Me, a Hero?

Many nights when I can't sleep, I run through a mental list of all my missteps, failures, stupid things I did. I know it's not healthy and so I hope to remember some good moments--and just the other day I did. The one time in my life when I acted as a hero and got a hero's reward.

It happened while I was at Oklahoma University, in a fraternity, Sigma Chi. One night a group of us gathered around the one TV set to watch the Dave Garroway Tonight show... and it focused on Mardi Gras, which was just getting started in New Orleans. Trumpeter Al Hirt celebrated the moment and four of us got inspired. We jumped into my '56 Chevy and headed South. It was an all night drive and we arrived at the Sigma Chi house in New Orleans, where we were assigned an empty room with mattresses on the floor. We slept until noon, then headed out to see the town.

By nightime we had already drunk a Hurricane or two and were enjoying the various jazz spots. Then, ahead, I saw this: two young women were hurrying along the street being followed and harassed by young males.

Without thinking, I quickly stepped up beside one of the women and said something like, "Hi, you waiting for me?" (Exact wording lost in the mists but the impression I hoped to create for benefit of the harassers was that I was her date.)

Gratefully she eyeballed me and grabbed my arm and together we walked. My girl teamed her friend up with another one of my frat bros and we spent the evening together, having a wonderful time. I wonder if I said anything the whole time I felt so fortunate to have such a pretty girl for a date. They were schoolteachers from somewhere, thus a few years older.

I had gained the gratitude of an "older woman" and she showed it later.

Ah, for the life of a hero. Pity that the lesson didn't stick enough to fix all my future opportunities for heroism.

The Working Life, part 2

The Columbia Journalism School was a joy in many ways. I loved the sense of professionalism, of getting assignments and jumping on the subway and interviewing people on the phone, etc. By the end of the academic year I felt like a "New Yorker" from my knowledge of the subway system.

We rode the trains with a NYTimes, folded in the correct way for reading. We were supposed to read every thing in it, but that was far too confusing, so I glanced over a lot of it. I did notice at the time that the Times definitely had a liberal slant, but that was mostly noticable in the editorials, not in the news columns. And it seemed right to have a liberal flavor, since we'd just elected JFK as President.

During the year, however, my wife and I separated. I became deeply depressed and probably my schoolwork suffered. But I was graduated with honors. Just before graduation I got a job offer, from This Week Magazine. It was a Sunday supplement that appeared in NYC as part of the Herald Tribune, which had begun a very interesting new life, trying to be interesting without being tabloidy. Intellectually interesting. Writers like Tom Wolfe and Jimmy Breslin helped make it seem so, launching a New Journalism style of more personalized stories. Our school was on the cusp of this development--still preaching the old style of reportage but allowing newer ideas to seep in.

Anyway, despite the urging of my faculty advisor, Penn Kimball, to pass on the job offer, I took it because I was underfunded and felt financially desperate.

First thing I had to do, an order from Photo Editor Roberta Ashley, was go to the top men's clothing store and get some new clothes. My Texas wardrobe looked too much hayseed for a New York publisher. So I did: got a new gray suit and wore it for years, til I lost it in a bag after a baseball game.

After I took the job, my girlfriend and I moved to an apartment far out in Brooklyn, closer to Coney Island than the City, and I had a 45-minute commute by train each morning.

And, after I took the job, the Newspaper Guild called a major strike against the newspapers, and the Herald Trib no longer appeared on newstands. I had a call about taking a position with LIFE mag, which was going to put out a substitute newspaper, but I (kick self) turned it down. I thought I was settled, comfy, nice lunches with photographers, etc. But what happened was that NYC ad agencies, not seeing This Week any more, stopped placing ads in the mag. Income suffered, and I, as last hired, was first to be fired, just before our first child was born.

(I now realize I wrote about this last year...O well...)

So, I jumped to Time-Life Books, hoping to land a writing job but got stuck as a Researcher/Reporter. At same salary I made at This Week. So...new baby, new expenses, same available funds. In the week that JFK was assassinated.

The Working Life

My first real job was after college--Oklahoma University, 1957. I had a BA degree in Journalism, had worked on the school daily newspaper, had not given any real thought to what would come "after".

Hurriedly, in the few months before graduation, I tried to find work, but I really didn't have any idea what to do with myself. Knew I had to earn money, be on my own. Plastics was not an option (reference to movie The Graduate).

I bundled together some clippings from the newspaper: very few serious articles, mostly satire and humor columns I'd done to amuse myself. I didn't really have anything to offer. In fact, some of my work on the paper that year had been suicidally stupid. For instance, I'd headlined a story about the Oklahoma Governor's visit to Hawaii: "Governor Gets Kissed, Lei'd." Not smart in a school that depended for its very life on the politicians a few miles down the road. I had no references from faculty. Hadn't done particularly well academically.

So, to help me, when firms came recruiting, I was given newspaper assignments that got me frontpage bylines. One interviewer, from Gulf States Utilities, was interested and invited me to interview, at which I showed my ignorance by my assumption that they were Gulf Oil, and mentioned my dad's longterm employment by Phillips Petroleum. They forgave me, though, because I had a front page byline that day.

