and we didn't have it, and the Indianapolis Star. No, those papers circulate half a million. We're at 50,000. And anyways, that was one of the things. And the eccentricities of the man was amazing. I shouldn't talk about the dead, but he was a case.
• [00:03:26.32] And then after four years there, chasing cops and robbers, I applied at the Ann Arbor News. And Art Gallagher, now long gone, but a great guy, he hired me. And he said, well, he says, what would you like to cover? I said, I've been doing cops and robbers. He says, you got it. So I did cops and robbers for, I don't know, a number of years. And that slid into the court cases, the court beat.
• [00:03:56.82] And somebody asked me one time, what about the job? Well, he says, I never got up in the morning where I hated to go to work. I loved to go to work. And of course, we had a system there which is highly illegal now. But the cops would call me. They had my name on their list. They had a fatal or something. They'd call me, 2 o'clock in the morning, throw the pants on over the pajamas and go. And there was always a wise guy. Cops are wise guys, right? Sometimes they'd see me and they'd say, oh, Treml, you got some new pajamas on, I see.
• [00:04:31.31] But anyways, we got to the scene and all that. And of course when the John Norman Collins thing was going, that was great because I was not always but a lot of times first on the scene. And one victim was up there Northside near Concordia College. And well, I got a call from Krasny god rest him, police chief, nice guy. He called me at 11 o'clock in the morning, and he says, we found another body. So I went to the desk and Bob Romaker-- he's gone too. I said, Bob, Krasny says they got another body. He looked up at the clock and he says. They can't, it's 11 o'clock. Our deadline is 10:30, you know.
• [00:05:16.39] I felt like saying, should I have him hold her? He said, well, you better go out there with Stubbs. Well, going out with Stubbs is an adventure. And the best clicker I ever saw. I mean, personality, good-looking guy, and he'd take over the interview. I'd just sit there. But he was good. So he and I went out there. And as we started out there, we saw the plain police car with Krasny in it and the deputy chief and a couple other big wheels there. And we followed them all the way out. And so we got there, Stubbs says, look at that. The cops, very meticulous, like German Nazis, they put little flags on the path leading to the body. And Stubbs says, look what they did. I says, let's go up there. They don't know if Krasny's given us permission, or Harvey or anybody.
• [00:06:07.12] So we snuck up there, Harvey, Stubbs, and I. And he took multiple pictures. And then he said, let's get the hell out of here. So we did. And Romaker says, well, you know it's an hour past deadline, we're holding the press. I love that term. I used to hear it on movies. You know, hold the press. But we never held the press. But he said, well, we'll delay it, so go ahead and write it in takes. Well, a take in those days was one graph, one paragraph. And I would do a paragraph, and he'd come over. Just like the movies, he'd rip it out of the typewriter and he'd edit it and send it out to composer room.
• [00:06:49.85] Well, that's a pretty neat trick, except you've got to remember what you just wrote. You know, it shouldn't fall apart. So I'm writing like mad, trying to get this thing. And of course, being on the scene, if you're not a total idiot, you can kind of absorb what's going on without taking notes. So I had a very good story going there. And all of a sudden the phone rang. It was Stubbs. At that time, the photography department was in the cellar. I don't mean the basement-- in the cellar. And he says, Treml, the advance wasn't working on the camera. I got no pictures. I says, Stubbs, you're killing me. And I went back there and I told Romaker.
• [00:07:31.17] He says, well, you guys gotta go back out there. Well, that's very nice, but you see, the vultures from Detroit are circling around. And soon as we get out there, they're there. So Stubbs says, I'll take a long shot. Anybody can take a long shot. That's two miles away. But no pictures of the actual scene, except what he took. So anyways, that was one of the misadventures that happened. It happens all the time.
• [00:08:02.18] But the Collins thing was good. It never got off page one there for, I don't know, 10 days or something. And then sinners and idiots are guided by God, because after he was arrested in September, October, the trial was until June. They kept him in jail, and interrogating and all that. So it comes June, and somehow the court reporter, the circuit court reporter who covers all the good stuff, is gone. I mean, he quit or had been shot or something. Nobody knows. But anyways, the desk says, you want to cover the Collins trial? And of course, naturally, the thing is, is the Pope Catholic? Of course I want to cover it.
• [00:08:51.71] So that was the best court experience I ever had. It was a six-week trial. And what we did was-- it's like the movies. You go to the trial until the break at 10:30, and then run to a phone, because we had no cell phones. You had to run across to the hotel and get some nickels-- and I told Romaker, you gotta pay me; I'm using my own money here-- and then call it in, and from the top of your head what happened in the first hour and a half.
• [00:09:21.48] Then you go back, cover it till noon, go eat, come back, and then you go until 5 o'clock. Well, that was easy, because then you could go home and eat and then come back at 8 o'clock at night and work till 2:00. But you've got all that time. When you were calling it in, you gotta get giddy-up, get it done. And so it was good, because we had some jurors that were-- well, drawing the jury was a thing. They had 220 prospective jurors, and they had all kinds.
• [00:09:58.06] There was funny people that were on there. They had this one guy, he owned a bar in Chelsea. And of course they asked the usual questions. Now, at this moment, do you think John Norman Collins here, do you think he's innocent? And the guy from Chelsea says, no, I think they should hang him right now. Boom, he's gone.
• [00:10:19.29] Well, they were down to 10 prospective jurors. They'd kicked off that many. And finally, they set a jury trial. And of course I'm skipping the major part, is that Collins had Joe Louisell, an old mob attorney, grandfather type-- glasses, graying hair. And then Neil Fink, who was a young Mustang. This guy, I wouldn't ask him the weather because he'd kill ya. So Joe Louisell would visit with him. He said, we're just going to visit to the witnesses. And he'd groan on and get their confidence. And once in a while, he'd get a little kick in there. And he'd say, now my colleague here, Mr. Fink, is going to question you. Ugh. I mean, you want to drop out the window if you're--
• [00:11:07.45] So Fink was in there, and he rips and tears. And I'm telling you, if I was charged with murder, that's the guy I'd get, because he'd either get you off or get you a nervous breakdown. He was good. I mean, he cut them up. And of course, Bill Delhey, late Bill Delhey was the prosecutor. And Booker Williams was his assistant. And Delhey was an old-shoe type. I mean, the guy's an old farmer, what he is. But he'd go very methodically. And Booker Williams had the scientific part of it. They had a good team going.
