Longtime KGO Reporter Wayne Freedman has been at the station since 1991.

You would think after working that long in the business, the guy might deserve to get Thanksgiving off?

But Freedman worked this past Thanksgiving, just like he worked all the Thanksgivings before that.

"Wouldn't miss it" is the same answer Freedman gives every year.

The day is a special one for Wayne, he says that Thanksgiving marks the of first shift as a full-time, staff television news reporter at WAVE-TV in Louisville, Kentucky, in November 1979.

It took 10 years to get there... from writing a regular newspaper column for what is now the Los Angeles News while in 9th grade, to working in newsrooms, finishing school, and surviving as photographer at a cross-town station.

Freedman remembers his first day on the job, when WANE News Director Larry Pond, showed him to his future desk in a back corner of that small newsroom.

The previous reporter had covered his typewriter with spilled soft drinks and half-torn promotional stickers. It had a bad ribbon, a squeaky mechanism, and the "s" key stuck.

When I sat down at that desk for the first time on Thanksgiving as a full-time staff reporter, the machine had a fresh coat of paint, a wet ribbon, and felt like new.

"Every reporter deserves a fresh start," said Larry.

“Best typewriter ever” Feedman said.

He adds, “So, yeah. Every Thanksgiving day I work. I think about the opportunities that reporting has given me.”

Now the kids in TV news have no clue what a typewriter is and they are asked to worked the holidays, they have their mom call the News Director to bitch about it.

The business has changed a lot, but just like Wayne Freedman we worked every Thanksgiving and every Christmas that we were employed in TV news.

Like I always used to say, I never got into TV news for the hours or the money, because neither is very good.

H/T Wayne Freedman