I flew down for an interview in Beaumont, Texas. They hired me and I moved down a week after graduation. Again, I had no longterm plan, just figured I'd work there for awhile and then...and then...

Fortunately I fit in fairly well with the small group in the public relations department. I wrote dull press releases that got used because GSU had a sweetheart deal with the local morning and evening newspapers. But somehow, ambition grew inside me and I started working harder, taught myself photography, took the Famous Artists Course in Illustration and Cartooning, and was finally given the editorship of the monthly magazine published for employees. This was a "house organ" because its only purpose was to enhance the company and keep employees relatively pleased with their lot.

And I sold a short story to a science fiction magazine and thought that made me a professional writer.

In some ways it was possibly the best job I ever had, before or after. I had almost complete control on all editorial material, could do stories and illustrations my own way, and I had enough good sense to play the corporate game. It was intoxicating, seeing my own words in print month after month.

And then ambition grew faster. I started imagining that I was good, a good writer, a good photographer. I read LIFE and LOOK magazines, and tried in my own publication to imitate their styles, imagined that perhaps that was my destiny, to be a photojournalist for the big time.

I set my sights on New York City, and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. I figured that, in the words of the song I hadn't heard yet, that if I could make it there I could make it anywhere.

I applied and was rejected because I didn't have the tuition. I got married and applied again, telling them my wife could work to support me and help pay tuition. They let me in.

The rest was downhill, with some bumps that made me think I was going in the opposite direction.

Activity

Many activities are metaphors for other activities.
Book building, for example, is a metaphor for building something else--a house, a boat, a relationship.
Similar things happen.
First we need a plan: an actual blueprint or an outline.
We test the strength of supports in each--can this foundation support the dwelling above it? Can what occurs in the first pages of the book support the conclusion?
And so on.

Excessive Sleepiness

I've been a sleepin-in guy since at least college when I didn't dare sign up for an 8 a.m. class because I'd miss it too often.
I think some of that oversleeping may have been because of watching too much b&w television, though.
And when post-grad I got a job that required me to be at work by 8, I got there, despite watching too much tv/
Now, in forced retirement, living in a new home in a new community, this is my daily routine:
wake between 5 & 6. Exercise a bit. Eat a bowl of cereal while reading online comix... and then, nap. After the nap I wake feeling refreshed especially if there's sunshine.
But why the nap? It's a precious time for me, because by 7:30 my head is buzzing with sleepiness.
This morning I had to be careful going downstairs from the office to the bedroom because I was worried I'd fall asleep in mid-step.

liberal/conservative hate

OK; the hatred issue. Time to put it down.

Liberals are currently acting as if hatred against a sitting president is brand new. They thought they had a Teflon president, but apparently he's not.

The way liberals hated Richard Nixon and George W. Bush helped set the standard for presidential hatred, and now they're reaping the benefits of what they accomplished.

Not that the Republicans are innocent--they're not. But don't pretend there isn't a history here as complex and long-standing as any feud.

Where did it begin? With Lincoln? No, before that even.

And each generation of haters produces the next, each more dedicated than the previous one to roiling the waters, playing havoc with civil peace, challenging the Constitution by stretching "freedom of speech" to its utmost.

As long as people believe that hatred is a positive force, this will go on.

We should teach in schools this truth, as a poet or philosopher has said: "Hatred is a poison that a person consumes in the hope that it will hurt someone else."

Hatred always turns on the hater, and the only defense is to stop hating.

why I love to write

...I realized this the other day as I was writing and a New Thought emerged.
Not one I'd had previously.
New things come out when I just let go and write.
It's like focused thinking and it uncovers secret good thoughts.
Everyone should do it (write). Best way to find out what you're really thinking.

cooking misadventures continued

Because I'm busy writing 2 novels and watching tv, I haven't updated this blog in almost a month. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, at my own apparent disregard of proper protocols, and I resolve to attempt to do better. I have a series of posts in mind.

This happened a few years ago when my wife went with her tai chi group to China. It was too expensive for me to tag along just so she'd have a roommate, so I stayed at home with our dog. Now that I was on my own, I realized that I could cook and eat the wonderful piece of venison we'd been given by a guy we let hunt on our property.

So in the late afternoon I removed the package from the freezer. It was wrapped in clear paper, a long thin strip. I got out the wok and threw in some butter and added the "venison" (those quotes are the first clue that something was wrong...).

A few minutes later I looked inside the wok and saw the sizzling stuff MELTING!. Not spose to happen to venison.

Long story short: I had grabbed instead of the strip of venison a strip of dark chocolate we had gotten from somewhere.

Nice ending, though. After it cooled, I was able to chip away the chocolate and ate it over several days.
Then I cooked the venison properly.

RIP Julia Child! (great movie, by the way)...

My Souper Soup

Back in the Sixties, my wife and I worked for Time-Life Books. I was assigned to the Foods of the World series, a subject about which I knew nothing except which fork to use to eat. I was in charge of assigning photography for certain books.

In the text of one book, about French Provincial cooking, I read a phrase about “...a pot of soup kept on the back of the stove.” It made my mouth water.

