THE PERSON I LOVE

First, some full disclosure: In New York, WCBS-TV’s (Ch. 2), chief political reporter, Marcia Kramer, does not use her real name, which is actually, legally, Marcia Kramer-Kalech. Marcia is married to me, Marc Kalech.

I’m still not sure how this happened – but I do know that sometime, somewhere I did something right to deserve the company of this woman.

Professionally, Marcia is an anachronism. In any sense of the word, she’s beautiful, which is a priority in today’s market. But she also the last of a breed – she knows how to do her job. She has actual sources, actually comes up with stories, gets them right, meets deadlines and does it all with a personal style that’s makes viewers believe what she says.

My father once described her perfectly – and said so before he even knew I had ever met her. “She’s a beautiful woman with a real head on her shoulders,” he admiredly said. As an aside, when I told my parents I was going to marry Marcia they said “Who?” I told them to turn to Ch. 2 where she was on the air. They didn’t believe me and they didn’t until I took her home with me and produced her body.

As competing street reporters on the 5 pm to midnight shift in Manhattan, we saw eachother often. I had such a crush. But I always thought Marcia was out of my league. An obscenely long time ago, I remember covering a Bar Assn. dinner in Terrace on the Park in Queens. Marcia was there, on the arm to a guy I took to be a retired judge. I still remember what she looked like, what she wore and the smile she gave me when she saw me. The result – she seemed to move even further away on my imaginary league scale.

I say today that Marcia is better looking than ever. TV news executives, ruled by ratings, cannot get past the studies they paid squillions of dollars for that concluded viewers make up their mind about on-air reporters in about half a second. And their decision is based almost entirely on their gut reaction to the reporter’s face.

But before she went into TV, Marcia was a very successful newspaper reporter. Print editors – at least old-fashioned ones – still hire journalists based on whether they’re persistant and clever enough to get their resumes noticed. The late Jerry Nachman (who once called New York Post reporters “the crash test dummies of American journalism”) also declared that newspaper reporting was the only profession that rewarded personality defects. A master of the sound bite, Jerry wasn’t right about everything, but he nailed those two.

Anyway, I’m hoping all this will convince her how much I love her. She is the reason I live. I love her more everyday. She makes me a better person. And I swear that I’ve happily devoted my life to making her’s better – and happier.

I admit it doesn’t hurt a bit that she’s a knockout. In full TV makeup, she’s stunning. But without any makeup at all – and with just an unstressed smile – she’s unforgettable. That's the way she will live in my heart forever -- and I want her to know that I will devote my life to making those smiles last forever. With the a great belief in the power of the web, I pray these words will live for all time.

I love you Marcia.