The last time I saw Conrad Fink, I walked into his office while making a quick visit to the University of Georgia, and I stayed for probably 10 minutes. At that point, I could feel him wanting me to get the hell out of his office. He was a busy man, he had too much wisdom to impart on those journalistic students who committed daily atrocities. He couldn’t talk much about the past with a former student, because he had too many damn edits to make in the present.

I said my goodbye, shook his hand and walked away. This was probably 2002, so I haven’t seen Fink in about 10 years. I don’t remember much of our last conversation together, but I have never forgotten – nor will I ever let go – of the lessons he taught me.

He was the biggest influence in my journalistic life and my biggest mentor. He accomplished goals I can only dream about. He was a longtime Associated Press writer who traveled the world, told the biggest stories, went into management, worked as a professor and became a mentor for many of the journalism students that passed through the UGA Arch.

If you didn’t get to know Fink as a journalism student at UGA, what the hell was wrong with you? If Fink didn’t know you, why were you even bothering?

On Friday, after a 20-year battle with prostate cancer – a fight I was sure he was going to win – Fink died* at the age of 80.

*He would not have been pleased with me for burying the lede of this post.

He was important enough to me (that, or I realized the importance of needing every ounce of Fink I could imbibe) that I took all five of the classes he taught at UGA. My duties at the student paper, the Red & Black, oftentimes made it impossible for me to turn in assignments on time (or to make it to his classes at all). He understood that and he appreciated the students who recognized the importance of apprenticing at the student paper, but he also knew when it was time to bear down on me.

In two separate classes, he sent me the following note tapped on his ever-present typewriter: “Mr. Katzowitz, March 1 is semester midpoint. I recommend you withdraw from this course. I don’t think you can earn a passing grade in the time left.” The first time he gave that to me, it scared the shit out of me, and somehow, I willed myself to pass that class. The second time I got the note, I knew it was him telling me to start doing the work. In both classes, he gave me an ‘A.’

Sometimes, I disappointed him, especially during my senior year when I, as the paper’s sports editor, wrote a weekly football picks column that was sophomoric and disgusting and, ultimately, unfunny. I recently reread some of those columns, and I was embarrassed for my 21-year-old self. But Fink also understood the need to allow his students to grow. He said his piece, and when I ignored him and continued writing the column, he left me alone.

***

Fink was famous on campus for a few things: No. 1, his eyebrows. His bushy, bushy eyebrows that were almost impossible to believe. It was the first thing you noticed about him. But there was also an elegance to his eyebrows. They weren’t necessarily distinguished, but they also weren’t sloppy. They were Fink, and really, that’s the only description I can offer.

No. 2, the way he opened a vein before reading a student’s paper or article and then bleeding all over it. His red pen was brutal, and even on assignments that were well-received by Fink, he still destroyed each attempt with that damn red pen. He was to editing as Norman Bates was to women in the shower.

No. 3, his most famous in-class advice was, whenever you were writing a story, to always think about the little old lady from Keokuk, Iowa. In other words, explain it as simply as possible so that even an elderly woman in the Heartland could understand. That line made for great fodder – and no doubt, it’s a true idea – but that’s not really what I think about every day.

No, what I remember most is what he taught me about self-editing. After hashing out your story and rereading it once for editing purposes, he said, get up from the computer (or, in his case, the typewriter) before sending it to the copy desk. Take a breath, get your eyes focused on something else before you return for one last edit, slow down if even for an instance. His exact advice, in fact, was to “go to the john.” And whenever I was covering a late-night Cincinnati Reds game or finishing up my University of Cincinnati basketball gamer or banging out a Roger Federer piece for the NY Times, before I hit send, I always got up and went to the john. And yes, usually I thought about Fink while doing so.

I remembered his tales about his first newspaper job at the Daily Pantagraph in Bloomington, Ill., and when I was on assignment covering a University of Cincinnati basketball game at Illinois State in Normal, not too far from Bloomington, I procured a copy of the Pantagraph. I sent him a note on Facebook telling Fink that I was thinking about him.

