Mullling It Over

Tongue Out of Cheek Warning!

Flirtatious: Not in the mood!

Real Mood? Twisted

Prediction: New Orleans and Gulf Port and Mobile will not go away.

After the Columbine shootings I was touched by the teenage drive to express grief in verse. Poems were popping up everywhere, and I thought that needed some perspective. I found a former state Poet Laureate and asked her to share her wisdom on that phenomenon. And, "Have you already written a tribute?"

She said, "Call me tommorrow. It's too soon."

(Verse haters, don't run. This will take a different turn.)

Over the years this Poet Laureate formed a personal guideline. Since I didn't write it down I'll have to paraprhase.  "Start reacting, start absorbing, start feeling right away. Take notes, take pictures, take stock of your life, but don't start writing. Let it all sit and gel. It will take it's own honest form on it's own honest schedule.  Your intellectual controls will be useless."

While working in a psuedo managerial roll (assignment editor ) in television, I formed my own version of that guideline. I used it for covering the news of the day. " Be a sponge," I preached. "Take it all in. Absorb it. We'll know sometime during the day when its time to squeeze that sponge." I think it's original. But it's probably something Plato said to Aristotle.

So I think I'm still in that absorbtion stage over Hurricane Katrina. I think that because I really got grumpy with my Broadcast Journalism class this afternoon. I think I made them my punching bag. So if any one from that class checks in, sort of accept my apology. (Not what I said, but how I said it. I reserve the right to be grumpy with cause.)

In a journalism career of any length you get immune to being impressed by irony and coincidence. I've said to way too many people, "Gee I was just in New Orleans a week and a half ago." "You know that hurricane pretty much took the same path our cruise ship did?"

Some actually respond with an air of sincerity saying, "Wow! Really?" And slowly I start feeling guilty. So what?  I think its my form of stalling. I'm not quite ready to organize the awe, the anger, the empathy, the grief, the helplessness, the fear, the compassion. So how then do I connect myself? "I think that's the hotel I was sleeping in just a week ago."  And unfortunately I think that comes from a little subconscious training. Other times I feel it's direct training from consultants. 

I believe its a chicken or egg discussion. Consultant to Reporter:  "People want to see you get connected with the story. Become a part of it. That's what brings you viewers."

Let's call that the chicken.

Or is the reporter more interested in becoming well known (famous) than telling the story?

Lets call that the egg.

Or is it the audience that really wants some 'personality' out there in the rain telling of their personal connection to the story?

Let's call that the omelette.

Okay let's pick a pronoun. Put the chicken, the egg and the omelette together and we can use "they!"

"Why did THEY do that?" "Who do THEY think they are?"

But you know what? It would be just as easy to combine the chicken, the egg and the omelette and use the pronoun WE?

"Why do WE do that?" "Who do WE think WE are?"  Oh, my!

I'm collecting and absorbing some thoughts that may be critical (and self critical in retrospect) of how the media is handling this disaster. I still want to talk about "Chicken Little News."  But not yet.  

 

 

 

Hodgepodge

Flirtatious: "Can I interest you in a little vegemite?"

Real Mood? Splintered

Prediction: Even though the U.S. Oil industry wasn't wiped out by Hurricane Katrina,  the price at the pump will still go up.

I was going to use a synonym for hodgepodge, olio. But that's too close to oleo, a form of  which I want to talk about as part of hodgepodge.

Have you seen this new butter like stick which is made up of vegetable oil? Earth Balance Buttery Stick is the product name.  My first fear was that it was going to be some entrepeneurial Aussie trying to unload some leftover Vegemite. If you've never tasted that stuff, do yourself a favor. Don't! I shouldn't say that.  If you like CastorOil? You'll love Vegemite. You had to grow up with it I think. My Roo friends say it's a case of knowing how much to spread on your bread, or croissant, or muffin. Sorry mates. Just having a container of it open nearby can destroy my day.

Anyway, happily this new vegestick really tastes something like a cross between Oleo and Butter. So us butter lovers are thinking, "finally a healthy, good tasting, alternative to artery clogging butter."

Well, go ahead and use it, but don't read the ingredients label. I get a little suspicious when somebody tells me, "well there's bad fat and there's good fat."

It really is strange to watch that hurricane take the same path as the cruise we were on just a week ago. I don't want to say too much about that 'cause I'm going to do an entry on what I call "Chicken Little News."  Just as a tease, "42 thousand people did not die in New Orleans."

I did tease one of my students, Ambra (Name Dropper),who'd been in the Big Easy the same time Peggy and I were there. She cursed the cockroaches. Two traits I've heard about cockroaches. They are indestructable, and like elephants they never forget. We could have millions of cockroaches headed our way. Maybe like the Pied Piper we'll have to have Ambra lead them all into Barr Lake.

Have some sympathy for my friend Mindy who has been setting up ABC affiliate live shots from the Hurricane. She is discovering that just about every reporter on the planet wants to see what they look like on a bad hair day.

