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I’m closing July the same way I started, with a Capital Chatter about the late political columnist Ron Blankenbaker.

This column, however, centers around my clumsiness as a fledgling political reporter.

I tell this true tale today in hopes it produces a chuckle or two, giving you a few moments of mental relief from the oppressive heat that grips much of Oregon.

Besides, we journalists should take our work seriously but not fall into taking ourselves too seriously.

So let us begin.

It was March 1983. A Statesman Journal trio – columnist Blankenbaker, photographer Ron Cooper and I – flew from Salem to Klamath Falls in a little chartered airplane to cover President Ronald Reagan’s brief visit to the Weyerhaeuser mill there.

Gannett owns the Statesman Journal, and my assignment included reporting nationally for Gannett’s print and broadcast media. In retrospect, my sole qualification for being chosen probably was my cub-reporter willingness to do whatever was needed, including bypassing my wedding anniversary for this trip.

We arrived a day early to report on local preparations for the presidential visit.

Blankenbaker and I shared a motel room and what passed as a portable computer. He got first dibs. After we finished our separate interviews around town, I showed him how write his column on the balky machine: Connect to the newsroom in Salem by placing the telephone receiver into the two cups. Type, but not faster than the cassette tape allows. Watch the tiny screen, which shows only a few words. Be prepared to start over. And over.

Once finished, he and Cooper headed to a steakhouse for dinner. Then it was my turn to use the computer and write my story. Heading back to the motel, they thought to stop at a Wendy’s restaurant and get dinner for me.

Blankenbaker called to ask what I wanted.

“A cheeseburger,” I said, annoyed that they got a steak meal but I …

“Don’t you want two cheeseburgers?” he responded. “It’s on the company.”

The next morning, Cooper was stationed at Kingsley Field to cover Reagan’s arrival and departure. That meant I also had photo duty while reporting on Reagan’s meeting with the wood products executives. I staked out a position alone in the press area, not realizing the phone at that spot was faintly marked “CBS.”

Suddenly, the national press corps exploded into the room, fresh from Reagan’s tour of the mill itself, which I could not attend. I was shoved from my carefully chosen prime spot.

I found myself relegated to the back of the room where Reagan was meeting with the timber folk. As they talked, I scribbled notes by hand and shot photos, while also holding a bulky tape recorder to catch every word Reagan uttered. This was the president, after all.

Then … the … recorder … started … burping … loudly … .

Ergh. Ergh. Ergh.

Everyone stared at me.

The reporters.

The Secret Service.

The industry reps.

The president.

Juggling camera gear, notebooks and all, I managed to turn off the offending recorder.

Once the meeting was over, I rushed – or so I thought – to write my story. But the national press was long gone by the time I reached the Gannett News Service editor on duty.

He was incensed. I was too slow! I chose the wrong angle for the story! Why, like The Associated Press, had I not led with Reagan’s brief response during the mill tour to a shouted question about the embattled Environmental Protection Agency director?

Well, I, uh, wasn’t on the mill tour. Still, flying back to Salem, I felt like a journalist failure.

But I gave our readers an honest accounting of the president’s visit:

“KLAMATH FALLS — President Reagan used a lumber mill here Saturday to pronounce the economy on the mend, even in Oregon’s wood products industry.

“Reagan, who scolded the nation’s television networks earlier in the week for ignoring ‘good news,’ practiced what he has been preaching. …”

My day brightened when I got back to the newsroom from Salem’s airport. My wife had just dropped off a bottle of bubbly and a note celebrating our sixth anniversary.

Journalists’ spouses put up with a lot. For us, it’s 45 years and counting. And chuckling.