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I lost a friend this past week. Correction, if Ed were here he would say we were colleagues not friends, and he would crack a dry, grumpy joke about how we hadn’t seen each other in 15years. And then he would make some snarky comment about how I had left local news to go “sell stuff on TV”. Ed Obrien was my morning Anchor at Channel 6 WRGB in Albany. I was his live weekday Morning Reporter back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s.

I found out Ed died this week, incidentally, from all of you. Facebook, Instagram, you started reaching out telling me this local news legend had passed, knowing I had worked there. I remember gasping a little. No we had not kept in touch, and yes, when I worked with him, I was equal parts scared of him and irked by him. And yet with distance, years, growing up, and now him passing on, you develop this different love and appreciation for people. Maybe it’s that when you are young, dumb, broke, and convinced you are the next “big thing”, you are afraid to be humble, because you fear it shows weakness, and you don’t have the thick skin to laugh off someone older, smarter, who gives you a hard time. They are not being hard on you because they dislike you, they are pushing you, and standing up for integrity and honesty. But you don’t understand that then.

So let’s see, I was early thirties, maybe late twenties I cant recall, and I was convinced I was going to be the next Oprah or Katie Couric, and I was terrified it wasn’t going to happen quick enough. Dreams are good but sometimes they overtake us, and we overtake them. I remember my TV news agent at the time, a well connected high roller in NYC whose agency rep’s people like Bill O’Reilly, telling me, oh so wisely one day: “The only thing standing in your way, is you.”. When you’re young, you wonder what the hell that means. And this is the mindset I was in, when I worked with Ed.

I was like a little sister to Ed on the morning news, he used to love poking fun at me. And while I loved doing the fluff stories about bagels and candy shops, they made Ed break out into hives. He was a hard news, old school type. The kind that to this day idolized Ed R Murrow, and probably had no time for the new breed of young celebrity journalists on the cable news channels. Ed thrived on hard stories, uncovering truth, calling out hypocrisy. Me, I just wanted to write silly fun clever stories and entertain people with my personality. Ed wanted to hold “the man” responsible. We could not have been a worse match. Or a better one. (By the way, as I write this I must say, I had probably 12min out of a 2hr newscast, I was the smallest most inconsequential part of the daily morning news. But my memories of it are so vivid. When you wake up at 2am and are to work by 4am, with a skeleton staff, all of whom are overnighters, you grow close.) For my part, I couldn’t wait to move on to my next “Bigger” gig, and I also couldn’t wait to leave behind Ed, who seemed like he had it out for me. So funny as life goes, as I write this, I have burst into tears several times thinking about him being gone. It’s crazy how sometimes you realize too late, how much you love having crossed certain people’s path. An how in your infancy and insecurity, you just got them all wrong.

The thing about life is, when you are young, you can’t wait to be old. And when you are old, you would give anything to be young again. Not because of the wrinkles or weight gain, but because life is oddly so much simpler when you are young, dumb, and broke. And though you spend every amount of time faking it so people think you are ready for age and opportunity, once you get it, you wish you could go back to when you didn’t have it, so you could cherish the moments that were meant to teach you things, but at the time, you were too bull headed to admit you needed to learn them.

Maybe I am so sentimental because there is this thing at local news stations. They are small, even if they are in big markets. They are not corporations with tens of thousands of employees, you know everybody. And dysfunction sometimes rules, we all have it and in local news, you don’t judge it. Whether it’s drinking, divorce, infighting, we all have this crazy bag of stuff. It’s like a weird family, that just works.

Ed was 59 when he died. That made me lose my breath a little. 59. Who dies at 59? Worse still, was how I hear he died. Yup, he was an old news junkie who loved his cocktails, his horse tracks, his sports…and his cigarettes. And in this day and age when smoking is so taboo people don’t talk about it, Ed didn’t care. He loved to smoke. I’m told from friends at WRGB that Ed stopped working on the anchor desk in January 2015, and while he put up a brave fight, hospital and doctors finally led to hospice. I can’t imagine how Ed handled that. I am guessing giving up a fight and surrendering to that, was so hard for him bc he was a tough cookie.

When Ed passed, I felt so sad and I wished so much I had reconnected with him over the years. Surely he didn’t need my tiny praise, but he was the best and most talented news person I have ever worked with. I always wondered why he never went to the big leagues, why he never made it to the network. He was that good. He was unflustered in the face of high profile celebrity interviews with politicians. And he just knew how to take on big names with a kind of disarming style that was so enviable.

After I left WRGB, Ed started this hysterical thing called Ed’s Head, a daily or maybe it was weekly, youtube desk cam segment where he spouted off about his latest rant or the thing that perplexed him. I have watched two dozen, and they make me smile. I truly wish Ed knew how loved and admired he was for his talent and authenticity. I don’t think he knew that. For all his grumpiness and assertiveness, Ed actually had no ego. And that’s what people appreciated in him. He didn’t do what he did for fame or flash, he just loved seeking and pursuing the truth.

Sorry to drag you through my memories and tears this week, but I wonder if there is

someone like Ed in your past? I would only say, these people are the seasoning that colors and spices our lives. Before it’s too late, tell them. Tell them.

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