So I'm generally impressed with the skills of archetects and engineers with regards to space. They don't just know how things should work.  They pretty much know where they should go. Well somebody who designed a baseball field near here really needed to consult an archetect and an engineer.

I don't know why I hadn't noticed this before.  Off to my left as I'm driving down the highway (Major Highway)  I look up on the hill to see the netted fencing of the outfield. It's all in its familiar bent horseshoe like form. You know it's a baseball field.   Problem? The fencing for all fields (left, center and right) is sitting right over the highway. So Billy goes Yard? (hits homerun) Where does the ball land?  There is no way it can miss the hood of your Toyota.

But that's not the whole story. We know where the field fences are. So from that we can mathematically determine where home plate would be. My calcuations have all batters in afternoon games (the field has no lights) facing West and slightly North.  That would be where the sun hangs out in late summer, in the afternoon, in my neighborhood. I don't know about yours. I'm sure there's some important information I don't have.

I'm amused by the progress we've made in speeding up highway construction. My college room mate was an engineering major. He used to bore me with all this information about how long concrete had to cure before you could drive on it. (I'm sure he didn't appreciate treastises on my diciplines either)  Now pieces of highways and bridges are pre-formed and pre-stressed and then just delivered and slapped into place.

You may or may not know that if you generally get on the highway during rush hours. The trucks that deliver them are typically banned from deliveries during high volume periods.

So I'm bringing  this up because I saw a hugely long flatbed truck hauling a span of overpass mid day. It just looks weird. It's like the tractor and trailer are sandwiched between a road above and a road below. Only the top road is movng. I'm hoping you weren't expecting much out of this.

This is the second week of classes for me. It didn't take me long to get my mind blown. One of my classes is Introduction to Radio and Television. I try hard to sneak in a painless historical perspective. I'm talking at length this morning about Edison's invention of the PHONOGRAPH. I posed the question, "Did his recording played on that device of Mary Had a Little Lamb constitute the first known software?"

Well a hand pops up, and I'm expecting some deep exploration of the issue. You know something like, "well but can we really call it software?"

But no. The question from a student I've already determined is pretty sharp was:

"What's a phonograph?"

There is a student somewhere between the class average age and mine, who joined me in the jaw drop. He was the only one.

I looked around the room and it dawned on me.  She was not alone in her confusion. These students can only trace their history back to cassette tapes. Wow! I don't mind getting old.  But I hate it when it sneaks up on me like that.

I've gotten a lot of feedback from my last entry on our TV reunion. Bruce I'm thinkin' we needed that.

"Whatcha Been Up To?"

Flirtatious: "You don't look a day over 60."

Real Mood? Completely Nostalgicated

(For newcomers I am making a statement against AOL's assumption that all human moods can be reduced to sixteen. " I don't think so?")

Prediction: Bruce Binns' daughter will get one whiff of the humidity in Asheville, North Carolina and come running home. (Plus they talk funny there.)

Any gathering of former attachments is going to be full of Powerful Emotions, Powerful Memories. The greater time lapse between gatherings seems to be directly proportinate to the level of Emotional and Memorial exaggeration. And there is a multiplying factor on that exaggeration based on the common bond of the gathering group.

I'm guessing the origin of "Tall Tales" can be traced to reunions of primative cave artists and clan gossips. A modern day newsroom is likely the natural evolutionary extension of those societal roles. 

I think this is sufficient build up to letting you know I am now recovering from a reunion of fellow TV employees. Most of them are or were newsroom employees.

Our common touchstone is a guy named Bruce Binns. For most of our adult lives Bruce has been the one there to pull us out of the fires, and set us high on a hill where we can scream our reports to the World.  He's found a unique supportive role and milked it to the Nth degree. Bruce is the station sattelite uplink truck engineer. He gets falsely miffed when I mention he got the "National Engineer of The Year Award" three years running. "Come on Bruce, you love it!"

Of course what endears us to Bruce has little to do with engineering. What Bruce can't  seem to stop doing, even to this day,  is save our collective _________'s. (Lynn Setzer says her organization often blocks my BLOG based on the language. It'll be interesting to see if that get's through. Lynn?) 

All truck engineers can tell where to point the dish. But I'm guessing there are few Sat Truck Guys on the planet who have a working historical knowledge of the life of Socrates. And if they do I can almost guarantee you he's the only one who wickedly uses the Socratic method to direct human beings toward acceptable behavior. You'll need some examples.

"Did you mean to go on air with snot running down your cheek?"

"Maybe you'd want to get some light on that face so people at home won't get frightened. What do you think?"

"Is this really where you want to do that live shot from? I'm just asking because the fire seems to be over there."

"I know you're the reporter, but wouldn't "gets" be more grammatically correct than "gots?"

This is already more praise than Bruce can handle in one sitting, so I'll pretty much stop. 

Bruce quickly picks the time and place(his place). He quickly organizes this event pretty much by word of e-mail mouth. We pretty much show up in mass 'cause we know he'll be calling those who didn't asking, "why?" ( I got four calls from him making sure I got the e-mail.)

