At 8:30 a.m., amid morning interviews with U.S. senators and calls from viewers in Dubuque, C-SPAN is doing a segment on many of the congressional races. Tuesday morning, they turned to Vermont.

C-SPAN, the channel that spends a good bit of its time just showing live “action” in Congress, is not apparently a stickler for well-polished commentary. Which prompted them to dial me up and ask me to be on the air for a few minutes to tell their viewers about the Vermont U.S. House race.

There I was on the other end of a not-entirely-clear telephone connection with my less-than-smooth delivery. The gist of what I said was that it’s quite clear in this race how interested Washington is in it, what with the steady flow of visitors we’ve had from there on behalf of both Republican Martha Rainville and Democrat Peter Welch. In between making that point, there was more ums and ers than I would have preferred. Trust me, you’re glad you missed it.

I figured out a radio career was not for me one Sunday in 1981 as I delivered the noon news for the first and last time on WRUV radio, the campus station at the University of Vermont. I can tell you the exact date, thanks to Google, because one of the stories in my newscast was about the longest baseball game ever played the night before — between the Rochester Red Wings and Pawtucket Red Sox. I grew up in Rochester, a huge Red Wings fan, so the story stuck with me. The 33-inning game is still a record. What I also remember about the newscast was that I was dreadful.

Enough about me, though. This congressional race is anything but dreadful, whether Washington cares or not.
- Terri Hallenbeck