• [00:11:44.35] But anyways, the jury went out. The jury was sequestered, locked up in a hotel. And they used to march up Huron street, and we used to look out the window and see them going to the hotel. And they were locked up and they were taken home to get clothes, and having a deputy there, make sure they don't talk. And of course they couldn't see any newspapers or anything. So anyways, they were out I think six and a half days. I believe that was six and a half days. And of course, that's hell on wheels. Six and a half days, what are you going to write about? The jury's out. Well, I was out yesterday too, you know.
• [00:12:18.93] So we waited and waited. And finally they said, a verdict's coming in. Fortunately, the Ann Arbor News building, which is now owned by a bank or something-- that's a shame. They should make a monument there or something. Anyways, it's only a block down, so we'd run down there and get the verdict. And guilty as charged. And they sent him back to jail, [INAUDIBLE] Jackson. And then Delhey and Fink and Booker Williams went to dinner. They had a peaceful lunch, I guess, or something. Anyways, it was good.
• [00:12:58.47] And they found him guilty. So naturally, when John goes to Jackson, he's a celebrity. And they don't like celebrities there. The cons don't like celebrities. So they had to lock him up, I don't know, separately for a while. And some brainstorm on our desk said, I don't know, a couple years later, how about getting an interview with John Norman Collins? [INAUDIBLE] why don't pigs fly? Of course you're not going to get an interview, because some furniture dealer in Dearborn was going to film a thing about Collins, and Collins says, I'm gonna sue, you can't do that.
• [00:13:31.38] And he got the word they were gonna sue, they were going to make the film, is a guard, his daughter was doing something with newspaper work and told him. So the guy pulled off and said, well, I'm not going to make the film. So again, we had some super brains on the desk. They did not know how to open the door. And they said, well, now you can get an interview with Collins. I says, yeah, I could be a millionaire tomorrow too, but I ain't gonna get it. Yeah, well, go ahead and try.
• [00:13:59.92] So I called this gal. I forgot her name, nice lady. Department of Corrections, she was the PR. So I called her and I says, well, Connie or whatever her name was, I says, I hate to ask you, but my brains are down here asking. She says, I'll call you back. So about an hour later she calls back. She says John Norman Collins says he'll talk to the Ann Arbor News and Treml. Me? Who am I? I'm a little two-bit reporter.
• [00:14:32.00] Stubbs and I went up there. One of the first questions I asked him, I said, why us? Well, he says, my lawyers told me that you did a fair job. I didn't do any more fair than the Free Press or anybody else, but he thought so, and that was good enough for me. So we went through a bunch of questions. And of course John says, I never knew the girl, I never dated her or went out with her. And of course that's kind of thin when you've got two eyeball witnesses looking out of the wig shop and seeing him on a motorcycle waiting for her, waiting for Karen Sue Beineman. And so we went on quite a bit. And then Stubbs is taking pictures, and then Stubbs conducted his own interview. And I shut up, because Stubbs is better than I am.
• [00:15:18.39] So he asked a bunch of questions. And so we got through there. It took about an hour and a half. And we came out to the deputy warden's office. I hate those titles. Those titles scare me. The deputy warden says, John-- and he took the camera out of Stubb's hand, the deputy warden. He goes, John, if you don't want this published or whatever, I can open this camera and take the film out. I thought Stubbs was going to drop dead. I mean, Stubbs is not just a picture-taker. Anybody can take a-- I used to take pictures. But he's an artist with a camera. He got them in every angle. And boy, we started talking.
• [00:15:54.84] And I told him, I says, John, this is not going on a tomato soup can, it's not going on advertising, it's to tell your story, and it will strengthen the story by you having a picture. He says, well, I don't know. And the deputy warden says, John, you don't have to sign this, you don't have to sign it. I thought to myself, when will this guy get out of here and leave me alone? And so John finally signed it. And we got out, and Stubbs says, let's get out as fast as we can, because they're going to change their minds. And I don't know if you've ever been to a Jackson Prison, but it's a scary place. I mean, they got walls and they got doors and they got guys with guns, and agh.
• [00:16:33.09] So Stubbs and I got in the car and started back. And it was snowing, so it had to be the winter time. And we looked back, and you looked back at Jackson Prison, and there's the snow coming down and these guard towers. And talk about your Alfred Hitchcock setting. Wow. And anyways, we got back, and I wrote. We ran it on two consecutive days. And one of them was a column that I wrote about me and Stubbs. Naturally, I give Stubbs all the credit. But I says, as we were leaving the premises, Stubbs shivered, and I understood that. I mean, it's a scary joint.
• [00:17:16.98] Anyways, so we went back there and wrote the story. And we were the first. I hate to brag. I'm not a brag. We were the first media to interview John Norman Collins. The Free Press, The Detroit News, Time Magazine went up there three or four-- trying to get him to talk, and he said, I'm not talking to you guys. And he talked to us. And of course after that the floodgates were open. Every jerkwad or weekly around went to see him. And he relished it.
• [00:17:44.02] But of course John was what the prison guys call an escape risk, because he was always doing something. His mother, she died of cancer when he was in there, but she used to bring him green money. Well, in the joint, you can't have green money. You gotta have scrip. And so he'd hide the green money, and they'd find it, and he'd get confined. And then he did some other things. And he was notorious.
• [00:18:11.77] So the other cons knew it. And the trouble with that was that John had a very good personality, has a good personality. And he would con the guards. Imagine conning a prison guard. He would. And the deputy wardens and all those would get nervous, because old John, he was a charmer. So next stop, Marquette. Marquette's a tougher joint. And then John had a screwdriver and a sewing machine, which is contraband. And he another guy were starting to tunnel out. Why would you tunnel out of Marquette? It's just woods. There's bears up there.
• [00:18:49.01] And he's tunneling, and they find the tunnel. And well, he had some confinement again. So then he goes to Ionia. I don't know how many prisons there are in Michigan. I suppose there are a dozen. He was in every one, because they'd shift him. They'd transfer him. And at one point, he had dual citizenship in Canada, because his father was Canadian, his mother was American. And under a treaty at that time, if the United States had a prisoner from Canada and they had a prisoner from the United States, they could swap. The only thing is, murder in Canada, if you swap to, like, Collins, they'll lop off five years or more. I don't know, quite a bit. So old John, he figured it out.