So we followers of Bruce pretty much fill up the small town that lets him live there. The place is packed, the rum is running, and the memories are marvelous. I can't tell you a whole lot more because there is a code. "What's said in the news car (truck) stays in the news car (truck)." A lot of it you wouldn't believe it anyway.

But I am going to break the code somewhat because I only got to share this memory with the few people left in the middle of the following morning.  And besides the main character in this story didn't show up and deserves to be exposed.

So I'm working the assignment desk some *%$^years ago ( I wonder if Lynn's boss will edit that), and we are in the middle of the 5 o'clock newscast. We have two breaking stories going on that I'm trying to coordinate. It was a tough day because we'd just been given the mandate to trim the overtime budget and the breaking news was killing us. So all of a sudden I hear the dreaded crackle of a photographers two-way radio.

"Eleven, News!"

"Yeah Ed.Go ahead eleven."

It was Ed Cullen, a bureau photojournalist, who I was assuming was about tell me he was going off the clock.

"I think we got something here."

"What?"

"I see some smoke.".

My brain froze. There was no way we had a chance of getting that smoke on the air. On the other hand if it turned out to be a major fire, and I couldn't come up with some video for the 10 O'clock?

"Go ahead and check it out Ed, but make it quick." 

We're well into the newscast and things are running relatively smoothly when I hear from Ed again.

"Eleven, News."

"Yeah, Ed."

"I'm starting to see some fire now."

I'm thinking "darn!" ( I don't think I've ever thought "darn" in my life, but I want Lynn to be able to read this.)

"Alright Ed, keep going. Let me know what you've got."

So I don't hear from Ed for the rest of the newscast, and quite frankly I'd forgotten about him. That's an admission you'll rarely hear from an assignment editor. So now the show is over, and we got our two live shots on the air. Time to take a deep breath and relax.

"Eleven, News!"

Whoops!

"Yeah Ed, whadda we got?"

"Well there is smoke!"

"Uh, huh!"

"And fire."

"Yes, Ed, but WHAT...have we got?"

"What we've got is a crematorium."

*&^)$$%#@

"So go ahead and put me down for a half hour of overtime."

The End.

Thanks Bruce for a great time.
 

"Origin of The Species, Etal"

Flirtatious: "How'd you like to try some of my supplements?"

Real Mood?  Contorted

Prediction: Somebody will try to feed a dairy cow soybeans so that body can claim his cow gives organic soy milk.

For the record you are looking at a manufacturer of Tillamook Cheese.

I don't know why. Maybe it's just because I need to keep my mind busy.  I like to discover where things come from.   Problem is evolution and transportation makes it almost impossible to get a straight answer. It seems nothing is ever what it used to be, or where it used to be. Take plants for instance. Please!

I got interested in this when my friend Jim Weis and I were doing a story on all these yellow flowering plants along the highways. Jim has a botany or biology or earth science or something like that degree. He believes, and I concur at the time, the plants must be mustard.  There was enough of them out there to turn the whole world on to "Grey Poupon."

Well here is sort of the lecture I get from Jim. "You hear a lot of talk about the spread of noxious weeds across large regions of the country. They are called invader species. Most of them come from Europe brought over to the Americas by Lief Erikson and Chris Columbus .  Well they plant some of these things on the East Coast and they take over land that used to host other hardy plants.  Cattle grazing and road building make the dirt weak and penetrable." And its not just the weeds, he tells me. You name the east coast plant and it pretty much hung out with the Horace Greeley "Go West Young Man" crowd. The short course summation might be that "Grey Poupon" may very well have originated in France.

So we are driving around in Oregon and come upon the town of Tillamook. Now isn't there a cheese named Tillamook? I wonder if there is any connection? Duh! The sign says, "Tillamook Cheese Visitor Center, One Mile Ahead." So this is where Tillamook cheese comes from.  We and about 5 thousand other non-Oregonians stop to answer the question, "Where does Tillamook Cheese come from."

Inside the plant there are all these great displays you can't get to. You can't get to them because they are blocked by hoards of tourists. The tourists are lined up to get the free goody bag of cheese samples. Or they are lined up to buy Tillamook Ice Cream in cones. I didn't know it existed. Theydon't sell it in this region of the country. What's up with that?

We can't get to the displays so we wrap up our visit by watching some men in hairnets stir something in this huge metal vat. Earlier one might have assumed it was milk being processed into cheese. Now one has to guess. Is it beingprocessed into cheese?  Or is it being processed into Ice Cream? Since we can't get to the displays we may never answer that question.

But come on. We know this isn't THE source of Tillamook cheese or Ice Cream.  The source is a compilation of the daily giving of nearly four hundred thousand dairy cows we see in this valley. (Yes I counted them. If they trusted me to estimate crowd sizes as a reporter, you can trust me to estimate the number of "Bossies" along side the road.)

I'll be loose with my attribution here. Please don't sue me.  Someone says, "You Are What You Eat."

So I'm assuming these cows are pretty much munchin' on the same invader species to produce the milk that makes Tillamook. So I'm thinkin', as I look at "Bossie's" utter, I've pretty much taken us to the source. But then I look up to see this truck cruise by with a sign I must paraphrase. "Tillamook Cattle Food Supplement."