That’s the other thing about Fink. He never stopped evolving. He signed up for Facebook and instantly was connected to all his admirers. He was an old-school newspaper writer, but he also understood where the Internet was taking journalism. Did he understand the consequences on the newspaper business when I was in college? No, I don’t think so. He never thought newspapers would begin to become irrelevant. I think he was wrong about that. That might be the only thing about which he ever was wrong.

Yet, as evidenced by the clip below, it didn’t take him long to get it right.

Ah, I wish Fink had gotten on Twitter. I would have loved to hear about him washing his dog.

***

We kept in touch. Well, I kept in touch with him, and usually, he responded shortly and sweetly.

In May 2007, when I still lived in Cincinnati and was planning my itinerary for my brother’s wedding in Atlanta, I sent him an e-mail saying I would make a day-trip to Athens if he was around. He wrote back: “katzowitz, you rascal, you voice from my past! delighted hear from you. unfortunately am at my upstate ny farm clearing my head of undergraduate journalistic misdemeanors and felonies. try me again in late august. Fink”

On Feb. 29, 2008, I sent him a link to the most-impactful story I’ve ever written, a New York Times piece that made the sports front about a disabled wrestler from southwest Ohio. In the e-mail, I wrote, “How many of these bylines do I have to get before I get a free copy of your sports writing book?” He wrote back: “free? you rascal! i should be charging you. Fink”

When I wanted to send him a copy of my first book, Bearcats Rising, I asked for his address so I could send him a package, and he wrote back, “doesn’t tick, does it? fink.” In the acknowledgment section in the book, I penned, “I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for his guidance and help. He is my mentor, and even though he still refuses to send me any of his books unless he has my personal check in hand, I’ll always be grateful to the ink-stained wretch.” In response, he sent me this message: “katzowitz: enormously flattered by your acknowledgment of me in your book, which i will delight in reading. thanks, and great good luck. fink”

That was the last time we corresponded.

[UPDATE: Just got this e-mail from a former Fink-acolyte who overlapped with me at UGA: "He'd be proud of you, Josh. I know when I saw him in November he asked for an update on you."

I can't tell you how good that makes me feel.]

He imparted so much knowledge on all of us, but he was not overly generous with his compliments, maybe because we all so badly wanted his respect. You know, he always talked about wordsmiths, those who could craft a story into a journalistic masterpiece. Usually, he was referring to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Steve Hummer when he used that term, but he probably harkened back to the days of Red Smith and Jim Murray. I once asked him if he ever thought I would be a wordsmith, and he said he believed that I would. It was, without a doubt, the nicest thing he ever said to me.

Fink, I’m still working to that goal, and I’m still remembering everything you taught me. I’m so sad I never made another visit to Athens to visit. But I’ll never forget you – not your bushy eyebrows, not your red ink, not your passion for journalism. Fink, you were more than a professor to me. You were my hero. And I, along with your students, am going to miss you greatly. Tonight, the little old lady from Keokuk, Iowa is weeping.

-30-

Finally, I found her—a pretty brunette with a Baby Bjorn carrying another pretty brunette. I hadn’t seen my wife in a week, and as a result, I hadn’t seen my twins.

Continued here.

At the time, I don’t think I really appreciated what I was about to witness. I had been a Pink Floyd fan since, probably, seventh grade, and two years later, the final incarnation of the band released what would be its final studio album and gave its final world tour. At the time, I had seen one real rock concert – Aerosmith, with special guest Jackyl! – and I was pumped to see Dave Gilmour, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason (sadly, Roger Waters had been out of the Pink Floyd picture for about a decade).