I decided just before Christmas and New Year, that I would make a star-kissed bean soup. We bought bags of dry beans and one evening I added them one by one along with a ham bone and chicken stock, to a big pot and cooked them up into a great-smelling pot of super soup. 

And, after cooking to delicious perfection, I pushed the pot to the back of the stove. Of course, as I later realized, the text in the cookbook referred to country stoves, which always had a flame going. 

Next day, Penny’s parents were due in town from New Jersey and I wanted to feed them my great soup so they’d stop believing that I was an idiot.

I rushed in after work and pulled the pot to the front burner, turned on the flame and took off the lid to stir it. But before my wooden spoon entered... there was a burp within the soup; a bubble appeared.

“Hmm,” I said. No idiot I. I mentioned it to Penny, who also said, “Hmm,” and then added that she was going to call an expert, a woman we worked with who worked in the kitchen to test recipes for the books.

The woman, Fifi, was ill with flu and her husband shouted to her from the phone that our bean soup had bubbled before the fire could heat it.

Penny could hear Fifi shout back from her sickbed: “No STOP! IT’S PTOMAINE!”

I flushed the entire pot into the NYC sewer system. I hope I wasn’t responsible for poisoning the fish in the Hudson. Since then I’ve never attempted to cook anything more complex than scrambled eggs.

First Job in NYC

For some reason, this cloudy humid day, I recall my first job in NYC back in 1962. Yes, it's ancient history, kiddies. I had just received my MS diploma from Columbia U's Graduate Journalism School, and was broke and separated from my then-wife. 

She found me in the West Side bar after our graduation ceremony and handed me, with a smile, a telegram. It was from Roberta Ashley, picture editor at This Week magazine, offering me a position as her assistant. I quickly accepted the job, despite the doubts of Penn Kimball, my faculty advisor (he was right, of course). I needed money.

My first day on the job, in midtown at Lexington Avenue, I met the other staff and support personnel. And Mrs. Ashley told me to go to Brooks Brothers and buy a new suit, since my Midwestern attire, which had got me through a year of grad school, was not appropriate for work in this office.  I bought a gray wool 3-season single-breasted that I wore for years until the cuffs frayed.

There were two other guys approximately my age working on the Articles side. They didn't seem friendly. Gradually I found out why: they suspected that I was a homosexual. I retained my southern accent, a quiet slow-speaking voice and wasn't cruelly cynical in the intellectual style. The way I found out was at a party at a columnist's penthouse. My pregnant new wife decided not to appear in her old pregnancy dress, and waited in the car, so I went alone. The two articles guys appeared and introduced me to a good-looking woman... and then they withdrew, stood about 15 feet away and stared at us while whispering to each other. It was a social test. As I did with all social tests, I flunked. I didn't know what to say to the woman and didn't feel emboldened to put the moves on her. 

I started out well at the job: had an article published (I Raided Castro's Cuba, an as-told-to that I wrote in Hemingwayesque style) and some photographs, but the work was not challenging and I wasn't making any new contacts in the photographic world with people who could imagine and photograph and bring in cute picture essays. The job lasted a bit more than a year until I was let go because the weekly magazine was not selling any advertising (it had lost the Herald Tribune, its only NYC outlet). 

Desperate, with a baby coming to my second wife, I took the first job that appeared, with Time-Life Books, a friendlier place to work, yet with sharp class distinctions based on family, birthplace, and university (preferably Ivy League)....

Funny But True

Penny and I had 6 people to dinner last nite, to inaugurate our new dining room table that easily seats 8.

During the meal, all vegetarian and delicious, one guy asked me what movies I like (I'd seen him earlier perusing our DVD shelf) and I responded: "Shooting, things blowing up, guys running after other guys."

They chuckled over that and then he asked me, "What's your favorite movie?"

I responded: "Lassie Come Home."

And that's the truth.

to Christina

Dear Christina:

   I had no idea you have been in such bad shape, but I believe wholeheartedly that you'll come out of it. Everytime I do a crunch or other exercise I'm gonna dedicate it to you.

Love,

-don

Enough.

I woke from my second nap this morning feeling dissatisfied with myself. Because I haven't had a real book published yet after years of writing them. A good old friend kind of pushed me into this because he wants to publish a lifetime bibliography of my work. All that could go into it would be assignments I've performed for others, nothing of myself.

I've wasted two years letting everyone know how miserable I am and now I'm fat and out of shape and I want to change things... profoundly. I intend to pull myself out of this mood and mode.

I've already begun. 

More later, I hope. Let's see if this New Me can make the changes necessary.

Island Chorus

We just finished our Island Chorus commitment for this summer (it begins again in September, when we'll probably have a major, complex, difficult song to sing for Christmas). 

The July 3 concert was easy and more relaxed. I discovered something--even if I don't learn all the right notes, I can still participate.

I do it by opening my mouth but not actually giving voice in those sections where I don't know the notes and my neighbors on each side are singing different notes (as when I'm stuck between First and Second Basses). 

But on the places where I know the notes and feel confident, I blast it out. 

This is probably a formula for Life As We Live It.