• [00:19:36.52] And he had his lawyer or somebody write a letter to the minister of justice in Ottawa, and said, hey, I'm a Canadian citizen. I want to serve my time in Canada. It's my homeland. He was a better writer than I was. I mean, he really did. So they sent the thing up, and the minister of justice says, you don't know Collins from Schmollns, so he signs the thing. So they sent it to the governor. I forget who the governor was. Milliken, I think. And he was ready to sign it, and we heard about it.
• [00:20:08.53] And I called Delhey. He says, what? Yeah, I said, he's going to Canada. You lost your fish. He says, we'll see about that. So he calls the relatives of a couple of the victims, and they petitioned right away, and a big hearing or something, and they canceled it. So John almost got out, but not quite. And that was a pretty good story there, because nobody knew that this petition was up for him to get out.
• [00:20:35.86] AMY: Did you find yourself uncomfortable around John? How were you able to deal with what you had to write and how you personally felt about this man and the situation?
• [00:20:46.20] BILL TREML: Well, John, he makes you comfortable. I mean, he talks. He laughs and gestures. And I felt like I knew him, and that's how he did it. That's how he charmed people. No, I wasn't uncomfortable with him, and neither was Stubbs. Stubbs had a few little jokes in there about his girlfriends and all that. If he sat down at this table, you'd think he was great. Of course, now he's pretty faded. He's been through so many prisons and so many things. But he's a very, very nice guy.
• [00:21:29.23] ANDREW: Did you cover each of the murders as they came up?
• [00:21:32.79] BILL TREML: Yeah.
• [00:21:33.11] ANDREW: Were you at the scenes of each of them?
• [00:21:34.53] BILL TREML: Yeah.
• [00:21:34.93] ANDREW: Is that pretty unusual to get to cover a story that's that big and cover it from the beginning to the very, very end?
• [00:21:42.45] BILL TREML: Actually, it's unheard of. And if I didn't have a friendship with the cops, it'd never have happened, because I got sued. The Ann Arbor News got sued and we got sued. And one of the questions-- Postill, the late Sheriff Postill sued us. And one of his defense attorneys said, when I was on the stand, I was on the stand for two days. I almost had a nervous breakdown. He says, oh, Mr. Treml, I understand that your telephone number at home was on the desk of the police. And I said, yeah. So he asked the same question of the city editor.
• [00:22:21.00] He said, did you know that Treml's telephone number was on the police desk? And Bob Romaker says, I would hope so. That was the end of that. But yeah, if you didn't have a connection-- of course, everybody says, well, it's easy to cover the police, you just read the report and write it down. That's nothing. I mean, you got a sophomore in high school, he or she can do it.
• [00:22:47.44] Where you make your gains is after the paper's gone and you're back there in the afternoon and there's nothing doing and you wander around the cop shop, go to the detective bureau or wherever, go to the chief's office. If it was Harvey, you go to Harvey's office and hang around, and you somehow-- if your personality isn't blah-- which mine was, but I fought it-- you can get some pretty-- I learned more about how to roof a house and change a tire and raise chickens than I ever wanted to know. I didn't care about that. But you talk to them about it. They start talking, and they remember you.
• [00:23:26.22] So when something happens, they say, well, he's kind of an idiot, but I'll call him anyway. So it's fashioning a relationship. And some of these guys that come in from Time or even the Detroit papers, they don't get it. They're here and they're gone. And the cops know that. They're not going to do me any good ever. So they come in big as life, and they're, hey, I'm from-- well, the New York Times come out here, and they say, I'm the New York Times. Yeah, so what? So anyways, you gotta manufacture a relationship with you.
• [00:24:05.66] And some of those cops, most are very good guys, and some are really idiots. And you gotta sort them out, and gotta sort the-- and that's another thing. They didn't slip you stuff that wasn't on the record and be off the record. Well, the brass in my office would say, well, don't take anything off the record. I said, well, who's covering it, you know? I'll take it off the record, because if I wrote what they told me, I'd get that story. That'd be the last story I'd get. So I felt like a novice priest, because I had some secrets there that weren't out and I didn't tell the boss. Why should I tell him?
• [00:24:47.62] ANDREW: Are those relationships, is that what you liked about working the police beat and the courtroom beat, is that you got to know those people?
• [00:24:54.50] BILL TREML: Oh yeah. The whole thing is a human face on them. I mean, you know them. Dale Heath was a detective lieutenant with the police department from Milan. And he died of cancer, nice guy. And I used to tell him, Heath, all you are is a Milan hay-shaker. You're a farmer. And he'd laugh. He'd think that was great. I says, you're not even a cop. I mean, why aren't you out milking cows or something?
• [00:25:23.32] And we'd have a great to-do about it. And with the court, the same way. With Delhey, you know, Delhey knew what was going on. And I'd go in his office and we'd talk things. And the defense attorneys, even the public defenders. The public defenders, they want to change the world. Well, you're not going to change the world, but they're gonna try. And they were pretty good guys. They were all right.
• [00:25:51.47] I'd tell him, man, you've got two chances on this trial, I mean, zero and none, so you watch. And once in a while, they'd pull one out. But when you're going against Delhey and some of his sharks, they're-- boy. Well, Brian Mackie, Brian Mackie is the prosecutor now. When Mackie was fourth string on the bench, Delhey would jerk him out of the bushes and put him on cases where he was like Neil Fink. I mean, he was a shark, and he'd go after him. Delhey would turn him loose, more or less. So he was a specialist. And when he became prosecutor, he does a good job, as far as I know. I don't see him very often. But he was good, he was good.
• [00:26:42.55] AMY: You have a reputation for being very fair and reporting the facts, but you also had a column. "As I See It" was the name of it, for a few years in the '70s. And it generated lots of hate mail.
• [00:26:54.39] BILL TREML: Ooh.
• [00:26:55.06] AMY: Why was it so controversial?
