Two Gents' Worth
November 22, 2024
The 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…
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“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…
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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
Fourth of July celebrations came back to Ames this weekend, and they were greeted the same way you greet a long-lost, beloved friend. Last year on the Fourth, Ames virtually was shut down. No fireworks. No parade. Yes, the coronavirus pandemic had done its nasty work all too well. Ames was a ghost town a…
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We interrupted our summer-long stay in Ames to take a whirlwind trip to Washington, DC, this week. We wanted to see Brad and Nicole after nearly two years of coronavirus-mandated distancing. We wanted to re-visit some of our favorite Smithsonians. And we wanted to see the Nats play baseball. We did all that, and we…
Read More about Our Side Trip to the Capital
We’ve been here in Ames — aka, the Heart of the Great American Heartland — for a couple of weeks now, and I’m delighted to say everything is back to normal. I could not say that last summer — when, as you’ll recall, the coronavirus had disrupted everything near and dear to all of us….
Read More about That Heartland NormalcyYes, we’re back in Ames after another arduous trip that stretched over 2,000 miles and took us through such spots as Bakersfield, Tehachapi, Mohave, Barstow, Kingman, Flagstaff, Gallup, Albuquerque, Amarillo, Oklahoma City, Wichita and Kansas City. We saw some quite-exquisite scenery, stayed in some mostly nice motels and paid outrageously high prices for gas in…
Read More about Iowa, Oh, IowaFour months have come and gone, like a flash, since Sharon and I sold our place in Paso and moved to our temporary Airbnb here in Clovis. And now the time has almost arrived for another departure — when we head to the great Heart of the American Heartland to spend one more summer in…
Read More about That Midwest Feeling, Again
We headed to the hills, again, on this gorgeous Sunday in April. This time, our plan was to drive back into my past — way, way back. We were going to North Fork. But getting out of Clovis took a bit of time. After all, we had to stop at Target to buy some chips…
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