So now I gotta track down where all the ingredients in the supplement come from? Probably oringally came from that same region in France that grows mustard plants for the Grey Poupon.

Did I tell you that those mustard plants along the highway turned out to be Sweet Clover?  My understanding is one of  the best places to find mustard plants in this country is an agricultural area in Central Oregon.  Is there mustard in Tillamook Cheese? I like mustard on my Tillamook. How about you? In fact I like mustard on just about everything. I really haven't tried it with Ice Cream.  Yet!

I just did a minimal amount of research to find out Tillamook cheese is owned by the dairy farmers themselves. I wonder how many of them speak French? 

I just read the Grey Poupon label. It's distributed by Kraft out of Elgin, Illinois. But Kraft is quick to note it's mustard is based on the original French recipe. Pardon my "French" but what the hell does that mean? These guys probably make their mustard with Sweet Clover.

Random Review

Flirtatious: "You look HOT in that seal skin jacket!"

Real Mood? Random

Prediction: Since there have been three major airline crashes in a short period of time, there will be very little coverage of any additional crashes in the near future. (The media feeds itself on the myth that major events happen in threes. To cover a fourth in the same category would challenge the assumption. )

I'm spending a lot of time organizing my mind for classes, so there's not much left over (organization) for this outlet.

It's now been a week since we got off that cruise boat and I still rock back and forth when I hear water running. And speaking of water running? I can't leave the ship without talking about the toilets.

Not that you would expect it, but just in case? There are no urinals. What I need to tell you about are the toilet seats. At least the ones on this ship, are not gender specific.  That means there is no toilet seat up or down issue. You'll have to fight about something else.  The seat is  just here. Here and  big around enough to aim, but maybe a little too big to accomodate the full range of derrieres.  

I know this is not a very comfortable thing to discuss, but it's one of those things they don't tell you about. They should.

What you need to be prepared for is the apparent force needed to process waste at sea.  If you've flown and had a few too many ginger ales, you'll have just an inkling of what I'm talking about.  It's that rather loud WHOOSH...that follows you gently pushing the flush button.  Well, at least on this ship, magnify that sound ten times. If you've stood at the end of a fire hose when the water is released you might be able to relate. But I don't believe there is any life experience that can prepare you for what happens next.

Right at the of the process, this toilet lets out one of the most monstrous screams ever heard by man or woman. I've been thinking hard of a way to describe it. All I can come up with is the squeal of a male seal in heat, with his mouth an inch away from your ear drum.  Yeah, you get used to it because you have to get used to it.  But be prepared to jump and run after your first experience.

I see a weird thing a few days ago on the highway. Someone loses a wheel. I don't know that because I see a car broken down, leaning in the shape of a tripod. No, what I see in the lane next to me is the wheel itself. If my speedometer is somewhat accurate, the wheel is traveling at 50 mph.  There should be praise for the trainer who taught this tire to drive.  It is staying right in the middle of it's lane.

The only problem is that even during rush hour 50 mph is not an appreciated speed for those behind you. I see many unhappy faces. I don't know much about the science of momentum, but I do reach for my cell phone to call some friends at TV stations (who might have some choppers up) so they can catch this TV moment.  Cell phone is dead.  Camera battery is all used up from that ship trip.  You're just going to have to take my word for it.

Sometimes you don't even have to be paying attention to see and hear weird things going on around you.

Cruisin'

Flirtatious: "I'll meet you aft, for an after dinner apertif, eh?"

Real Mood: Mesmerized

Prediction: The oceans are going to be around for a while.

I'm talking recently with my nephew Dan and his wife Deb about the prevalent levelers in our society.  I had just been to COSTCO to get some digital film put on a CD.

While searching for any spot to park our RAV 4, I pull up behind a new Jaguar, (It's so nice to just have to type it and not get in that battle over how one should pronounce Jaguar) whose drive person is causing a massive traffic jam because she thinks someone might pull out of the spot in front of her.

Meantime another drive type in a 20 year old Chevy Nova (with only one headlight) pulls up behind me and starts honking. Nova Person thinks it's me holding up the line and he wants that parking place too.

The point here is with all our diversity, economic and otherwise, we've all came to the same place looking for the same thing. Sure we're looking for a parking place, but we're also looking for BARGAINS.

Regardless of our relative stations in life we're buying the same TVs, the same muffins, the same Sonic Care tooth brushes. We come from all races, all religions, all nationalities, all sexes, all ages and somehow tolerate each other.

Educators and politicians LOOKING for promotable diversity Programs? Why, you oughta put aside all that book learnin' , them focus groups, and them lab studies, and take the short hop down to COSTCO or Walmart or Home Depot or Sam's Club.  I don't think Sam Walton planned it that way, but hey if it works?

