Columnist Bob Shemeligian: Watergate and a guy named Manny

Bob Shemeligian

Tuesday, June 17, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

TWENTY FIVE YEARS ago, my journalism career began.

That was the night five men dressed in suits and ties broke into the office of the Democratic National Committee.

At the time, of course, nobody knew anything about Watergate, or the lesson to the nation's greatest political scandal: about the arrogance of power and the stubbornness to hang onto it -- no matter the cost.

The day of the break-in, I was working a summer job, on the can line at the Polar Beverages Co. in Worcester, Mass.

The can line -- which produced cases of soda pop -- suffered many breakdowns, simply because the cases tended to jam on the conveyor belt over our heads.

The others in the factory would notice but wouldn't say anything, because the sight of cases of soda falling from the overhead conveyor and raining on our heads provided a little break to the monotony.

Did I say monotony? That's too light a word for factory work. It's a little like prison, I suppose.

Most anyone can handle two or three shifts, but after two or three months your brain begins to play tricks on you. After a while you start seeing and hearing things. A bunch of bottles might appear to jump off the line and start dancing and pirouetting. You shake it off, and a few minutes later you hear what you think is your foreman screaming at you, but it's just the noise of the cans rushing by.

At the factory, my nickname was "Flash." That was because I was, apparently, the most naive college kid they had ever seen (I was to begin my freshman year at the University of Massachusetts in September) and I was always the first one out the door on Fridays.

I guess it was the foreman's worry that I would kill myself and everyone else on the can line that led him to team me up with Manny, a veteran factory worker. Manny was in his late 40s but looked at least 10 years older because he worked two full-time factory jobs to feed his family.

I learned a lot from him about responsibility and patience. Those who know me today -- who picture me as irresponsible and impatient --should have seen me before I met Manny. I was worse.

Besides being a good factory worker, Manny was a news junkie, and we spent a lot of times -- when the can line had broken down -- talking about politics.

Like many others in Massachusetts (the only state that voted for George McGovern in November 1972), Manny didn't trust President Nixon, and he predicted Nixon wouldn't finish out his second term.

"What are you talking about, Manny? It isn't going to be an election in November, it's going to be a coronation," I said with a laugh.

"You just watch what happens, kid. Everything's going to catch up with this guy."

It was months after Nixon was re-elected by 18 million votes over McGovern that I started hearing more about Watergate and the men behind what would become the nation's greatest political scandal.

My sophomore year, I started taking journalism classes. I was among thousands of other journalism students who idolized Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, the reporters who broke Watergate.

And since I knew there would never be another Watergate, that would leave a lot of space to fill with stories about other subjects.

Like Manny.