• [00:26:56.40] BILL TREML: Well, you're living in a la la land here. I mean, left-wingers are falling off the cliff. And you get anybody that's right-wing or conservative, they don't like you. Had a professor, a literature professor. I mean, nine degrees. And he was a smart guy. And he was so far left, I couldn't believe it. So I'd write these columns, strictly right-wing, no question about it, colored. And he'd write a letter to the editor blasting Treml. Oh, why do you keep that man on your staff? Well, that would incite me. Don't incite me, because I'm easily incited. I'd write another one, worse than the first one.
• [00:27:39.71] And we had a thing going there for, I don't know, a couple of years. And finally, he left. I don't know why he left. It couldn't have been me, because I loved him. But yeah, I had a lot of fun writing the column, because, well, for instance, they used to have, near August 6 every year, some peace outfit here would float little boats down the Huron River in commemoration of Hiroshima. And it was honoring the dead, and against the thing.
• [00:28:14.77] So I wrote a column. I said, hey, you should honor the war dead. How about Bataan? How about Guadalcanal? This froze him. I mean, he didn't like that at all. I mean, floating things down a river, it's all right, but it's for the wrong purpose. What about the GIs who got slaughtered over there? What about that, you know? Hey, give me a break. If you're going to be fair and honest, give both sides. That was the column. It was fun.
• [00:28:45.65] AMY: When the news stopped the column, they wrote, "The point of view Treml has expressed in his Sunday column has created suspicion about the credibility of his news reports." Do you think that that was accurate or fair?
• [00:28:57.53] BILL TREML: No, absolutely not, and I battled it. Of course, naturally, I lost. I told the brass up there, I said, hey, if I can't cover a beat and do it honestly and write a column too, put on another hat and say what I say, you should fire me. You shouldn't say, oh well, he can't do both. Sure, I can do both. I did both for four years. And well, that was another thing.
• [00:29:30.18] One of the sheriffs, Sheriff Postill, he came up to Ann Arbor News, and he met with the city editor, and he said, Treml's writing all the bad about me and none of the good. And I'd like him taken off the beat. So they called me down to the conference room. Conference room? Nothing like this. You got the cafeteria's where it was. They were eating chow there while we were trying to change the world.
• [00:29:55.75] And so Romaker says, Bob, Sheriff here says you're prejudiced against him. And I says, no, I'm a mirror of the community, reflecting fully, accurately, and completely. You know, that whole jazz thing. So when Postill left the building, Romaker comes up and says, what do you think? I says, tell you what, he says if I'm giving the guy short shrift, get me off the beat or fire me or kick me out the door. But as long as I'm on the beat, he's gonna get the good and the bad. And I told him that in the conference. I says, Fred, you're going to get the good, but you're going to get the bad too.
• [00:30:33.59] Well, for instance, he had a bank robber. What happened is-- no, no, no, that's not the story. This guy was robbing a convenience store, and he had a sawed-off shotgun in his pants. And while he's running out the door, the shotgun goes off and blows his leg pretty good. And so he jumps in a car driven by his brother-in-law, and they go zipping down the road. And the cops get them and bring them back. And they have to take him to the University Hospital. And he's almost emptied his leg. I mean, his foot. But they patched him up. And so when a prisoner is in a hospital, the county must pay his expenses.
• [00:31:16.45] So the Sheriff says, we shouldn't do that. We'll let him go, let him pay his own expenses. So one of the judges, when it came before the judge and told him that, the judge says, he's going to run. You shouldn't do that, Sheriff. And he says, no, I'm going to release him and he'll come back. So he signed the release, got out of the jail, was gone for five days. Nobody knew where he was. And so we didn't find out anything about it till after it was over, after they'd got him back.
• [00:31:47.75] So I wrote a story. You know, Sheriff tries to save money, loses a prisoner. He's a felon. He's a robber, a shotgun. So the next morning after that story was written, I go to police department. I don't know why cops do this, but you have to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning to talk to them. So I'm there at 5 o'clock in the morning at the jail, and the sergeant on the desk says, can't give you any reports. I says, why, nothing happened last night? He says, no, the Sheriff's orders. You get them from him only.
• [00:32:22.01] So I said, OK. And they had a pay phone there, and I had some change, so I called his house. And this is 5:30 in the morning. And I says, Fred, you coming down to give me the reports? He says, no, no, I don't come in until 9 o'clock. I said, OK. So that day, we had one paragraph, Sheriff refuses to give police reports to the Ann Arbor News. It ran for two days. The third day, the wraps were off, the embargo was lifted, and I got the reports.
• [00:32:49.64] But if I was a public official, the last thing I'd do is fight with a paper. Good lord, what did the mafia in Chicago say? Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel. Don't do it, because they're gonna get ya. They're going to have the last say. Curry them a little bit. Flatter them or something. They're so dumb they'll think it's all right. So it's a fine line you draw. You gotta be friends with cops, but you can't be too friendly, because they're going to con you, because they're in the con business.
• [00:33:24.65] So anyways, it was a very interesting career. I'm sorry it's over. I'm sorry I retired. But I was kicked out, really. Anyways, Petykiewicz, a lot of people didn't like Petykiewicz. I liked him. I'm a dumb Czech and he was a dumb Pollock, and we got along good. And when I went in to give notice, he wrote a memo to all the machines in the city room. He says, Treml came in this morning and told me something I never wanted to hear, which is the best compliment I ever got. Usually, they want to, hey, when you leaving? You got another job? Because we had fun. We had a lot of fun.
• [00:34:12.38] ANDREW: There were times, and your various tribulations with Sheriff Postill are part of those times, when instead of reporting the story as a reporter, you become the story? How do you feel about those instances when all a sudden the articles were about you?
• [00:34:30.01] BILL TREML: I didn't like it. Now the shoes on the other foot, right? I'm blasting these other guys, and now it's me. Well, it was uncomfortable because I thought I was doing the right thing. And of course, the trial, the libel trial, each juror-- it was a six-person jury, a civil trial-- were questioned. Do you have any favoritism or bias against the Ann Arbor News? And they all said, no, not us.
• [00:35:00.29] Well, one of the women in the trial, her daughter had been busted in a drug deal, and I wrote a story about it. She didn't say that. So they go in there, and there's one guy on the jury and five women. And they deliberate, I don't know, two hours or someone like that. They came out for $1 million.
