The Day The Public Thought O'Hare Was Someone Important

17 October 2026

2028

R. Linda:

I tell ya! It's O'Hare's time to get noticed. If it isn't by a pint-sized, self-styled basketball commentator, it's by the general public. 

I told you about the pumpkin festival that I was assigned to cover as a New England fluff piece for the Fall season, but I didn't tell you that O'Hare's club was covering it too. Unfortunately, we didn't cross paths, but we both had stories to tell. Mine being entered on the blog; see Story #2026, Giant-Pumpkin Growing Is Apparently A Blood Sport of 11 October 2026.

O'Hare's assignment was to video some of the festivities and what was happening at the club on opening night. Now, O'Hare has a professional camera like the one you see professional news camera personnel using to cover as-it-happens stories. Therefore, he looks very professional. He works for his boss, whose initials are ABC, and well, I think you can guess where this is going. 

The night of the Pumpkin Festival opening was on the cool side. O'Hare wore a sweatshirt, and his boss told him to take his The North Face jacket in case it got cold. Well, it did get cold, and on the jacket went, and off O'Hare went down the street to the festival to film the opening events. 

If you've ever seen ABC Nightly News, you've seen David Muir in a blue-and-black light jacket with the ABC logo when he is reporting from the field. The jackets were The North Face brand, but I noticed the other night they have new ones, entirely blue and made by another company. Well, we've all seen The North Face jackets enough to recognise them as ABC News jackets. 

So there O'Hare was in a very crowded town, wearing THE jacket which had his boss's initials on it, and with the camera, many assumed he was part of an ABC News crew, even though there was no "News" after the ABC. Even the police thought that. They saw him coming and said, "Oh s—t! ABC News is here." 

I don't think they cursed the news company; I think they thought they were about to be interviewed and weren't ready, or even aware, that the national news was interested in a small-town event. 

Well, O'Hare was talking with them and told them that the ABC on his jacket didn't stand for THE NEWS service, but for his boss's initials, and that he was covering the event for the club. So all was well, and honestly, they wouldn't have cared either way; there was a lot going on, and he wasn't impersonating a news camera person. 

But it was amazing how many people thought he was. And how strange they act when a camera is around, especially if they think they are about to be on the national news. 

He said that while he was filming the opening parade, people would get in the frame and wave, like they were waving at people back home watching on the telly. He said he had to laugh. Others would try to get interviewed or ask him questions like, "Do you work with David Muir?" "Are you going to put us on TV and when so we can watch?" Questions like that. 

I assume (I told him), it made it hard to work with all that going on. He said he didn't mind it, and well, it was fun.

Well, I suppose O'Hare got his fifteen minutes of fame, even if nobody knew who the hell he was. All it took was a professional camera, a jacket with three little letters on it, and a crowd convinced they'd be on national television.

Even the police thought the big boys from ABC News had come to town. And O'Hare, bless him, was just trying to film a pumpkin festival.

I do wonder what David Muir would think of all this. Here's a fellow who spends his career reporting on world events, and O'Hare nearly upstaged him with a jacket and a bunch of pumpkins.

Come to think of it, maybe ABC should hire O'Hare. He's already got the jacket, the camera, and an audience.

Gabe

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