Since that conversation and experience, I've been trying to be cognizant of  other accidental levelers I might see around me. Little did I think I would run into one last week as we boarded a cruise ship in New Orleans.  You take one look at the picture I took from shore in Cozumel and you're telling me, "you're out of your mind."  But I'm not. For the record I do not, nor will I ever be in the employ of, or associated with, or contracted to speak for any cruise line for money. This one is for free.

You listen to ads for the great gambling meccas like Las Vegas and Atlantic City. They're saying , "bring the whole family. There's something here for everybody."  You're saying bull what?   I'm going to ease back into this and just leave this as a teaseuntil tommorrow. I have some really fun things to tell you about cruise ships. Hasta manana. (there is no tilde on AOL)

So I didn't want to let this get sappy.  It's never where I want to go...so that's why I let it sit a while. So let's pick up with "there is something here on board for everybody." From what I saw, felt, smelled, touched and tasted I don't think I could argue about that claim on a cruise ship.

So who is everybody? Get stuck at the international terminal at Heathrow Airport and you get the picture.  Or you can hop on the Carnival Sensation from New Orleans to Cozumel and back and you'll get the picture. So there are 2500 passengers and about a thousand crew.  Let's start with the crew. They come  from 80 countries and very few from the U.S. While there is clearly a set pecking order,  most of them seem to get along. And that's not something you can hide very well when you're all sitting in the middle of an ocean.

Let's talk age. I'm chatting with one of my doctors this week who says he and his wife are talking cruise, but they're holding up until their daughters get older. "Don't Wait!"  I think it's so cool to be sitting at a black jack table and watch a string of five year olds march by, with their faces all painted up, all smiling and singing nursery rhymes. Try that in Vegas and someone will be in jail.

Diversity? I saw, met and chatted with someone from every known race, religion, age group, political  grouping, special interest, sexual orientation, economic status, and a whole bunch of other categories that instantly become unimportant. Why does it work? 

I spend some portion of my internet time trying to find out where cliches and sayings allegedly orginate. (At some level History is always just a guess) Well here's one cliche I'm going to use now, and look up later.

 "It works because we are all in the same boat." What's the option to not getting along?  Not many people survive getting tossed in the briny.  Better to take a deep breath and say, "let's work this out, what do you say?"  And on this ship I see a lot of this.

I see some well imbibed 20 something men getting pumped up for grossosity. They are making many a testosterone comment to passing 20 somethings of another gender.  Just when it looks like they are going to take it to the top,  a couple walksby. It's a couple in their 70's who likely resemble their own grand parents. You just don't talk like that around Granny or GranPopsi, do you?

It's an irony that we talk about being isolated on a ship. Isolation is where you are seperated from the things around you. On a big ship nothing happens in isolation. Even in your own state room you soon discover you're not alone. Go ahead and say it but remember ships are not soundproof.

Well I could babble about this for a long time but you may already be bored. Just let me add that one ship, 14 stories tall, and the length of three football fields, has only one shuffle board court. And I never saw anyone use it.

I don't know why I'm writing all this.  I'm starting to think all of you have already been on one of these cruise things. Well?

Keeping up

Flirtatious: "Here little halibut...come to papa."

Real Mood: Hungry

Prediction: Somebody watching seagulls will someday design the perfect aircraft.

 

Here's another shot of the lighthouse I missed because I was out of film fifteen or sixteen years ago. As nice as this opportunity was it still fall short of the picture I imagined I would have gotten the first time around.  On that day it was just at dusk and a fog bank was covering the bottom ten feet of the tower. A splintered sunset was resting right on top of the fog. At  least in my minds eye it was incredible.  But this one ain't bad?

  I've also been watching "Jonathon Livingston Seagull's" progeny flit around the sea cliffs.  I went down and talked to the sea lions during low tide, and forgot my sun screen.  So now I'm talking to myself. We're heading out now to reaquaint me with a truly fresh halibut filet, and Peggy will probably have a spinach salad. (she hates fish....hates fish on her plate I mean) Let's talk soon.

Let There Be Light

Flirtatious: We're you winking at me?

Real Mood: Delayed Satisfaction

 Prediction: We'll be home in two weeks.

I'm sharing with you from "The Inn at Otter Crest" on the Central Coast of Oregon. I'm here because I missed getting a shot of a Lighthouse 20 years ago because I thought I had one more frame of film than I did.  Anyhow Peggy and I have a  couple of weeks off and we're going to be jumping around the country a little bit. I'll write when we can find WIFI, but blogging is gong to be intermittent...but hopefully interesting.

This Oregon Coast just blows me away every time I see it.  If you haven't you should make this part of your "Must Sees" in your life? Do! Talk to you soon.

"You See The Thing Is...."

Picture caption: "Are you sure you got the marshmellow slicer in?" 

 

Flirtatious: "I see what you're saying!"

Real Mood? Subdued

Prediction? Brad will tell us why he really dumped Jennifer.

So I mention a few entries or two ago,  that I'm going to talk about our trip to California to pick up a car load of family trinkets. I'm struggling with how best to reveal the enlightenment that's come from that trip.

