Mentor leaves treasured memories and timeless lessons

TONY DODERO

I knew Bob Barker barely a few weeks when I got a taste of his

kindheartedness.

I was an intern at the newspaper, still in my last year of

college, and he was a wise, veteran reporter who offered to show me

the ropes.

One of those training-session mornings he met me at the Huntington

Beach Police Department to show me how to look through the crime

reports. Afterward, he suggested we go get a cup of coffee. I told

him I’d love to but was short on cash and needed to get to the ATM.

That didn’t matter to Bob, as he offered to buy me a cup anyway. I

thanked him and offered to pay him back later and we headed back to

the newsroom.

Later that day as the lunch hour neared, Bob approached me with

$20 in his hand.

“Here,” he said as he handed me the cash. “Go buy yourself some

lunch and keep the change.”

“Really, Bob, I don’t need the money,” I told him. “I just need to

go to the ATM.”

Bob wouldn’t have any of it. He was convinced that I was a

starving college student who needed cash, and he wanted to help me

out. It was a gesture I’ll never forget and just the first in a long

list of countless gifts that I got from Bob Barker, most of them

priceless.

His passing Thursday from brain cancer left me truly with a broken

heart, but also with a treasure trove of memories, life lessons and,

of course, gifts that make me so grateful to have known him.

After several years of reporting and editing, Bob ended up at the

Daily Pilot in 1970. He remained at the Pilot and its sister paper,

the Huntington Beach Independent, until 1992 before he moved on to be

correspondent for the Los Angeles Times Orange County Edition. After

two years at The Times, he came back to the Independent as a

part-time writer, and he retired in 1997.

Bob was the epitome of the hard-working reporter who started the

day early, worked late and was worth every penny the company paid him

and more. He showed me how to work a beat. He showed me how to chase

down a story and not be afraid to ask tough questions. He counseled

me, sometimes over and over again, that news stories need to get to

the point right away.

As I wrote the story about his passing, I couldn’t help but hear

his words giving me directions: “Pull the trigger, Tony boy,” he

would say. “Don’t bury the lead.”

While Bob was the perfect taskmaster for a young reporter who

thought he knew it all, he also taught me how to have fun and how to

look for those stories that highlight the good, hardworking people in

the community.

Bob showed me that to be a good reporter or editor you have to

love the town and the people you cover.

I’ll never forget the words of a City Hall gadfly, who told me she

was concerned, when Bob retired from the paper, that we wouldn’t find

a solid replacement for him: “After 25 years of covering this town

(Huntington Beach), you always knew he cared,” she said of Bob and

his reporting style.

It’s a lesson I continue to teach to young reporters in my

newsroom and in the classroom.

Bob showed me that you have to balance your work life with family

life and take time to enjoy the little things.

“Don’t ever marry a reporter,” he used to tell me back when I was

single. “Be like me and marry someone who is smarter than you.”

Bob married the love of his life, Barbara, a retired school

teacher. I took his advice and married a nurse, who is so much

smarter than me.

Bob taught me that classical music is much better than rock music

and that gardening can soothe the soul.

I bet he’d be impressed that I regularly listen to Mozart and

Vivaldi and now know the difference between a maple tree and a

sycamore.

Bob and I shared so many fun stories and so many happy times that

it would be impossible to fit them all on these pages.

He regaled me with stories of the old days, of hard-drinking,

chain-smoking reporters and of pulling pranks on colleagues,

especially editors, whom he sometimes had particular disdain for.

He told me of news stories that he had to report that required

lots of double checking and triple checking of facts.

You get the picture. He was a mentor par excellence.

I got a card from Bob last Christmas, just a few months after my

son, Nathan, was born.

“You’ve been given a great gift this year,” he wrote in the card.

It was yet another piece of advice, if you read between the lines.

I vow to you, my dear friend, I will heed your advice and treasure

that gift.

But just so you know, it’s hard to find a greater gift giver than

Bob Barker.