• [00:35:21.63] And I told our lawyer, I says, I'm going to have to work a long time to pay that. So we appealed that. And the trial judge was out of Lansing, because all the judges knew us, of course. And the trial judge made a ruling on it. The appellate judge said the settlement of $1 million shocks the judicial conscience. You can imagine what it did to me. So we appealed that to the court of appeals. And Mary Comstock Reilly-- I don't know if she's living or dead, but God bless her. She wrote, I don't know, a 10-page thing saying, while Mr. Treml may have had ill feeling against Sheriff Postill and Postill ill feeling against Treml, there's no showing in this case of actual malice, which is knowing something's wrong and printing it anyway.
• [00:36:22.26] So in other words, the lawyers on the trial, they get 33% or 1/3 or something. So 33%, and he had two lawyers. 33% of nothing is nothing. That's what they got. And it cost us, I don't know, $60,000. Chicken feed. Anyways, I was exonerated. I hate to say it. But we told the truth. What he was suing about, of course, was the wedding reception at the Chelsea Fairgrounds. His deputy was getting married or something. And they were all drinking, and he got-- Basil Baysinger was a deputy, and he got Basil Baysinger outside, and he says, you've been telling Treml stuff about the department. And Baysinger says, no, not any more than anybody else. I just see him every day.
• [00:37:18.44] And he says, yes, you were. So they got in a fight. Postill gets knocked down the stairs. And a couple others got-- it was a pretty good fight, I guess. So anyways, they filed a felonious assault against Postill, and that got thrown out. But that's what he sued on. He sued on because the headline was-- I don't know what the headline was. He didn't like it. He didn't like the stories either about the fight. So he sued on that basis. And the thing was going for $1 million.
• [00:37:59.92] One of the lawyers asked, says, I want $1 for every American soldier who was killed in all the wars. What has that got to do with the price of eggs? I mean, so Jack Garris, he was the defense attorney for Baysinger. He turns around and he points at me and says, that man's a veteran. What has that got to do with it? I was in the Seabees. We built airstrips and stuff. We didn't kill anybody. So anyways.
• [00:38:30.39] ANDREW: Did the paper and the company stand by you through that whole thing? When that lawsuit was filed, did they say, we're going to take care of this, we're going to make sure that this is handled?
• [00:38:39.63] BILL TREML: After they make the call to New York and New Jersey, our Newhouse headquarters, because they're a bunch of-- they should wear skirts, because they were so afraid. They had one case where this con was arrested in Detroit. Well, he's from Ann Arbor. So I wrote a story saying they found a gun. Well, they didn't find it on him. They found it in the house. So he sued. He told some jailbird, I'm suing. So he sued, and our lawyer here said, let's fight him. He's got no standing. So they said, no. New York says, no, no, give him $3,000. They gave him $3,000.
• [00:39:20.24] He's waving the $3,000 around all the time saying, look, I beat the Ann Arbor News. Well you can't do it. You gotta pick your battles. You can't just flip over for every little two-bit suit. If it's big, fight it. If it ain't, don't.
• [00:39:40.51] AMY: The 1960s and early '70s in Ann Arbor were very turbulent times. You were covering sit-ins and demonstrations and UFO sightings.
• [00:39:49.46] BILL TREML: Ooh, yeah.
• [00:39:51.19] AMY: I'm wondering, aside from being great stories that you got to tackle, plus the John Norman Collins trial and all of that coverage, how did that influence your writing or your work as a reporter? Or did you come in and leave that era the same? Or how did it influence you?
• [00:40:11.79] BILL TREML: Well, it changed, because this was almost a revolution in the streets. They were throwing bricks off the top of the building and everything else. So it's got to shape your writing against them. I hate to say that, but these are hippy dips from New York and everyplace else. You can't be totally impartial. I don't know, Jesus Christ was totally impartial, but he's the only one. I mean, you're going to be influenced by something. And I was influenced, no question about it.
• [00:40:47.75] Well, Harvey, Harvey the nut. Among his other talents, he was a racecar driver from Manchester. I don't know if you heard about that. So he's racing the racecar and a piece of metal flies up and gets in his arm. And they have to bandage him up. And he goes to a doctor, and the doctor says-- this is one night or two nights before the riot. And the doctor says, Doug, he says, I got that piece of metal out of your arm, but you got to keep it stationary. I'll put you in a sling. Don't move the arm, because it'll cause a blood clot. And Harvey, strictly a con man-- Doctor, I'll do just what you say.
• [00:41:27.76] He could have said, Doug, go do handstands and he'd do it. So anyways, then the riot came. So everybody figures, well, Doug, he's in the hospital or something. So coming down the South U, here's all these 2,000 wackos. And coming down the center of the street is Harvey, the arm in a sling, and he's got a teargas gun. And he's got Tom Kelly, his deputy beside him, and he told Kelly, you keep loading the gun for me, because he couldn't use both hands.
• [00:42:03.65] So he's shooting this tear gas down the street. It's like a snow blizzard or something. And they march all the way down, and the hippies go right and left, so there's a passageway down there. Get down in front of the president's house. This is the president of the University of Michigan. This is old Robbens, a pretty good guy, but too soft.
• [00:42:27.78] So Harvey fires a tear gas shell, goes up, hits the tree, this beautiful tree in front of the president's house. Boom, the whole street is covered with tear gas. And Harvey says, I guess we'd better go. Anyways, but just an aside, of course, Harvey was a guy for the times. I don't care. He was criticized. He said he was a Gestapo and all that. He had to be that way or else it would have been worse than ever.
• [00:43:02.94] I mean, a kid come in that was arrested, one of the hippies come in the jail, he had the American flag sewn on the seat of his pants. Harvey was there, and looking out his office he saw him. The deputies didn't have to escort this kid up into the thing. Harvey took him by the nape of the neck, up the stairs. The kid's feet never hit the ground, into the lockup, and he says, book him on something. So old Harv was something. It was the best eight years of police coverage I ever had with him. He was good.
• [00:43:36.25] ANDREW: Was it beneficial in covering those things to form relationships with some of the subjects of those stories too, like John Sinclair and the White Panther folks, or people from SDS?
