Tom Snyder and the frozen stiff

01Sep07

Tom Snyder died Sunday at his home in Tiboron. Tom was loud, brash, informed and grand gesturing—what media-folk call “larger-than-life.” It seemed he chain-smoked to keep clean air from polluting his lungs. Belly-laughter, intelligent repartee, and ongoing devil-may-care studio banter were Tom Snyder trademarks.

He’d be hilarious, combative, self deprecating, dogged and cheesy-sentimental; all this before he fired up his second on-air smoke. We viewers felt Tom was, well, our slightly twisted buddy, and we were in on each yuck, sitting right there with him on his bare-bones studio set. He’d tell us to “Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air.”

Tom Snyder, was, in my opinion, the best talk show host ever laid down on tape. Period. But more than anything else Tom was a great storyteller. So in his honor I’ve dug a vintage Tom Snyder story out from the ol’ memory bank. While Tom was legion for his enormous ego, this story begins with me.

It was 29 years ago, 1978, during the dog days of summer. I was a suburban Chicago-bred hip-billy living in the Ozark Mountains of Northwest Arkansas. One day out hiking up a dirt logging road I happened upon a tiny beat-up trailer home. Not a mobile home or a “manufactured home”, in today’s parlance, but a rust bucket of a one room thing you’d lug behind an old Ford and pray it didn’t disintegrate along the way.

Next to this shack-on-wheels sat a brand spanking new, loudly decorated Peterbilt semi-trailer rig. It’s lettering proclaimed all sorts of stuff about the Lord Jesus Christ. Two junk yard dogs stood tied to a post next to the Peterbilt, patiently awaiting that opportune moment when I’d walk within striking distance, offering my hippie peace-be-unto-thee hand to them, like the village idiot clothed in raw hamburger.

A women suddenly flung open the flimsy door of the flimsy trailer. I don’t recall what she said, if she indeed had a thing to say, but oh-boy do I remember how she looked. Picture a boney pale faced gal with piercing coal-black eyes, in a severe long-sleeved jacket over a dark navy dress wearing granny shoes and sporting a white bonnet drawn tight beneath her chin. No air conditioning in that trailer, and it had to be a hundred degrees outside, with humidity to match. The woman’s jet black Groucho Marx eyebrows sprouted from her furrowed brow.

I didn’t dare address her. I simply turned, and walked away. But not before spotting this skinny guy staring at me over her shoulder. He had the face of a craggy, ill-fed angel, and the crazed deep-sunk eyes of a prophet. I snuck another glimpse at that lettering on the fancy new Peterbilt. This rig hauled “revival tents” for the infamous Reverend Daniel Aaron Rogers. That’s right, this guy was the one, the only, Daniel Aaron Rogers, and I had just sorta-met he and his wife, Elizabeth, all quite by chance.

I know what you’re saying, you’re saying, well then, just who the bleep is this Reverend Daniel Aaron Rogers? Well, Rogers was a tent revival preacher who’s moment of national fame stemmed from his determined efforts to raise the rock solid remains of his recently deceased mother, Gladys, back to life from her standing position within the arctic confines of a Kenmore upright freezer.

What’s-more, an Indonesian Resurrectionist, Gladys’ own flickering frigid eyelids, a media-hound undertaker and a ex-con cowboy evangelist also factor into the story, but space won’t permit further elucidation. However, getting back to the point of this story, the Reverend Daniel Aaron Rogers closed the deal on his own sub-celebrity as the result of his guest appearance on Tom Snyder’s late night Tomorrow Show.

And talk about an A to Z list lineup! Tom’s first two guests that night were Keith Stroup and San Francisco’s own Margo St. James. Stroup was the founder of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. St. James, who inaugurated San Francisco’s Hookers’ Ball, was this nation’s leading prostitute activist. She helped found and spearheaded the SF based organization COYOTE, Call Off Your Tired Ethics, which demanded respect for and legalization of her ancient profession. No doubt about it, these were two fascinating, if controversial guests, but each was merely a warmup to the shooting star to come.

Late in the show and it finally came time for Tom to introduce the Reverend Rogers. He launched into one of his patented Tom Snyder dissertations, giving viewers the backstory on his next guest’s two month long set of legal trials and holy tribulations. Tom waxed eloquently about the 80-year-old Gladys, her loving son, Daniel—and Daniel’s unwavering faith that God would once and forever prove his own existence to a unbelieving humanity by making the God-loving Gladys walk straight from her freezer.

Tom wove details after detail into Daniel Aaron Roger’s righteous quest. This was all part of the typical Snyder schtick, but in doing so Tom began to chuckle.

What started as low primordial guffaws grew into tiffs of laughter, then hiccup-like eruptions. Soon came the belly laughter, tears running down his cheeks. Tom could hardly keep his smoke down. He doubled over and seemed set to roll on the floor with fits and outpourings of uncontrollable hilarity. Tom simply couldn’t control himself. Something about Rogers’ story—perhaps it was his visualization of glacial reanimation—something grabbed Tom’s funny-bone and shook his entire being as if he were literally possessed. Yes folks, Tom Snyder was suffering from serious funny-bone possession.

Somehow Tom managed, with an olympian feat of professional fortitude, to pull himself together and go to commercial break. Upon his return it was as if he’d taken a cold shower, or a stint in the freezer, or something.

Tom’s actual interview with the Reverend Daniel Aaron Rogers proved anti-climactic. Tom was somber and respectful. He even gave heartfelt apologies to a man who, after all, truly believed in just what he believed in. For this hillbilly preacher, Daniel Aaron Rogers, was no sleazy charlatan, and Tom Snyder, to his credit, recognized this. Tom conducted the interview in a dignified way that, at the time, mystified me. I guess I just wanted more yucks. But as the years passed and I matured I came to appreciate how Tom conducted that brief televised encounter. Tom Snyder, man-of-the-world, clown-cynic and loose canon satirist could not bring himself to make a fool out of a sincere and honest, if naive and ill-educated, backwoods preacher–no matter the man’s bizarre beliefs.

Tom showed me something that night that has stayed with me to this very day—that an essential measure of any human’s being is in how we treat the other fellow, no matter how they look, where they come from, or what brand of freezer they place their mother in.

Filed under: Bay Time Detective, Media, North Bay, San Francisco Bay Area, San Francisco Phax & Phikshun, Tiboron, Tom Snyder, eccentrics, legend, news, television   |  3 Comments