Here I am looking at the trek as kind of a give-in gesture on my part, to some irrational passion about "things."   I'm reducing the whole mission to an innate female folly of attaching human sentiment to manufactured goodies. I don't THINK  I'm being mean.  I think I'm just teasin'.  I think it's going to be amusing to put it all into the context of early man's distinction as a "Hunter-Gatherer." Here, I say, is a chance to toss in something "In Defense of  The Cave Woman." ( If you are in a heteorsexual relationship with anyone, don't miss "In Defense of The Caveman" when it comes to a town near you. It puts "Women are from Venus and Men are from Mars" to shame.) 

I'm also trying to equate this journey with a squirrel's drive to store up nuts for the winter, JUST IN CASE.  And there is the pack rat's seemingly senseless storing of anything it finds lying around.  I'm thinking all this when Peggy and I simultaneously espy this truck. At first we are united in our amazement and amusement at the irony.  In fact it's Peggy who turns shutterbug, cranking off frame after frame of this bizarre sight. It could pass for a "circus act."

I've said, and here's a case in point, that I'm letting you know when I yank my tongue out of my cheek and get serious. Whilst I'm enjoying the humor of the highway, I sense something.  I see a little tear and I know the mood is changing.  She tells me, but I already know what it's all about. I don't think she wants me to talk about it so I won't get specific in her case. But I'll give you some other bell ringing instances that  tell us "things" often have value beyond their surface.

At least once a year I, or a reporter nearby, covers a story about a hoarder. First time reaction is just disgust. How can anyone stack up all these newspapers and old boxes for no good reason? Why is this woman keeping 200 cats in her home?

The disgust goes away when it dawns on you there are answers to those questions. Something very dramatic and traumatic triggers this behavior. But it isn't the hoarders getting my attention right now.  And it isn't, for the most part, women.

I think one of the reasons men like women is 'cause women cry. Women get to let out the tears men hold back.  Men get some relief by comforting the female soul.  But this is not universally the case. I've seen many a "macho" man reduced to tears over the loss of "things."

One of my brother-in-laws can do anything with a tool. I'm still mad (kidding) that I traded him an old volkswagen for a TV set decades ago.  At the time I was just sure I'd come out ahead in the deal. I just knew that VW was on it's last legs. Well the TV lasted about a year.  He turns the VW into a dune buggy that may still be bouncing over sandhills today.

This is the same adult guy I see sitting on a curb in front of his house bawling his eyes out.  It was probably an electrical short that set his garage on fire destroying everything inside. Seeing him  probably wraps up any arson investigator's job for the day.

I cover a natural gas explosion that totally destroys a home. I'm at the scene the following day when the home owner arrives. This is a home the man  spends everything he has remodeling. He does it all with his own hands. He gives it his soul.  He's just just returned from a celebratory family vacation. He, his wife, and his two children will move into the home he built.

The home is collapsed and so is the man.  He crumbles into a crouch amongst the splintered lumber and the twisted pipes. He wails in unbelievable pain. At this moment he sees no future. Once again the arson investigator can head on home.

My sister Brenda is on the phone with me.  I'm in the newsroom and she is at her home in the Oakland Hills. There is a fire nearby and she thinks she should get out but doesn't know what to take. "Just get out now," I yell.  Like many a fire victim she makes some strange decisions. Yes, she runs around grabbing family photos.  She runs to the car and tosses them in and decides she can go back for one more thing.  She runs back into the house, looks around, and grabs a bunch of bananas. A bunch of bananas.  Who knows why?  Things!

It's one of the worst property loss fires in California history. Block after block of nothing but ashes. Peggy and I join her the following week walking through the gray dust. It's her first trip back. Her tears have been shed. Now she's looking for things. Not washing machine things.  Not couches or television set things. She is looking for real value. She is looking for things that when you touch them a life time of emotional memories explode in your brain. There is some fused glass that represents two pieces of art she admires. There are some keepsake remnants of the kid's (both adult kids) she hadn't thought to save. Left behind for a bunch of bananas.

Let's sample the cliche. "A least we're alive. Everything else is just things."  No. Not just things. Some things are more than that. They have value. They are packed with emotion and memories. And by golly they ought to saved.

Still, isn't that pickup truck the funniest thing you've ever seen on a highway?

Little Bugoids

 

Flirtatious: "Meet me down in the holler and I'll whip us up some smoked possom basted in corn liker."

Real Mood? Spiritually shamed.

Prediction: Another year will go by without Virginia Annexing West Virginia.

I'm reading this book. The book is a gift from our good friend Cheri (Richmond) Haran  who just got hitched and moved to Ireland. Thanks Cheri!  (FOR THE BOOK, NOT FOR MOVING TO IRELAND) The title of the book is "The Education of Little Tree." The author is a guy named Forrest Carter. He died quite a while ago. (1979)  But his soul is in print and we're exploring it. I say we because Peggy read it first, and I looked up just as she finished the last paragraph. Streams of tears were cascading off her cheeks. She reached out to me for comfort and I figured I was being told I'd better put my other readin' aside for while. In this case I'm glad I did.