• [00:43:46.52] BILL TREML: Never did. I should have, I suppose. But they really didn't want to talk to-- I guess maybe they knew who I was or knew what the paper was. They wanted to talk to a left-wing paper that would tell what they wanted to tell. And I wouldn't do that. I mean, I just wouldn't talk-- I guess I talked to Sinclair once or twice. But they wanted it edited very carefully. And call a spade a spade. I mean, if they're doing something, you say it. You don't cover up. And I wouldn't do that for Harvey either. I mean if he was doing something wrong. But it's a fine line, but you've gotta do it. I mean, that's the name of the game.
• [00:44:26.01] ANDREW: How did you feel about covering those stories like the riots that would put you in harm's way as much as anybody else?
• [00:44:32.88] BILL TREML: Well, the only harm's way-- we always had a little rivalry with the radio guys. The radio guys, we'd say they were rip-and-read guys. They'd read our stories and say them on the air. Well, we were going down the street there that time with the-- I guess behind Harvey or Krasny or somebody. And somebody grabbed me by the arm and threw me almost against the wall. It was a radio guy. He says, that guy was throwing a brick at you. I said, jeez, do I owe you something now, radio guy? He says, yeah, you owe me something. So yeah, when you're a target for some of those nutcases, you wonder, what are you doing here? Why am I here? Well, you're here to cover the story.
• [00:45:21.90] It just sort of reminds me of the many, many stories of newspaper guys who are covering wars, and they're told, don't go in this area, it's dangerous, and they go in and get killed. Well, the point is, if you get killed, who's going to write the story, dummy? I mean, stay alive, be a coward a little bit, and then come back with the story. That's what I always did. Keep your head down.
• [00:45:44.18] AMY: Did you feel that Ann Arbor was more conservative than it claimed to be? And also the news, did you feel that the news was a more conservative paper, and did it become more so over time?
• [00:45:56.84] BILL TREML: The news was never conservative enough for me, because we had a succession of editors after Gallagher, and they were liberal. And I oppose that. So what can I do? You're a reporter; you don't oppose the boss. But well, for instance, it was an editorial written about Jane Fonda when they had to evacuate a store down there because there was a bomb threat and she was showing some of her stuff. And we wrote an editorial saying that's terrible that they had threatened her. So I sat me down and wrote a counter-editorial saying, yeah, it's terrible, they shouldn't do that, but what about her sitting behind an anti-aircraft gun in Vietnam and collaborating with the enemy, which is a federal law, how about that?
• [00:46:45.09] So I wrote the thing. It didn't get in, of course. I got a note back from an editor who said, we do not criticize our own editorials. Well, of course you should. I mean, who are you? Are you Jesus? I mean, your editorials are not God-given. And their editorial was all one-sided, And I didn't think that was right. So when I retired, the only thing I could do was write angry letters to the editor. Some got in.
• [00:47:15.99] AMY: How did you feel about the closing of the Ann Arbor News?
• [00:47:18.70] BILL TREML: I think it was a total tragedy and a back-alley deal. And I don't care if they're paying me a pension or not, they did wrong, because they got together in New Jersey or New York or something-- and this is my scenario of it. They said, we have seven Michigan newspapers, which one will we close? Well, start with Muskegon. Muskegon's a slum. Let's face it. Flint, they don't make cars there anymore. There's nothing going on. Jackson's barely making along. This Ann Arbor News was a cash cow. Two major universities, Eastern and Michigan, two major hospitals, all kinds of stuff coming out, research. They got Dr. Francis, their polio vaccine. These are world stories.
• [00:48:07.22] And they said, no, I guess we'll close the Ann Arbor News. I'd like before I die an explanation. In that conference room, what were you talking about, talking about the pizza or what? I mean, did you know where Ann Arbor was? I don't know. I don't know, that's just me. But I think it was a total tragedy to have a city of 100,000, no newspapers. How are you going to see if the cops are doing it right, or the counselmen, or anybody? Nobody's going to watch you if you're not there. So I think it was a total bad. And of course, if they ever heard me say this, they'd say, hey, you don't know the business decisions we have to make. I understand that. You gotta make a buck.
• [00:48:50.32] We had the chief accountant for Newhouse newspapers or Booth newspapers, used to come here every year and go over the books. His name was Dick Diamond. I thought that was a great name for a figure guy. One time he came and he was there. He was there two days checking the register or something. And so the next day, we had a staff meeting. I hated those staff meetings. They all talk about what they're going to do. Well, let's go out and do it.
• [00:49:18.46] But anyways, and [INAUDIBLE] was there. And he said, Dick Diamond was here yesterday. And everybody kind of shivered. And he said, he said that the Newhouse newspapers, the Booth shareholders are making money, but they're not making enough money. So it's the bottom line. You want to run a newspaper, you don't run it if you go broke. I understand that. But do it right. Don't be closing saying, oh, we only made $99 mil. They sold a building up there for $9 million. That's just a building. That's with the toilets and everything. So I go on.
• [00:49:59.51] AMY: And your thoughts about the newspaper industry in general today?
• [00:50:02.95] BILL TREML: Well, everybody else says it; I might as well say it. It's a dying trade. I mean, you got television, you got the rip-and-read boys have now graduated to instant news, and you got the cell phones are working the double. I mean, there's a few people in America who like to open a newspaper and read it, not very many. In the old days, they'd circulate 400,000. Now they're down to, what, 100,000. It's a dying trade, but they did it themselves.
• [00:50:33.24] How they did it? The typographical union, these are the guys who make the type for the papers, they had a big international meeting in Denver, Colorado. This was years and years ago. And whoever it was said, tell you what, you'll sign a contract here that you'll let us put computers and computer electronic stuff in your papers, and we'll go along.
• [00:50:56.50] And they said, oh yeah, do it. And they killed them. There's no printers anymore. There's no line of typers. I mean, they're all gone. It's all on the computer thing, so they killed themselves and killed us along with it. It's a shame, because papers are the life blood. I mean, somebody's got to watch the crooks and the good guys. But no more.
• [00:51:20.65] ANDREW: You won a lot of awards over your years as a journalist. When you were writing stories, did you ever sit there and think, boy, this is one that's going to get noticed? Somebody's going to see this one?
