The Saga of Richard Porter Nall

First meeting with the mountain of a man

It was early one Saturday morning in a startlingly modern ranch house clinging to the hillside that divides this country from Mexico. Giant north-facing picture windows were filled with views of the Pacific Ocean to the left, Imperial Beach and Otay straight ahead and the rest of the South Bay area sprawling north to San Diego.

Mainly my thoughts were focused on the white wall-to-wall rugs that covered the floors in the huge front room-dining room area. More correctly my worries were what my two young sons might do to those white rugs, particularly since our hostess was plying them with a variety of food and drinks. I suppose it was the grape juice that concerned me most.
I had come to the exceptional home of my boss, Robert Eskew, and his wife, Beth, who was spoiling my kids with the skills she had learned as a United Airlines stewardess.

But I had not brought my wife and kids here to watch the youngsters be spoiled.

I had come at my boss’ request to meet a friend of his from Los Angeles newspaper days – Richard Porter Nall. It seems Nall, the editor of the Brawley News, an Imperial Valley daily, was looking for a city editor and Eskew thought I was the right person for that job.
I had worked with Eskew at the National City Star-News. It was one of those formula newspapers when it came to staffing. It had one editor, one reporter-photographer, one society editor and one sports editor. I was the reporter-photographer.

After a time there, I moved up in the organ ization to the mother ship, the Chula Vista Star-News. The formula there was more extensive: An editor, two reporter-phortographers, a sports editor, a society editor and a full-time photographer.

For a time, while waiting for Nall to arrive, I picked my way around the kitchen of the designer home, its table and counters littered with the remains of a party Eskew had hosted for Nall the night before. A mystery writer might describe the assorted bottles, hors d’oeuvre and cold cut platters, assorted bags of chips and dibs and dabs of everything from from cheese spread to caviar as the leavings of the rich and famous.

Finally, after I had returned to a perch on the nine-foot white couch to cringe at the potential for one of my boys slipping or stumbling into a mishap that would forever turn a large part of that white rug purple, Nall arrived.

Eskew was a pretty big guy, maybe 6-foot plus, and well-built. He was good-looking enough to show up on TV or in a movie, his well-kept moustache and dimples adding to the impact.
2. But when Richard Porter Nall walked into the room, Eskew was dwarfed, along with the rest of us.

Nall was not as tall as Eskew, perhaps a tad under 6 feet. But he was a mountain of a man. He was in a league with Alfred Hitchcock or Peter Ustinov.
He had piercing blue eyes and more hair on his arms and peeking out of his shirt than I had ever seen.

We shook hands as we were introduced and what impressed me most was the size of his hands. They were small in comparison to the rest of him.

I do not remember the conversation we had that morning, the talk that changed my life by sending me to the Imperial Valley and the Dick Nall School of Journalism in Brawley.

But in retrospect, I believe it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I learned more from Nall about newspapering and life than most any other person I have known.

Next: The Valley Days: Wild times and a wild man