It's the story of a Cherokee orphan boy being raised by his grandparents in the Eastern hills of the Cherokee Nation. (The Original Cherokee Nation...somewhere in North Carolina we think) Carter is "Little Tree," and he shares with us an education that ironically you can't get from book learnin'.  Did you know, for instance, that "when a red fox is chased by hounds it circles it's den in a one mile diameter to keep the hounds away from it's kits? When the gray fox does the same thing he runs in a figure eight with his den right where the lines of the eight cross." You can only get that kind of education by listenin' to yer granpa or observing it yourself.  This is just a tease to get you to go find a copy of your own.  I plan on reading this book more than once.

Carter's prose reminds me of one of the TV journalism lessons I try to impart.  Since TV is a visual medium "you as a reporter must be aware of all the visual elements that apply to the story. You have to be curious and you have to see everything going on around you. Not everything will apply to your story, but some things  will."

So here I am sittin' in the tub 'cause that's a place I like to read. I'm digestin'  all this "Little Tree" wisdom and pause to look out the window. There is a 30 foot tall Aspen right there in my face.  Adolescent house finches often stop by to entertain me with some sort of competitive antics. Just as I'm about to leave the Aspen to the birds and get back to "Little Tree",  I shoot a glance at the trunk. Now if you haven't done that, an Aspen tree has a very unique structure. All trees, including the Aspen, have horizontal rings that tell their age. But the Aspen also have vertical rings all the way up and down the trunk. They're similar to the sectioning you see in bamboo. Anyway, as I'm looking at these sections my eye catches a bug about the size of an ant. It's more oval to the ant's elongated form.  It has two little feelers out front that it appears to use for direction and locomotion.  

So I put the book down and lock in on what I will characterize as a phenomenal microscopic athlete. I draw the analogy because professional football camps are just getting underway across the country. We'll all be hearing about the dreaded 40 yard dashes. Well all you whining millionaires ought to come watch this bug get in shape. Let me describe it.

The bug gets down on all fours or eights or whatever it's sitting on. It's crouch begins right on the cusp of one of those section rings. On a signal of it's own, it takes off at incredible speed and stops on a dime on the next section line. My math ain't so hot, but as a journalist you get pretty good in time estimating distances and crowd sizes and stuff like that. This was stuff like that.

 I'm thinkin' the ratio of that bug's size to an out of shape offensive lineman's size would be proportionate to the distance between two Aspen vertical section lines and forty yards. (or 8  chalk lines on a football grid.)

If I remember right an incredible forty yard dash time for a highly paid human athlete is between four and five seconds. Okay guys, I hope you'll let this microbeast be an inspiration. He is doing that 40 in less than a second. It's official.  I was timing him from section to section.  I watched him do twenty in a row without breaking a sweat. And he was doing it perpendicular to gravity? ( go talk to your agent and tell him to give some of your signing bonus back, with the qualifier the team lowers the ticket prices. Or build in an incentive that you get paid that bonus when you can run a 40 in one second.)

It made me think back to this past weekend when I'm out trying to get a shot of a hummingbird.  In front of me is a spider web displaying it's catch in the early sunshine. While I'm watching,  a large fly is added to the spider's dinner plate. I look down for just a second and when I come back up, the spider has materialized from nowhere. (kind of like a free safety hiding behind the linebacker.) I don't have pictures of this so it's up to you whether or not you take my word for it.   In less than 5 seconds the spider devours everything in his trap and then he and his web just totally disappear. Let's see you rookies at the training camp dinner table do that!

Wouldn't it be nice if we could pick the brains of these lilliputian jocks around us.  You know, find out what they eat, how they get those quick starts off the ball, what kind of stickum they put on their feelers, what it feels like to run straight up. The answers could diminish the need for steroids Mr. Palmiero.

I'll betcha "Little Tree" and Granpa have already had those conversations. I wonder if we can find out where they stashed their notes?

 

Click!Click!

Flirtatious: " I like the way you pedal that  bike!"

Real Mood? Retroactively enlightened

Prediction: More people will have come alive in California in 2005 than in any of the other state of The United States of America.

I apologize for the gap for the few of you who tell me you tune in regularly.  Peggy and I made a quick driving trip to California so she could retrieve a small SUV's worth of family trinkets. It's just not accurate to call a driving trip to California quick.  But that's a set up for a BLOG of another day. I've got two other topics I want to blend here.

I've been pretty open about what I do for a simi-living, but I've not yet been terribly specific.  I teach college broadcast journalism and performance classes. One of those classes is, "Announcing for Radio and Television." I'm teaching that class this summer.  There is a small body of academic knowledge I like the students to have, like," how many rocks did Demosthenes get in his mouth before he overcame his speech impediment?"  "Please know the difference between the uvula and the larynx."   I also pass on a cruel lesson a college professor imposed on me at their age.  I force them to memorize and chant the first stanza of the "I am the very model of a modern major general" aria from the Pirates of Penzance.  I do it for two reasons.  One, it forces all one's articulation tools to fly all over the face to make language crisp.  The second reason I'm so cruel is simply that reciting this monster makes you very popular if you end up in the announcing business.  I discovered during my career that the length of time it takes to regurgitate this masterpiece, is just about the time it takes for a control room to determine your appropriate voice level. And everyone seems impressed that you are capable of more than, "testing, one, two, three." ( I've known  announcers who would have frozen up if you were to ask them to go to four.)