• [00:51:32.11] BILL TREML: I thought almost everything I wrote in the column, that's a prize-winner. Of course it wasn't. I mean, you make grand on your own-- you've gotta have ego to be a reporter. You can't be shrinking back and say, oh, I'm not very good. I'm good. I'm good. I used to tell the desk, this is great stuff if I do say so myself, and I do say so. And I don't know, in the back of my mind, the things I thought were good, should have been prize-winners, they threw them out. They said, nah, no, that's garbage. So I never bothered too much thinking about getting prizes. But some fell my way and some didn't.
• [00:52:14.86] The prize I remember-- it wasn't a prize. Sportswriters get prizes, right? They're writing sports. What a horrible job to have, to write sports. Years ago, I talked to Art Gallagher. I says, how about if I did a color piece on the 500 Mile Race? Well, I was at Butler University, so I knew about it. And he said, well, I guess so. So I went down there. And I was so stupid. I sat in the stands and I had a little pad and I tried to follow what was going on.
• [00:52:43.84] And finally, Wayne DeNeff, god bless him, he said, Treml, don't they have a press box there? And I said, oh, maybe, yeah. So he wrote a letter and I wrote a letter. And next thing I know, I'm in a press box. Gee, you can see the whole track, 2 and 1/2 miles, and see the pits and everything. I wasted about five years in the blazing sun with the slobs and the beer drinkers and all that.
• [00:53:07.60] And I'd be up there in the press box. And of course, there's 110, I think it is, places in the press box. And all these guys got computers, and they're all knocking on the computers and everything. And I'm doing it on a 42-year-old typewriter. And they don't know what it is. They say, where's the screen? And so what I did was write the story. The race is going on. I'd make some notes, and then I'd write the story. It's a color piece. It's not who won or the speeds and that. And then I'd call it in. Well, you've seen the old movies. They're calling in a story. And I was really a freak down there.
• [00:53:49.31] They said, you're going to call in a story? Why don't you do it on-- I said no. So anyways, I did that. And for 33 years, I was down there doing that. And one year, somebody submitted it to the AP. It won first place in the sports writing category. The sports writers at the Ann Arbor News were furious. They said, we're covering the Dexter Dreadnaughts and Eastern Michigan. I says, hey, class will tell. You know that. Because it was all about James Whitcomb Riley and the Hoosier sky and the Purdue band. And I always remember that phrase, this gentle land of pond and field. And the sportswriters, they were just grinding their teeth. What is that? What are you writing? I'd say, you know, that's good stuff. That was a good break for me.
• [00:54:42.47] AMY: So the UFO sightings in 1966, if it wasn't swamp gas, what was it?
• [00:54:49.54] BILL TREML: I guess nobody will ever know, but Frank Manner said he was on maneuvers in Louisiana, World War II, and he said, I saw a lot of swamp gas down there in Louisiana. He said, this wasn't swamp gas. This was not. And I told him-- I think the year before he died. I said, Frank, if you ever get anything like this, call me. He said, I got your number, and he died on me. Yeah, that was a sideshow.
• [00:55:17.33] And the astrophysicist they hired to Air Force. He was riding around with the deputy the night before he had this big press conference down in Detroit. And the deputy's saying, jeez, I'm working double shifts and all that. And the doctor-- I forget his name. He said, you think you got troubles, I've gotta explain what this UFO is, and I don't have a clue. So the next day, he gets up there and he says, oh, it was swamp gas. It was a kind of a laugh. I mean, it was such a break from the gore and the crooks and all that.
• [00:55:58.28] AMY: What was the toughest assignment that you had?
• [00:56:00.58] BILL TREML: Toughest? I think some of the fatal accidents. And the survivors are there, and they're crying or going to the hospital. And you're sticking your nose in where you shouldn't. But some of those-- I can't think of any particular one. But there was a lot that you wonder, why am I doing this? And there's ways to do it. I mean, some of these yahoos from Detroit come in there and stick a microphone in a person's face or say, how do you feel? Well, I don't know, I just lost two kids. How do you think I feel? You gotta couch your words a little bit. And I was able to do it, but it was pretty hard.
• [00:56:38.44] Or when a cop gets killed. When Doug Downing-- he was an Ypsilanti patrolman. He was killed over there. Well, when that went down, it was, I don't know, 3 o'clock in the afternoon. So they cleared the newsroom, except me. They said, oh yeah, send the photographers over there and get a couple of reporters. And I'm just sitting there. And I knew the guy. I knew the department. And finally-- and this was a guy, he was on the desk and he never should've been. He was a hard-head. He's dead now. So shh, don't talk about the dead. But anyways, finally, the last minute, everybody's over there. He says, Treml, you want to go over there? I says, yeah, I'll go over there.
• [00:57:18.21] Well, by that time, it's World War III. All the people around there, they got the barricades up. And of course, the FBI's in bank. And so Jess Foley, god help him, he was a big, Black Ypsilanti cop, and I knew him pretty good. And I come up to the barrier where all the people are. And he says, hey, Treml, you want to go in the bank? I says, yeah, Jess. He says, get under the wire.
• [00:57:44.79] Went under the wire. I went in the bank, and there's the bank. This is, I don't know, two hours after the robbery. There's Doug Downing laying on the ground, on the floor, with a blanket over him. And there's the tellers being interviewed. And I'm there, and I ain't taking no notes. I mean, I'm smarter than that.
• [00:58:03.62] And I was in there maybe 20 minutes. And a manager says to one of the FBI guys, who's that guy? And of course he knew me. He says, I don't know who he is or how he got in here. He said, well, get him out of here. I don't want him in here. So I got booted out. So I get in the car, come back. Jeff Frank was on the desk then. And he says, you got a sidebar. I says, I got a sidebar. So I wrote a story about inside the bank, probably the best color story I ever wrote. There was Downing there. And Downing's wife, of course, worked at the Ann Arbor News. And they had to take her down to Krasny's office, and Krasny told her that Doug got killed.
• [00:58:44.19] And anyways, I wrote the story. And it was a good piece. And it didn't get a prize. I never got a prize. But it was a good piece. That was a hard story to write, because I'd seen him the morning before. We were talking about cars, because cops talk about cars all the time. And I'm there at 7 o'clock in the morning, and he says, you know, you can under-power a car if you have too few cylinders in. I says, Doug, I don't know nothing about a car except sometimes they don't run. And he always asked about the news and that. And then when he's dead, it's kind of hard. But you do the job, go home, and cry.
