How do I sum up the Roy Aarons I knew for nearly three decades and what he meant to me?
I spent a lot of time thinking about that these last two days, and what I came up with was this.
Roy was a constant inconvenience to me.
He first inconvenienced me back in the 1970s, when he was running the Summer Program for Minority Journalists at UC Berkeley and I was living in Berkeley and fumbling around as a would-be investigative reporter. He called me up one day and asked if I'd come in and do a session on investigative reporting for the journalists in his program. He couldn't pay me anything, of course. And I had much better things to do. But I finally relented to Roy's entreaties. And those few short hours I spent in the classroom kindled in me a love for teaching -- something I would finally pursue decades later. And I have Roy to thank for starting me on my way.
Roy inconvenienced me again in the 1980s when he became executive editor of The Oakland Tribune. I was the night city editor then, and we'd clash every afternoon and evening at the paper's news meetings. Roy was always asking why we couldn't improve this story or that story by making a few more phone calls, getting the answers to a few more questions, expanding on a few more points. I'd piss and moan and scream and yell about deadlines and how "The Oakland Tribune isn't the God-damned Washington Post." I'd stomp back to my desk and tell my reporters what the "idiot" executive editor wanted them to do. And they'd piss and moan and scream and yell. And then they'd make the calls and get the answers and expand the stories. And the paper the next day would be the better for it.
When I went back to being a reporter in the late 1980s, Roy inconvenienced me even more directly. I'd finish up an investigative project, run the usual gauntlet of Tribune editors and breath a sigh of relief, thinking everything was done and ready to go. Then Roy would call me into his office and want something verified by a third source, or something inserted into the story, or the lead rewritten. I'd throw another fit and storm back to my desk. And then I'd dig up another source, and do the inserts and rewrite the lead. And my stories were always the better for it.
We both left the Tribune in the 1990s, Roy to pursue his career as author, playwright and activist. I to settle into the sequestered and sheltered world of academia, teaching at Berkeley.
We didn't see as much of each other after that. But Roy still managed to be an inconvenience to me. I'd be sleep walking through another semester, when I'd come across a story about some cause or other that Roy had taken up. And each time my smug complacency would be shattered by his compassion and conviction. "If Roy Aarons cares about this," I'd mumble to myself, "then I guess I need to care about it."
Now Roy has inconvenienced me one last time. On Monday I was in my office, transitioning from the holiday weekend to the end-of-the-semester frenzy, when the email note arrived with the dreadful news.
And once again I had to interrupt my routine. This time to reflect on what Roy had done for me. And what Roy had meant to me. And what he'd done and meant for so many others.
So, Roy, all I can say is you were a constant inconvenience for me. And I don't know how to thank you enough.
