‘What is your darkest memory? Most horrible experience?”, I asked the young handsome and ever-polite man driving the car.  There were no cameras, no notebook, just us blurring 70 miles an hour through his horticulture tour and 90 mile drive through southern Georgia. “Those are pecan trees…big down here. Make a lot of money with those trees.” Pecans grow on trees?  I thought-giggled to myself.

He eventually answered my question.  Seeing a fellow Marine die in front of him…after an IRD ripped him to bits….early in the Iraq conflict.  But the other story that grabbed me was too awful.  Spending two long tours in Iraq beginning as a baby faced 18 year old, barely out of high school, Evan Garlick USMC boy wonder recounted what would happen to any Iraqi woman spotted speaking to the Marines. The next morning their heads were on top of sticks lining the road out of the village. Something he – nor I – will ever forget.

But the big story of Evan that grabbed my heart and mind and thrust me into an aluminum tube to go interview him in Pelham, Georgia was far more beautiful…and important.  Getting the nickname “Post office” he was ribbed even in boot camp for getting so many packages and letters from back home, Shelbyville, Illinois an old stomping and sleeping ground of President Lincoln a couple centuries ago.  That guy slept everywhere. He and Washington slept a lot?

One of Evan’s buddies with the name Dieringer wasn’t getting any mail….so Evan wrote his mother..”please send him a package..but don’t tell him who you are or where its coming from,” Young Evan, a true man and a golden Marine was a very important Secret Santa of care packages. His selfless plea to his Mom was the very beginning of her Pride Packages she began in her garage and Robin Roberts and I profiled a fortnight ago…on Good Morning America.

I don’t think that Evan ever told anyone that he had Dieringers package sent anonymously. And noone had ever told Dieringer! Until I called Dieringer myself a few weeks ago, begging to have him do a a video message by Skype or Iphone …acting like a hyperactive sugar or Splenda deprived child. My pleas scared him off and dissolved what was to be my special ending to the segment I was producing. Don Hewitt at 60 Minutes at CBS used to say “the ending of a piece is what the viewer leaves with.” And no, I never met Don or even worked at “60”…though still a dream. Nothing more incredible than a 60 Minutes ending….beginning…and middle.

Another trip to America’s Front yard…and another ride in a car witnessing “before cameras” someones workday.  This time with a Child Protective Services field social worker who  introduced me to the ugly domestic horror that beautiful and engaging Xiomara Flores-Holquin would encounter every single day: child neglect and abuse of every kind.

I spent the day with her driving out in desolate semi-desert country East of Los Angeles. “That little girl has an infection in her mouth. Sadly I know what it is..and I know how she got it.” Part detective, part medical doctor she was on the front line of trailer park social and health collapse….she could spot sexual abuse through shades and drapes and see it through weary eyes and empty smiles.

Back then, at CBS News’ 48 Hours as an associate producer…(my Dad Billy O would tell people I was the Executive Producer…it was too complicated to correct him or explain job titles.) …I would often be the very first person to delve into a topic, a story, an hour that our team would produce.

My routine: Fly to a city or desert or trailer park. Then find a cool hotel, preferably Starwood or Hyatt, meet and greet and canvas characters and plotlines, angles, always keeping my notebook in my car — and in my back pocket a pen and a piece of paper folded up to scribble my download notes. I found a notebook to be intimidating, distracting and interfering. My eyes and ears alone… were important to grab the potential interviewee’s attention, ego, story and emotional sensibility…all nothing a notebook could do.

Xiomara was truly gorgeous. If there was a TV pilot about her work, she could star in it. She had to look these families in the eye and represent and help protect children. Of course, the children loved her. And so did the system. She’s still there 25 years later.

Another hero from my personal producing archive…a woman named Selma. I loved saying her named. She was a tough cookie…but with a jelly heart center. Selma Schimmel ran Vital Options, a breast cancer survivor counseling group on Coldwater Canyon Boulevard….north of Beverly Hills. She, a survivor herself, would be in my very first tape piece. St. Mary Murphy of Dobbs Ferry and Rhode Island would make that “historic” phone call to me in my early 20’s. I even remember where I was standing. On the staircase to my mother’s attic. “BOK, Im throwing you a bone… the Survivor Group piece with Linda Taira for you to produce…its time…now hang up…go throw up…and call me back,” she commanded with her trademark pause and semi-giggle. I did.

For years, OCD hoarder that I was (Hoarding was my THIRD addiction, FYI) I hung onto that thick, black binder with the transcripts of all the interviews in that piece. I think I finally got rid of it when I was cubiculized at ABC a few years back. I have always wondered how many of the woman in our roundtable — are still alive.

One time my crinkled piece of paper in my back pocket had to be replaced by a paper napkin that unfortunately laid on the table as I wrote copious notes. I had to. I was sitting with the woman who remembers everything! Patient #1 in a landmark scientific study on incredible and unreal almost computer-like memory. Dinner for two at Pace on Laurel Canyon Blvd. If you called #1 right now she would tell you what time we sat down…what we discussed, what we ate and what color the woman’s dress two tables down was….I kid you not. The Woman Who Can Never Forget!

Lesley Stahl and one of her superstar “60” producers were courting her and lunching her as I was…for months.  Even though no one was supposed to even know who Patient #1 was! The booking war was insane. I even brought Lay’s potato chips from the East to this woman Jill Rosenberg….who by the way has since been joined by Patients Two..thru Fifteen plus, including Marilu Henner who all sat down with Lesley a year after Jill…Numero Uno sat down with Diane Sawyer on a special edition of 20/20. The only time I ever beat “60 Minutes”. Interesting, Jill either wasn’t invited or didn’t want to join Lesley, Marilu and the “60” Memory Posse.

Sometimes life and work intersected.  Nutrition counselor Debbie Lux ran a “Write it Down” diet group in Los Angeles. No rules, just write down everything you eat and discuss in group therapy once a week at a Valley hospital. Funny, I shot so many stories in LA way before I moved there.

The ladies in the group loved me because …as a foodie and occasional fattie, I spoke their language! One woman with a New York Jewish ambience purred to me, unforgettably: “See Brian, you can still have your bacon and still have your peanut butt-ah…just WRITE it down…Brian!”   I can hear her voice right now!  Bonding with people I did stories on was my thing.  Still is.  And certain LA old ladies who have that saltiness and charming bite of a certain type of New Yorkah dot greater Los Angeles.   Even though they never even lived in New Yawk!!  The real dream is to throw in Richard Schlesinger for some remarkable giggles and stories that would beat anything I have written here today.

I have been blessed with my dream job introducing human stars in our world, as Tim Tebow just said to me the other day…”Stars who aren’t athletes or movie stars…but stars in everyday life.”  (sorry I had to name drop before I got all pious and pompous and braggy….)    I could probably write a whole book and blog just about these people.

My bestie Theresa who runs a daily TV show called “Extra”  (last namedrop, I promise!)  often says to me that my memory is like a steel trap.  Meanwhile, she forgets everything and I have to tell her to Fed Ex her brain to herself!   My fortune to share these do-ers of our world for THIRTY years almost… with millions of people, electronically and digitally, itself is a wonder.   Some of these people made it to videotape.  Some made it to airing on national television.  But, every single one of them made it into my non-notebook.

Lucky me.