• [00:59:32.19] AMY: I read that story. It was really good.
• [00:59:34.36] BILL TREML: Did you?
• [00:59:34.85] AMY: Yeah.
• [00:59:37.37] BILL TREML: Romaker said at one time, he said yeah, sure, I was covering then the Sheriff's department and Ann Arbor Police. And he said, what would you think of covering Ann Arbor Police, Sheriff's Department, Ypsilanti Police, Michigan State Police, Pittsfield Township I said, you're kidding. No, no, you can do it, you can do it. So I did it. I did it for a while. I mean, I'd stop at five different police agencies, and not getting them mixed up. And some of these cops don't know you. So it went on and on. But there was always something. I'd always dig up something.
• [01:00:12.98] AMY: Can you give us a little character sketch of Art Gallagher, talk about him?
• [01:00:18.56] BILL TREML: Just a gentleman, just a nice guy from the old world. I mean, some of the editors I've had, they shouldn't have been editors. They should've been prison wardens or something. Art Gallagher was a gentleman from the top down, all the way. I never heard him swear. I don't think he ever smoked. I don't think he drank very much, if at all. And he was just a kind guy, a very kind person.
• [01:00:45.30] And you could talk to him and he'd never get-- I mean, if you were in there ranting and raving, he'd calm you down. And he was just a good guy. One time I remember he had this woman. She was a mental patient, and they had taken her license away. And she went up to Gallagher, to Gallagher's office, and she's pleading to get her license back. And of course Art said, well, I don't know, we can't do anything.
• [01:01:10.09] So when she left, he says, Treml, you know, she cried on my desk. I says, Art, that's terrible. He was a peach of a guy. I'm sorry to see him retire. And of course he's gone now. But you really felt that you were-- I never felt mad at him. I mean, some decisions were made I didn't agree with. I never felt mad at him. I was mad at a lot of the others. But no, Art was perfect. He was perfect.
• [01:01:38.34] And of course he rose through the ranks. He was on the wire desk, which is Death Valley. I mean, you're editing the copy and all that. And they picked him out of the blue. I mean, he was a dark horse and they made a good choice there, a very good choice.
• [01:01:53.55] ANDREW: How did the work of a reporter change over the 45 years that you were a reporter?
• [01:02:00.61] BILL TREML: Well, it got more restrictive. I think some of the agencies got scared about talking to a reporter. In the old days, you could talk to anybody anytime. And toward the end there, they were very, very choosy about what they said, unless you really knew them. So it changed. And of course, with television and that, you couldn't beat anybody anymore. We used to beat them all the time. But television and the radio and that, it changed your perspective, that you had to get an angle that they didn't have.
• [01:02:34.39] One time, one of the murders, there was all kinds of little driblets being put out by some of the deputies, that they didn't what they were talking about. So Harvey said, how about having one source giving out the stuff? So they said, you're the source. And that's really an uncomfortable position. You shouldn't be getting in bed with the cops that much.
• [01:02:57.43] So I told the boss, he wants me to do the PR for him, I guess. And he says, well, just watch yourself. So anyways, we did it a couple of times. We did some of the inside stuff with some of the murders. And I guess the perverted satisfaction that I got, I'm going back home to change clothes in one of those things, and the radio was reading the things I wrote that day. I thought, gee, that's pretty good. I wonder who wrote that.
• [01:03:28.22] So yeah, it changed quite a bit. I mean, it wasn't as loose as it was in the old days. It was more regimented, and you had to watch what you were doing.
• [01:03:40.16] AMY: When you retired, they wrote a piece in the Ann Arbor Observer a little bit about your retirement, and they mentioned a photograph of you. They wrote, "A few staffers at the news keep a 1965 file photo of Treml on their desks, Speed Graphic camera swinging around his neck. He's running, daylight clearly visible under both black Oxfords, toward the rear of a paddy wagon, where a deputy sheriff in riot gear is loading up a woman in handcuffs. It's the essence of a reporter who at his best wrote with a rat-a-tat style he hoped emulated Jack Webb's dragnet." Do you have that photo?
• [01:04:16.24] BILL TREML: I might. I don't know. I don't remember. I remember the picture, yeah. I remember the picture. Yeah, those dumb cops were pulling away before I could get to the thing. I had to run. I couldn't run today, but in those days I could run. And as far as the Speed Graphic goes, yeah, I was probably the worst picture-taker in the history of journalism. I couldn't focus. And you had to pull the slide and all that. And Stubbs used to say, Treml, you are so dumb. I'd say, I know it, Stubbs. I can't take a picture. I'm a poet, but I am not a photographer. But yeah, I used to carry the Graphic home with me and all that, because the cops would call at 2 o'clock in the morning. I go take a picture of the wreck. That's really journalism. Dead guys hanging out there.
• [01:05:05.53] I'd never do that today. My god, let somebody else do it. The paper I worked for in Indiana, Richmond, Indiana, they said, well, you're going to be a reporter and a photographer. I was just out of college. What did I know? So they said, well, this will train you for both fields. Well, it doesn't. You can't take a picture and write the story. How can you do that? But those idiots down there, they thought, they're cheap, they're on the cheap. They didn't have to pay two guys. They paid me-- what was it? Oh yeah, $40 a week and $5 for working nights. So I had $45. And I'm doing two jobs, come on.
• [01:05:48.90] ANDREW: So when you picture yourself as a reporter, do you picture yourself in that picture, running to get a story, do you picture yourself as one of those guys from the old movies in the long coats, or do you picture yourself as a guy in front of a typewriter hammering out a story?
• [01:06:02.52] BILL TREML: Running, running, wherever it is. Because in those days, you had to get there first. You had to try to be there first. And you can't say, let's see, maybe I'll find my car. You go and you get there, because the whole thing is seeing a scene and never taking a note. Like a sponge, you soak it up. And you go back on a typewriter and you spill it out and words come.
• [01:06:36.36] ANDREW: To read some of Bill Treml's articles for the Ann Arbor News, go to a oldnews.aadl.org.
• [01:06:43.09] AMY: Music for this episode has been from the score to the "Back Page," composed and performed by Steven Ball, available at aadl.org/backpage.
• [01:06:53.42] ANDREW: AADL talks to Bill Treml has been a production of the Ann Arbor District Library.