Two Gents' Worth
May 16, 2025
I’m pretty sure my long-time buddy Albert would have enjoyed the walk I took through our old Hamilton Junior High neighborhood in Fresno a few weeks ago. It was a beautiful Saturday morning in early November — sunny and not too warm or too chilly. The neighborhood trees were reflecting autumn’s glory, with red and…
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The folks at Walt’s Place in Orlando — more properly known as Walt Disney World — do so many things “right” that it’s tough to keep track of them. For instance, when we arrived at our room at the Saratoga Springs Resort at Disney World at 1:30 this past Monday morning, we were greeted by…
Read More about At Walt’s Place, Again
Well, this is it. We always knew it would happen — but we didn’t think it would come so quickly. It’s time for us to leave Ames — and this may well be the final time we do so. When we arrived here a month ago for our annual summer sojourn to the Midwest, the…
Read More about So Long, AmesI had a really crazy fantasy recently. In this one, I was walking around downtown Fresno near Courthouse Park when The Guy I Used to Be drove up. He looked about 25 years old, maybe 150 pounds, with longish light-brown hair, a mustache and gold-rimmed glasses. He was driving the same bright blue ’71 Pinto…
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A few weeks ago, an old friend in Paso Robles emailed me a great series of cartoons dealing with aging. He does that a lot, and those cartoons are often quite amusing – even if they hit way too close to home. The best cartoon he sent in that batch showed a woman of indeterminate…
Read More about Another Birthday, on the WayA week or so ago, I wrote about why I had gone into broadcasting. I mentioned that it was because of NBC Radio’s incredible weekend-long “Monitor” program — which I fell in love with and never got over — and because of KNBR Radio in San Francisco, the great-sounding NBC owned-and-operated station that boomed its…
Read More about My Favorite TeacherThe other day, someone asked me why I had gone into broadcasting and spent most of my career there. There are two reasons: NBC Radio’s extraordinary weekend-long program “Monitor” — and KNBR Radio in San Francisco. Soon after I started listening to “Monitor” in 1963 on KMJ Radio in Fresno, I discovered KNBR (an NBC…
Read More about Broadcasting. Why?
“It’s Christmas time all over the world. It’s Christmas here at home.” Sammy Davis Jr. memorably belted that out decades ago in a marvelous musical ditty about what fellow great singer Andy Williams called “the most wonderful time of the year.” If Christmas doesn’t bring out the best in us — the smiles in us…
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Yes, the time has nearly come for us to leave this most magical of all places. I’m talking, of course, about Mr. Disney’s little retreat in Florida — the one that Walt dreamed up, magnificently, decades ago — and then, unfortunately, never got the chance to see and enjoy. Disney World in Orlando is not…
Read More about Thanks, Walt
We hit the road about a week ago — yes, once again interrupting our summer-long stay in Ames to make a side trip — this time, to the West. We rented a car and took off toward South Dakota. We’d never been there, and we knew there were a few things we needed to see…
Read More about Our Bucket List Trip