During the latest snowstorm, I was walking my usual two miles to school when an excited News12 crew stopped me.
“Can we interview you? “
”What do you think of the snow and ice?”
”Do you feel like you can walk safely on the sidewalks?”
I removed my earbuds from their hiding places under my many layers of hat-face-mask-neck-gaiter and paused my audiobook.
“Sure.”
”It’s not as bad as the last storm.”
”I have Yaktrax in my bag in case it gets more slippery.”
It was not the most riveting interview, but I was proud to have been deemed newsworthy. Especially for a thing I do every single day.
My 15-seconds of potential fame reminded me of a bigger storm back in January 1996, when my husband built an igloo on live TV.
If you know my husband, you are probably thinking, “Well, yeah. That sounds like something Rob would do.” And that must be what the Adirondack Mountain Club thought as well, when a producer from the Regis and Kathie Lee Show asked if they knew anyone in the NYC area who could build an igloo.
“Oh, sure! Call Rob Hornik. He’ll do anything in the snow!” I can imagine them saying, perhaps in the same cadence as Mikey’s siblings in those Life cereal commercials from 1972.
In 1996 Rob was teaching high school in Brooklyn, and he offered to bring some of his students to help build the igloo on TV. What a neat opportunity for them!
“Um, no.” the producer said. “Just you. And listen, we’ll need you to build the entire igloo during the one-hour program. Can you do that?”
Rob explained that it would take more than an hour just to make all the snow blocks. He would need a lot of snow blocks.
They compromised. Rob could arrive four hours early, and the TV crew would help him make the snow blocks.
I can picture the TV crew guys hastily checking their contracts. Making snow blocks at 5am? Could they really be required to do this? Apparently so.
At 5am, Rob and the shivering TV crew began packing blocks of snow on the street outside the ABC studio near Lincoln Center.
At 9am, the Regis and Kathie Lee show went live and Rob began to build the igloo, one layer at a time. Fifteen minutes into the program, the cameras showed his progress.
“Look!” said Kathie Lee, with mock surprise. “There’s a totally random guy building an igloo right in front of our studio!” I don’t remember the exact dialogue, and we no longer have the ability to play the VCR tape on which we recorded this in 1996, but it was something like that.
“Well, I’ll be!” Regis said, with equally feigned amazement.
Rob waved at the cameras and kept building.
Every fifteen minutes, the show checked in on his progress.
“That guy is STILL at it!” Regis or Kathie Lee would say, smiling at each other and their audience.
Just before the end of the show, Regis and Kathie Lee donned their coats and came outside. They peeked their heads into the now-completed igloo, and, through the magic of TV, the cameras showed, not the lumpy white interior of the igloo, but a living room, complete with velvet sofas, carpeting, and chandeliers. It was like “I Dream of Jeannie’s” luxurious home in a bottle.
Rob smiled and waved.
That night we were watching the local ABC news when a reporter appeared in front of Rob’s igloo.
”When it snows,” said the reporter, “most of us go inside for hot cocoa. But not Rob Hornik!” And there was the footage of Rob building an igloo on Columbus Avenue. Rob was smiling and waving. There was no mention of Regis or Kathie Lee.
Below him, the chyron read Rob Hornik, Igloo Builder.
Chyron (ˈkī-ˌrän) is the fancy term for the words at the bottom of the TV screen, and I was so proud of Rob, both for building an igloo and for having such a confident and bizarre chyron.
I didn’t get to see my interview on News12. I’m not even sure how to watch News12 on our TV since Netflix and Amazon Prime have taken it over. I suspect the “Live TV” icon is no more functional than the door-close button in an elevator. I don’t mind not seeing myself on TV, but I do wish I knew what chyron they used for me:
Slightly demented older woman walks ten miles through snow and ice.
Large chicken dressed in a lady-suit clucks along Riverdale Avenue.
Wife of famed igloo-builder Rob Hornik sets forth from their igloo to hunt walruses.
I hope it was the third one.
Photo by TopSphere Media on Unsplash
HA!!
The third one. for sure 👍