Be Afraid But Do It Anyway by Erna Morgan McReynolds

Choices Lead to Life Changes

The Road Not Taken.” You might have heard or read the poem, written by Robert Frost more than 100 years ago.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

Has someone ever asked you for advice? Should they move from this company to that one? From one career to another? From one city to another? A dear friend of mine has these questions looming large. Thinking about her choices at 3 a.m., suddenly I remembered several forks in the road I had taken. I had not known what they would mean.

But they made all the difference.

I thought about the decisions I made that I did know would change everything. Immigrating to New Zealand from a tiny upstate New York village would make all the difference. I knew that. But I just didn’t know how.

I knew leaving the morning paper in Wellington to be a TV/radio reporter for the NZBC—the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation—was a turning in the road. But I didn’t know which direction.

NZBC sent me to its radio/TV journalist training school. I passed and was then sent off to my first position in remote Palmerston North, at radio station 2ZA.

After two years working in London, lucky enough to be working for a wire service on Fleet Street, the job of my dreams came up. In that era the BBC, which is the British government run broadcasting network, controlled radio and TV news. Like in New Zealand, the journalists worked as civil servants. Formal, absolutely government controlled—even a dress code. Radio announcers had to wear evening dress to read the news.

But in the 1970s, Parliament changed British broadcasting forever. It passed an act that allowed commercial radio broadcasting. That created an all-news and current affairs radio station as well as a commercial radio news network. London Broadcasting and Independent Radio News were born across Fleet Street and down a little alley from where I worked. With my “God’s gift to journalism” image and my New Zealand broadcasting experience, I thought they needed me.

By then I had already done some freelance work for the BBC World Service, which tied the old empire to the mother country. I had figured the World Service could tolerate my American accent.

Scary? Imagine cold calling those Eton- and Oxford-educated producers who made the decisions for the BBC, who were barely out of the era when news readers wore tuxedos and there were no women news readers.

How would I do that? After listening for hours, I picked out a show that I thought might want a creative feature. I got a story idea, wrote a “pitch.”

Back then there was no e-mail. No cell phones. If you lived in a bedsit like I did—two twin beds doubling as couches, one leaky window which I covered with a blanket to keep heat in, and a hot plate. Shared, unheated shower and toilet in a stairway. My only choice was a red phone booth on the sidewalk. Armed with a sack of giant two pence coins, I called the BBC until finally someone took my phone call. I still remember his first name was Adam. He agreed to risk one piece. I bought a used reel-to-reel tape recorder and microphone. I lugged the 10+ pounds of it on my shoulder.

Finally, the BBC bought two features. Not enough to buy fish and chips for dinner, but definitely moved me upward on my climb to fame.

But I did know how to land a job at that commercial all-news radio station and news network. My cold-calling technique had worked with the BBC, so I tried it with the upstart station. And it did work. One night a reporter called in sick. They needed someone who could rush out to cover a story. And, even better, I knew how to edit and splice the tape so it was ready for the popular morning show.

I dropped everything, grabbed my 10 pound recording machine and headed off to interview one of the most famous actors of all times—Richard Attenborough—later Sir Richard. Shouldn’t he have scared me? Not sure why he didn’t scare me, but maybe it was because I was so embarrassed about my dress. Long but definitely not evening attire. More like a corduroy maxi with sensible lace-up shoes.

After more of these calls—when I would rush out and come back with a story about people like Keith Richards from The Who and bands like Jethro Tull—a producer told me to apply for the reporting job that was going to be advertised.

And I got the job. At least I thought I had. I showed up in the newsroom on my first day with my tape recorder, sensible shoes, and a note pad, ready for my first assignment. Another woman with the same equipment, same height, even same hair color walked in the door with me. Ready for her first day as a reporter, too.

Suddenly our dreams were shattered. We stood, pencils poised, for our first assignments. The news director who hired us told us both to put our tape recorders down. “Someone made a mistake. You two are producers—not reporters.” Not the same job at all. Rather than rushing around interviewing prime ministers, our voices broadcast to the nation, we would be sitting in a windowless, airless studio, behind the scenes. Telling reporters where to go, what to do.

Forced to make a decision on the spot— without Frost’s time to think about which fork to take — I did it. Years later I realized what I had done. That on-the-spot decision did make all of the difference.

I had already quit my other job. I couldn’t afford to lose this job. My counterpart dug in her heels. She told him she would be a reporter or else. The news director looked at me and said you are a producer or else.

That’s when I took the fork in the road. That made all the difference. I thought what I would learn would help me in the future. I didn’t know that I couldn’t turn back. I would never be a reporter again. This was not what I had planned for my life. But I was scared. I couldn’t lose this job. I still had my dream ahead of me. I wasn’t going to give up a job at London broadcasting. I could still be famous.

I didn’t understand that this fork would change my whole life and that it would be the right turn. A long story with more turnings.

But my friend, whose dilemma wakes me in the night—what fork will she take? It will make all of the difference. Will it be the right turning in the road for her?

Erna Morgan McReynolds, raised in Gilbertsville, is retired managing director/financial adviser at Morgan Stanley’s Oneonta office, and an inductee in the “Barron’s” magazine National Adviser Hall of Fame. She and her husband, author Tom Morgan, live in Franklin.