It was Parent’s Week­end at Bay­lor, prob­a­bly around 1993. The big hul­la­baloo was going on over at Founders Mall — par­ents meet­ing teach­ers, kids intro­duc­ing their moms and dads to Pro­fes­sor So-And-So, and there I was just ambling through with­out my par­ents, who hadn’t come this time around. If you’d seen me then on that warm early Octo­ber day, you’d prob­a­bly have said, “Why is that dirty hip­pie walk­ing through here?” I was not the clean cut per­son I became later. That’s the trou­ble with peo­ple; they change.

And so that dirty hip­pie was lop­ing through the hordes, prob­a­bly going some­where in a slow and “keep on truckin’” kinda way, when I saw him. He was the weath­er­man that I’d grown up with, and I knew his daugh­ter was attend­ing his alma mater at the same time that I was. His trade­mark bow ties were leg­endary around Dal­las from the first time I remem­ber him and he wore them every news­cast, no mat­ter what. He’d always been short, you could tell that by com­par­ing him to the other news anchors on the chan­nel 8 sound stage, but I didn’t know he’d be that short. I’m talk­ing like Danny Devito height, no kid­ding, the man was SHORT. Like 5′ 2″ or something.

As I brushed by him (lit­er­ally) he seemed star­tled. I mum­bled, “Hi there.” He didn’t say any­thing, just sorta glared.

I thought, “Man, what a jerk.”

And that was my close encounter of the weather kind with Troy Dun­gan. He’d started work­ing for WFAA on July 19, 1976, and he’s retir­ing tomor­row, July 18, 2007. From what his col­legues say he’s a swell guy. I’m sure he is and was just prob­a­bly scared of that dirty hip­pie kid way back when. So long, Troy. Happy trails.