As a longtime journalist, I have been invited a few times to take a flying leap, or something to that effect.
In September of this year, an unlikely opportunity presented itself. Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, decided to take applications from aspirants to fill the unexpired term of U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, who is retiring at the end of the year because of health problems.
About 500 people applied; I was not one of them.
Why? I would want to avoid the Senate Dining Room.
My fear of Senate dining began in the fall of 1986. The newspaper I was working for sent me to USA Today, the national newspaper that started a few years earlier.
Before I headed north, an acquaintance of mine gave me a letter from Sen. Mack Mattingly’s office. He had donated to the senator’s re-election campaign and was rewarded with a lunch for two in the Senate Dining Room.
Mattingly lost the election, so the donor said he had no reason to visit the capitol anytime soon. “Take this and enjoy,” he told me.
Sometime during my four-month assignment, I invited a friend to partake of the free lunch with me. We enjoyed our meal and our visit and when the check came, I handed the waiter my letter. He came back in a few minutes to say the letter only allowed our admittance to the dining room. The tab was on me.
I didn’t have enough money. My friend didn’t have any money. I telephoned Mattingly’s office to plead my case. “Sir,” the senator’s aide said, “I wrote that letter, and it does not pay for your meal. I’m sorry.”
So I was picturing myself washing dishes in the Senate kitchen. But then, finally, I found a folded-up bank check in my wallet. The cashier agreed to accept it.
I certainly didn’t want my name written on a Post-It note and tacked up in the Senate Dining Room, warning: “Do not allow this person to eat here.”
Eating in the Senate Dining Room with a worthless letter and insufficient funds was humiliating.
I have not wanted to go back.
Phil Hudgins is senior editor of Community Newspapers Inc. Email phudgins@cninewspapers.com.