And it was incredible. Though I really only knew the Pink Floyd material that EVERYBODY knows (Dark Side, Wish You Were Here) and the last couple of new albums, it was incredible. I didn’t recognize “One of These Days” or “Astronomy Domine,” because I wasn’t familiar with those portions of Floyd’s catalog (really, you have to be a pretty intense fan to own “Piper at the Gates of Dawn.” I do, now.)

Sixteen years later, I remember the fog rolling into the stadium after a rainy day, making the night all the more surreal. I remember the older folks behind us asking us to sit down for the first act. I remember the Bill Clinton look-alike blowing the sax on “Us and Them” (Clinton was, in fact, in town that day). I remember “Time” and “Money” and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” I remember the unbelievable light show.

A small taste here.

And here:

Tonight, I’ll complete the Floydian circle – or the crazy diamond, if you prefer.

The wife and I are going to see Roger Waters, the only original Pink Floyd member I didn’t see in 1994 (except, of course, for Syd Barrett). He’s celebrating the 30th anniversary of The Wall by playing it in its entirety. All the reviews I’ve read have been stunningly positive. The sound apparently is great, and the entire show (like the original Wall tour, building a Wall brick by brick before tearing it down at the end) is an amazing piece of work.

See part of the spectacle here (when the wall comes down).

I haven’t been this excited for a show in quite some time. Sixteen years later, I’m ready for something just as special as the night I walked into a stadium with a couple buddies and walked out having seen the best show of my life.

I used to jog all the time, though I never much liked it. I ran the Peachtree Road Race (10K) thrice in my teenage years, and I was in pretty decent shape. Not now. Now, I’m much heavier than I want to be. So I’ve started eating better, and I’ve begun to exercise.

The past few years, I’ve used our Elliptical to work up a sweat. But even so, I’d always feel a little guilty, like I could do a little more. Exercising while reading a magazine or watching a sitcom just doesn’t seem quite as sporting to me.

This column by Rick Reilly, when he was with Sports Illustrated, always stuck with me. Especially when he writes, “We’re here to sprint the last 100 yards and soak our shirts and be so tired we have to sit down to pee.” You don’t get that feeling by doing 45 minutes on an Elliptical. You just don’t. You can sweat and be tired and feel good about yourself. But you – and by “you,” I mean “me” – don’t push yourself to your limit. You can’t feel your heart jackhammering like a scared rabbit.

I wanted to feel that way again, especially since I’d like to run the Peachtree again next year on July 4.

So, I waited until about 8:30 p.m., so nobody could see my struggles (I figured this wasn’t going to be me at my best), and I went out. Thirty seconds into the nice, easy run, my back was killing me and my legs were heavier than bowling balls (the big-boy balls, not the little kids’ kind). I ran for probably 5 minutes before I was done with the whole running thing. It was a little nippy outside, but my lungs felt like they were breathing in Lake-Placid-in-February air. I kept walking, but clearly, I was a long way from … well … anywhere.

I walked a little. I ran a little. I began to feel better. I began to feel worse. My breathing was the same. Heavy.

Finally, about five minutes from the house, I began to jog for the final stretch. Suddenly and strangely, I smelled the odor which only emanates from a horse. “That’s weird,” I thought to myself. “Where could there possibly be a horse in range where I could smell it? Hmm, I must be having a stroke.” But I pressed on.

Until I could see my mailbox. Where I staggered for the final few steps of my journey. I felt breathless. I felt nauseous. I felt wonderful (not at all, actually). But I did begin to remember what Reilly had written 11 years ago.

I didn’t have to sit down to pee. But I felt wildly exhausted from my 33-minute excursion. I also felt I had made some progress. My heart was really pounding. A single bead of sweat ran down my forehand. This was exercise.

This was a first step.

I was making the point that one person who disagrees with something I wrote could have a field day with me from his keyboard. He could make fun of my name (it’s been done numerous times on the Internet with people who thought my opinions/writing were horse manure). He could label me an idiot (it’s one of the nicer names I’ve been called). He could say how crappy I am at my occupation and how he could do a much a better job (this comment, as it turns out, was made just the other day).

