Oops.

Sometimes embarrassing things happen and there’s nothing we can do about it. It wasn’t our fault, but we are the victim. Sometimes, we bring it on ourselves.

One of my most embarrassing moments happened when I worked at WBOC TV. It was probably 1980 and I was anchoring The Noon News alone. And I mean alone. Not even a cameraman in the studio. Both cameras were locked down and I was even running my own teleprompter.

I think Wayne Gilreath was directing, which was in another room.

I got through the first blocks just fine. When we came out of commercial, I started doing the weather forecast and my throat seized up. It felt like somebody had stuck a knife in my vocal chords. It hurt. And I had virtually no voice.

I coughed to try and clear my throat but it did no good. It still hurt and all I had was a raspy whisper of a voice.

On live television. With no co-anchor to bail me out.

Wayne saved me by putting up the weather map full screen, and I grabbed the Chloraseptic bottle that was on a shelf under the news desk. I pumped a couple of shots down my throat and tried to talk, and still nothing.

I swallowed some more and whispered through the rest of the broadcast, which thankfully was almost over. It was humiliating. If anybody was actually watching from home, it was probably one of those, “Look at that poor kid, I hope he makes it” moments.

It may have been later that year that I had another embarrassing moment sitting on that same set.

It was a Saturday night and I was preparing to anchor the 11 pm News. CBS was showing a movie and I was on the set during a commercial break do to a “tease” as they came out of the local commercials and returned to the network.

It was a :10-second segment with a hard out, meaning I had to be finished in 9.9 seconds because the movie was starting with or without me.

The commercial ended and the light on the studio camera came on. It was my turn, and it went something like this: “Coming up tonight at 11, fire destroys a business in Princess Anne, the Delaware General Assembly is trying to write its annual budget, and Maryland makes the NAACP semifinals!”

I meant to say, of course, Maryland makes the NCAA semifinals. N-C-Double A vs N Double A - C -P. Close but no cigar.

As soon as it came out of my mouth, I knew I had made a big mistake, but it was live and the countdown lock was about to hit zero. There was no time to fix it. I laughed and threw my pen up in the air as we cut to the movie.

I sat there shaking my head, partly laughing and partly wanting to cry. I breathed a silent prayer pleading with God that our news director wasn’t watching the movie.

The studio hotline started flashing and I knew that prayer had gone unanswered.

Our news director at the time was Bill Jones. He’s black. And I had just incorrectly called the organization that governs college athletics the civil rights organization that fights for the rights of black Americans. I did not want to answer that phone.

But I did.

Only to hear Jonesy laughing so hard he could barely breathe. He said it was the funniest thing he had ever seen, and no I wasn’t fired. He was still laughing Monday morning when I went into his office to apologize.

The only bright side to this story: I worked in TV before YouTube existed.