P.S. A Column On Things

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Start of November 27 Column. More or Less Continuous News Service since 1998

Thanksgiving and Gratitude without either word

Clark Smith, my friend of long standing, likes, at Thanksgiving, to read aloud the introduction to Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything. Bryson never mentions the words gratitude or thanksgiving, but I, like Clark feel those emotions are implied.

Not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since time immemorial to a favored evolutionary line, but you have also been extremely-make that miraculously-fortunate in your personal ancestry. Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result-eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly-in you.

College Jobs: WBZ

When it used to be possible to have your gas pumped, despite the extra cost, I had the attendant pump it because “I didn’t pay $10,000 for an MIT education so I could pump my own gas.” I really did pay $10,000; my dad’s $1,600 covered a little of my room and board. MIT asked him to take out a mortgage on his mortgage-free house to pay my tuition. How he laughed.

Many scholarship students of my acquaintance at MIT made their money shelving books or bussing tables at the Institute, or working in retail. I was fortunate; I never had to do any of those things. Well, I did 15 minutes in retail once while someone was on a break, but I don’t think that counts.

Thanks to the First-Class Radiotelephone Operators’ Permit that I earned during and because of attendance at Benson Polytechnic, I was qualified for a wide range of broadcasting jobs. I was a summer relief cameraman and overnight-shift master-control operator at KGW-TV. I minded directional antenna arrays at WCRB and KKEY. I was a master control operator and did lighting (big flat lights for Community Auditions) during an ill-advised full-time term-time job at WBZ-TV. All these jobs involved commutes.

You haven’t lived until you’ve commuted by bike from the Back Bay to WBZ’s Soldiers Field Road studio during a rainy Boston summer, over the streetcar tracks and through Boston’s cow-path street system. Ah, how I missed the rectangular street grids of the West.

Things My Mother Said: Grandmother Edition

My German-Swiss paternal grandmother, Gert, was a great believer in maxims. She told me that if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Gert offered practical advice; no one ever got a dish or plate clean with a towel. I do that occasionally now and think of her while I’m doing it.

Gert loved the English translation of an old German maxim “We get too soon old and too late smart.”

Gert frequently called me a dummer Esel (dumb ass). And she used the German phrase Scheiß die Wand an, which literally means shit on the wall, but translates as “to hell with it.” She also said, “Zum Teufel mit ihnen,” meaning, literally, To The Devil With You.

What Counts?

“Not everything worthwhile can be measured, and not everything that can be measured is worthwhile.” Or, to put it another way, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” Attributions for these quotes are so dubious I shan’t repeat them here. We’ll just let it go at anonymous.

This and That

American Management In Brief
Best interpretation of today's corporate world. From LinkedIn
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Inspiring Teacher Story
Teachers do make a difference. From LinkedIn via Michael Dortch
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Funny Because It’s True
Don’t Jump To Conclusions. Also from LinkedIn
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Of-ten or Off-en
Now matter how often I hear it, when people pronounce the “t” in often, it drives me crazy. The dictionary says both are correct. The dictionary is wrong. Rain down your Pet Peeves on this subject.

Right Column Redux: Journalism Books

The column to the right on this blog contains permanent content, most of which has appeared at one time or another in the main body. I’ve decided to include a reminder.

Journalism Books

Book Review: Luck Off and Fly

The latest installation of H. Claire Taylor’s comedy science fiction series, Luck Off and Fly, is another impressive piece of work. And that is a definition of impressive with which I WAS previously familiar. Luck, the incompetent Texan thrown into a leadership position for which she is clearly unqualified, continues to muddle through somehow, just as she did in her third Sophomore Year at the UT in Austin. Somehow she ends up on a planet where everyone looks like an ex-boyfriend of hers. Improbable? Blame it on the improbability waves. An enjoyable and entertaining excursion through worlds of imagination, filled with colorful characters and bizarre aliens.

End of November 27 Column (No. 906)

Start of November 20 Column. More or Less Continuous News Service since 1998

Gratitude and Thanksgiving

For 25 years, I have been running variations of this Thanksgiving column. During the years when I had stopped posting regular blog entries, I started writing regular entries in a gratitude journal, which got me to thinking of the difference between thankful and grateful. Google isn't much help:

Grateful: feeling or showing an appreciation of kindness; thankful.
Thankful: pleased and relieved, grateful

So, basically, it treats the words as synonymous. I do still give thanks for my health and my family. I am also grateful to have them in my life. I am grateful to be of use, to my family and others. [Turns out service is a Love Language] I am grateful for the love I get and the loving kindness I am now obliged to give everyone, since my heart Chakra opened.

If you feel life has been dealing to you from the bottom of the deck, I recommend the practice of keeping a gratitude journal. Write down one or two things each day for which you are grateful. Big or small, serious or silly. It can be an interesting and rewarding activity.

Me? I’m grateful for everything. Family, career, health, another beautiful day, and one more chance to set foot on this good green Earth. Happy Thanksgiving!

Link To My Poem: Pandemic Thanksgiving

To Script or Not To Script?

That isn’t really even a question. I’ve been told I should be speaking from notes. I previously noted that I did not manage that trick during my last concert MC job. Then, I realized I had done an entire half-hour radio broadcast of my love songs, since my come-to-Jesus moment with my friends, sans script. Not even the opening, and I have been scripting the openings of my live broadcasts since I was 14. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. As we used to say in the old days, Honk Honk, Waddles The Goose.

Right Column Redux: Journalism Quotes

The column to the right on this blog contains permanent content, most of which has appeared at one time or another in the main body. I’ve decided to include a reminder.

My utterly amazing Journalism Quotes

Grandson: Less or Fewer

First, a quick note. He is now in pre-K. On Halloween his school had a parade so parents could see all the costumes, He wasn’t very happy about it, but walked around the blacktop twice. He did smile when he saw his mom and me.

Later, he asked me to tighten his seat belt fewer. I said, “Less.” He said, “I know the rule. Fewer for things you can count, less for things you can’t count.”

I responded with examples: fewer dolls, less water.

He thought for a moment, then said, “You could count water if you froze it and broke it into pieces.”

I was deeply impressed. I doubt that answer would have come to me at age 4.

This and That

Definition of Insanity
I am sure this was not his intent, but this is the definition of stark raving mad, running the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim.
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Resolve Conflict
From LinkedIn. The best way to resolve conflict without yelling is: "Communicate with clarity. Explain with soft tone."