But …

What if he was to run into me in real life? What if he recognized me at the coffee shop or at the library or in the airport while waiting for my luggage? Would he ever say any of it to my face? No. No, he wouldn’t. He would ignore me, or he’d walk up to me, excitedly shake my hand and tell me how he checks out the blog/web site/whatever all the time and how he’s a big fan.

You know why? Because people, by and large, are hypocrites and cowardly. If somebody walked up to me, shook my hand and said, “You know what, I hate your writing and I piss on your opinions, but hey, it was good to meet you anyway, ” I’d respect the hell out of him. At least, it’d make for a good story.

Anyway, after having that conversation, I saw this post by Jeff Pearlman, one of my favorite sports writers, on his web site.

I don’t necessarily agree with a few of his points on here, but he details the story of how an e-mail-bashing coward approached him at a Starbucks and introduced himself.

And Pearlman proves my points. This guy called Pearlman “a Kotex” in an e-mail, and then when he recognized Pearlman, he went out of his way to introduce himself. Then, hiding behind another e-mail, he later admitted to Pearlman that it was he, in fact, who had called him a tampon/panty liner.

Pretty lame. But pretty typical.

I don’t know, but I do know this: I wish the donation made me feel better. But, really, it doesn’t.

The nut graf(s):

“Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don’t take s— from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for — not for hours — but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, ‘We’re not going to do this. You’re going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport.”

That, in a nutshell is “Israelification” – a system that protects life and limb without annoying you to death.

Despite facing dozens of potential threats each day, the security set-up at Israel’s largest hub, Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, has not been breached since 2002, when a passenger mistakenly carried a handgun onto a flight. How do they manage that?

“The first thing you do is to look at who is coming into your airport,” said Sela.

There’s that. And then there’s this story from Time.com that ran in 2006. Describing the El Al (Israel’s national airline carrier) agents, Lisa Beyer writes, “They ask a lot of questions, don’t hesitate to take their time doing it, aren’t embarrassed about profiling fliers and are quick to take matters to a higher level of scrutiny.”

The idea of profiling in this country is met with discomfort – a pulling of the shirt collar that begins to constrict your neck. In Israel, though, the idea is to do exactly that. Not just profile the Arab-looking man or the guy with the long beard and the keffiyeh, but everybody. Maybe profile isn’t the right word. Maybe it’s practicing a different level of awareness. Security looks at who’s parking at the airport, who’s getting out of their car and walking through the automatic doors, who’s approaching the ticket counter. They look for suspicious characters.

Then, security asks questions – not just to the suspicious, but to everybody. Where are you coming from? Where are you going? Why? The answers don’t necessarily matter. It’s how you answer. Are you nervous? Shifty? Calm? Making eye contact? Sweating?

This is why El Al hasn’t been attacked by terrorists in 30 years, and it’s why there’s never been a hijacking out of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport. The extra awareness – and asking of simple, basic questions – works.

An example: when my wife, some friends and I went on a group trip to Israel the summer after college graduation, we flew El Al from JFK Airport to Tel Aviv. Before we boarded the flight, the four of us were interrogated by El Al agents. They asked where we were going, why we were headed to Israel, if we knew anybody who lived there. They tried to ascertain whether we were Jewish. They wanted to see if our answers matched up. They wanted to see if they had a reason to be suspicious.

The questioning, from what I remember, lasted about 10 minutes, and you know what? We weren’t offended, and we weren’t inconvenienced.

We felt safe.

In the Toronto Star story, Rafi Sela, the president of a global transportation security consultation company, told of an old Israeli saying: It’s easier to look for a lost key under the light instead of searching in the darkness where you actually might have dropped it. In the US, we look under the light, because it’s easier. We don’t profile because people take offense. We don’t ask the questions we should. And we barely pay attention to the answers.

The people who want us dead stay in the dark.