The only other lesson I consider a "MUST LEARN" in announcing is the simple two word phrase, "Come Alive!" Many students are suprised to hear me say with conviction that announcers don't need to be type "A"  personalities.  You don't need to be bouncing off walls from day break to sundown to make a living with your voice and/or face. But (and here it comes) if you see a light appear on a camera or microphone? "COME ALIVE!"  There are a lot of shy people making good livings as announcers because they learned that lesson.

 

Well, anyway, almost anything you teach needs something illustrative to bring it on home.  Strangely this trip to California paid allegorical dividends in spades.

Ask someone who has moved away from California, "what do you miss about California?" (One of my students Kimmy and I share the having moved away distinction.)  My answer? "The Ocean!" Her answer? "The Beach!" Ninety percent of the responses you're going to get are going to be some variation on that theme. Maybe, if it's true we all came from the sea genetically, we may come up with that watery answer even if we've never been to California.  But I discovered this trip there is something else I miss about California, especially Southern California.

So I have my new camera with me and walk down to the San Gabriel River near my mother-in-law Esther and sister-in-law Nancy's house. I'm thinking I'll go down into the bushes and get some shots of some lizards or coyote pups or something exotic. (I very nearly get some exotic pictures of two gentlemen getting to know each other in broad daylight.)

I take a picture of an old ten can, some grafitti, and a log with some interesting shadows on it before I nearly fall asleep standing up.  So I walk out of the bushes, and  up to a bike path. I notice it's full of people riding bikes.  Some of them are riding their bikes pretty fast.  And they are all dressed up  in colorful fancy clothes and helmuts that look like convolutions of the brain.   "Why don't I take some pictures of them," I say to myself.

So I set up my tripod, switch to my 500 hundred millimeter lens.  Then I work out an f-stop and ISO  that give me a compressed depth of field about a hundred feet down the path. (you know you could be doing this in some parts of the country where they would be yelling at you, "get off the path."  "On your right!"On your left!" "You can't take my picture!" "I'll sue you!"

But this is Southern California. The morning we arrive a cop in a high speed chase rolls over on the 210 Freeway. They shut down the highway while they pull him out with the jaws of life. As we drive by the scene?  There are twelve helicopters hovering over head.  No doubt they are chasing the suspect right? Nope! They are getting pictures of the crash scene for their TV stations. Yes I'm exaggerating, but it looks like the air ambulance has to ask permission from the TV guys to land and take off.

Okay, back to the bike path. Show up in Southern California with a tripod and a long lens (size I guess does make a difference) and you're a pretty popular guy. Cyclist after cyclist would break out in smile as he or she comes in an out of my frame. (he or she also seem to speed up a little bit as they come close)

Anyway I'm getting some pretty decent action shots when this guy you see above, nears my zone.  He is just over my shoulder when he shouts, " am I centered?"  Okay I'm in Southern California. I'm thinking Buddha, Yin and Yang, Scientology, maybe that hothouse Yoga? So in an instant I shout back, "Huh?" He has little time to mess with me.  He throws his arms in the air as if signaling a touchdown. The question becomes more of a demand for information.  "I said AM I CENTERED?" Duh, I get it.  He wants to know if he is centered in my frame? Franticly I scream , "YES! You're centered!"  I reach for the shutter. On cue,  at probably 25 miles per hour, and a hundred feet going way from me, he turns and faces the lens.  Then he breaks out in the smile you see above.  I push the button. A piece of a second has been captured forever.   This guy knows what it means to "COME ALIVE."

Rare, isolated experience? Same day around dusk I'm out setting up my gear outside a nine hole golf course. This course is played by mostly men whose favorite digit is FORE! You wouldn't think they'd be that up to having  their games exposed on film?  Not the case.  The foursome coming up to the tee I'm closest to, see me, and then start pulling out their drivers. As each golfer sets  up his tee,  he is not just lining up his shot for the fairway.  He is also making sure I have  a clear view of the ball, and enough clearance between bushes to get the full swing.

I have a little streak in me I like to call FUN.  Some others, including my wife Peggy, don't always share my descriptive word choice. Anyway, FUN streak in action, I non-chalantly smile at the foursome and say, "Golf Digest."

It's a beautiful thing to watch.  Spines straighten, eyes hug the ground. These wonderfully fluid swings appear out of nowhere.And no one is yellling, "FORE!"  It could be FORE needs to be yelled but would you,  if Golf Digest was watching? These guys also know how to "COME ALIVE!"

"And so class, if you are washing the dishes, or milking the cow, or trimming your finger nails, and I walk up with my Nikon and start adjusting the focus ring? What do you do?

"COME ALIVE!"

Don't let those Californians have all the fun.