I Worked for Hodding Carter III at a Small-Town Mississippi Newspaper

In 50-plus years of working in journalism, my relationships with bosses were almost always…well, let’s say “fraught.” But the news that my very first one, Hodding Carter III, died last week broke my heart a little.

I worked for Hodding at the Delta Democrat-Times in Greenville, Mississippi, in 1975 and ’76—my first job out of college. He was the editor-in-chief, a position he took over when his civil-rights crusading father died a couple of years earlier. As a manager, Hodding had some peculiar traits. He hired me sight unseen about six weeks before I graduated from Stanford. When I told him I had already accepted a post-grad journalism fellowship that would keep me from joining his staff until around the first of August, he was unconcerned. “That’ll give you the chance to come see the place,” he told me. “Small Mississippi Delta towns aren’t for everybody.”

So, on a Saturday after I arrived at my fellowship in Indiana, I flew down to Greenville’s tiny airport, where Hodding picked me up. We got out to his car, and he promptly handed me a beer. I was startled, to say the least. Daytime drinking during my first meeting with my new boss? In a car? Was this a test to which the correct answer was no? Uncertainly, I accepted the beer, and away we went.

The surprises continued. Unknown to me, Greenville’s airport was located in an abandoned Air Force base that was seedy, dilapidated and rat-infested. It was six or seven miles from town. But I thought we were actually in Greenville. Though I didn’t say anything I was horrified. Could I actually live in a place like this?

Once we exited the old base, Hodding unknowingly reassured me, telling me the town was still several miles away. But then he dropped a bombshell. “It’s getting so I could drive this in my sleep,” he said. “I’ve been out here every day for a week, picking up you job applicants.”

Applicants? I thought I had the job—he had really been quite clear about that in the phone call—and this was just a pro forma visit to see if the place was OK with me. (And it almost hadn’t been!) Now I discovered that I was actually in the middle of a job interview.

Instantly I plunged into the deepest depths of an unfathomable depression. In the summer of 1975, the country was locked into a post-Vietnam recession. I had sent out something close to 100 job applications and, aside from Hodding, hadn’t attracted a single bit of interest. If this job fell through, it looked like I was heading for a career at McDonald’s.

And falling through seemed likely. I hadn’t prepared any line of patter about why I’d be a good hire or what ideas I had about stories or what I wanted to do. Now, already slightly drunk—Hodding gave me another beer as we drove in—I didn’t have a thought in my head.

It only got worse. We stopped at the home of one of his friends (more beer!) and then went on to dinner (even more beer). After that, we headed for One Block East, the only bar in Greenville where you could sit for an hour without getting punched out by a drunken tow-boat pilot. You can guess what we drank there.

The evening finally ended at 1 a.m., after something like nine hours of steady drinking. I no longer had any idea what I might have said or even what I was saying at the moment. I concentrated mostly on not falling down as I walked to Hodding’s spare bedroom, thus achieving the day’s only success.

The next morning I was waaaaaaaay too hung over to carry on even a semblance of conversation. I worriedly noted that Hodding didn’t have much to say either. Silently we drove back to the airport, which certainly didn’t look any better in the morning after