If a different level of awareness keeps us as safe as El Al and Ben Gurion, then I’m all for it. We should Israelify our airports. We should profile. We should ask the basic questions and see how they respond. We should not let political correctness keep us unsafe. If Israel and its people don’t have a problem with it, neither should we.

We can’t be afraid to make the changes. In the end, it’s about being safe and not having to watch people die.

It’s about shining a flashlight into the darkness and seeing what’s out there.

But then, on Wednesday, I was reading the online version of the Cincinnati Enquirer and saw a story about the Vineyard Cafe and how it was closing after dinner Dec. 31. And yes, we have a $25 gift certificate there.

Guess where we went to lunch today?

Julie (the wife) is a master purveyor of restaurants.com* and tonight, with nothing on tap for dinner, we decided to cash in one of our $25 gift certificates.

*In case you don’t know, here’s what restaurants.com provides to you. You spend $10 to get a $25 restaurant gift certificate. And that’s pretty much it. No strings attached. You give them $10 and they give you a $25 gift certificate. Sometimes, you can pay $6 for $25. And sometimes – really, really special times – you can pay $2 for $25. Julie is like a bloodhound for those $2 deals.

So, we drive over to Cumin, an eclectic** Indian restaurant in East Hyde Park, and take in a nice dinner. The waitress is about to drop off the bill, we give her the $25 certificate, and she disappears. We assume she’s dropping the price on the bill by $25 and will soon return. We were wrong.

**Their description, not mine.

The owner walks over, drops the bill and the certificate on the table, and says he can’t honor it. We say, Huh.

“I stopped doing business with them four months ago. We don’t honor these on weekends.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t say that on the certificate***.”

***Almost all of the certificates have some kind of exception. Alcohol isn’t included. Or you must spend at least $35. Or Saturdays are excluded. Cumin didn’t say anything about excluding weekends.

“Yes, I know. That’s why I stopped doing business with that company.”

“Right, we bought this certificate, and now, you’re not going to honor it?”

“I don’t do business with them any more. Listen, you come back during the week – Monday through Thursday – and you can be my guest. But tonight, I cannot. You call them and get them to send you another certificate.”

We argued for a little while – and by we, I mean Julie – but he wouldn’t budge. The truth is: we’ve been to the restaurant once before. It was fine, but we never returned (obviously, we didn’t love it the first time. For that matter, we definitely didn’t love it the second time). We went back tonight, simply because we had the gift certificate. Otherwise, we might never have eaten there again.

Anyway, we grumbled for a bit, paid the tab, filled in the tip and left.

We left pissed off.

And this is what I don’t understand.

The owner of the restaurant doesn’t know who most of his customers are. He doesn’t know how many Twitter followers they have. He doesn’t know how many Facebook friends they have. He doesn’t know that if he pisses off one of them enough that he/she will make a special effort to get on a blog or another restaurant Web site and rip Cumin to shreds. He doesn’t know if his customer is doing an interview Sunday morning on a 50,000 watt radio station where he/she could mention that he/she saw a rat run through the restaurant (there wasn’t, but who’s to stop that person from saying so anyway?). You know how many people could hear/read all that? Potentially, thousands.

But the owner doesn’t think about that. So, he sends us – his paying customers – away from his restaurant pissed. The meal was good, the decor and atmosphere were nice, the server was efficient and worked hard to please us, and it was a pleasant evening. But the ending left a sour taste in our mouth.

Now, think about this: obviously, this guy didn’t want to comp us $25, even though we fulfilled our end of the bargain. Whether it’s principle or whether the guy is having money problems or whether he failed his customer relations class. Whatever. He doesn’t want to take $25 off the meal? Fine. But why doesn’t he offer a post-dinner drink? Why not offer desert? If he does that, we accept and we walk out a little less perturbed. We’re not completely happy, but we’re thinking, ‘Hey, the guy made an effort, and you have to give him credit for that. He tried, in some small way, to make it right.” Instead, we’re thinking, “This son of a bitch did absolutely nothing. Why in the hell should we ever go back.”

And we’re pissed.

Me, I’ve got about 750 Twitter followers, about 550 Facebook friends, and I’m going to be on a long-ranging sports talk radio show a few hours before the Bengals play a football game that has, let’s say, a little bit of interest. Let’s say, if I wanted to seek my revenge, 10,000 people hypothetically could hear or read my rant about Cumin. Maybe 1,000 people – 10 percent – say, “You know what? I don’t like what I’m hearing. I’m not going to spend my money there either.” Say, those 1,000 people would have brought somebody else and spent $90 for dinner. That’s $90,000 Cumin is potentially losing because of what I write or say. You know how he could have avoided it? Honoring the gift certificate.

Or giving us a $5 dessert.

Instead, I’m sitting here writing this rant, more pissed by the moment. And I ask: 1) does this guy understand the modern world and the megaphone the Internet provides? 2) And will I go back to Cumin*****?

The answers: 1) Apparently not. 2) No.

*****This does not count the return visit we’ll make during a weekday so we can actually use the gift certificate.

He’s just lucky I’m not writing about this.

P.S. Just after my wife read this post, she got an e-mail from opentable.com that asked her to review the meal she just had at Cumin. My bet? It ain’t going to be good.

She gave me the play-by-play of her trip while we ate dinner. She showed me the pictures she took on her camera. She made me watch the YouTube videos (crappy sound quality and all). She swooned over Bono.

We saw U2 about a decade ago at the Georgia Dome during the disastrous Pop Mart tour, and since I’m not a big U2 guy, I was just fine skipping this show. Julie, though, made me relive it.

“It was 100 times better than the show in Atlanta,” she texted me minutes after the last notes evaporated into the night.

“It was the best concert ever,” she exclaimed the next day, as I wiped the pizza sauce off my face.

“Don’t you wish you were there?” she taunted (though she knows I don’t really care).

It brought me back to the favorite concert I’ve ever seen. I’ve experienced some great acts – Ben Harper four times in high school and college; Mike Patton close to a half-dozen times; a Bad Religion show where the band played EVERY song I wanted*; Tool, an eight-hour roundtrip ride from Philly to New Haven to see Sparta; etc.

*This is a phenomenon I hadn’t experienced before and I haven’t experienced since.

But the best show I ever saw was Pink Floyd in 1994 at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta on the Division Bell tour, the last tour the band will ever play (I don’t think any YouTube videos exist, but strangely, there are numerous clips from the band’s 1987 stop at the now-defunct Omni). The stage show … incredible. The vibe in the audience … awesome. The sound from the band … pretty good. The entire experience … best-ever.

I remember thinking at the time that this was the best show I had ever seen, and that was true. It was only the second true rock concert I’d ever witnessed (Aerosmith was show No. 1 in 1993, though before that, I was supposed to hit a Coverdale/Page concert that eventually was canceled (I still remember how devastated I was when I heard that show was kaput because of poor ticket sales)). I also remember thinking Pink Floyd (minus, of course, Roger Waters) was the best show I’d probably ever see. And that’s true. At least I think.

I really wish I could have found some YouTube clips from the show at Bobby Dodd, just so I could confirm what I’ve built up in my mind the past 15 years. That apparently is not possible. But I do know this. The stage show was incredible, but the vibe in the audience was mediocre (the crowd was decidedly uninterested when the band played its new music, though the fans turned themselves around when Pink Floyd played the hits in the second act). The sound wasn’t really the best I’d ever heard either.

But overall, that show – when I was 15 years old and a freshman in high school – was the highlight of my concert-going experience, and I don’t think anything will ever live up to it. Listening to Julie describe her experience, I was a little jealous, because I don’t think I’ll ever feel that way for another show. It’s not the Pink Floyd show that was so great. It’s the memory of the Pink Floyd show that was so great.

Maybe I peaked too soon.