A Fish Story

Though trout season in Pennsylvania has been in full swing for the past couple weeks now, I wasn't among the first-day anglers seen flocking to the streams on Saturday, April 12th.
I used to go on the first day.  But after awhile, you get tired of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with others trying to catch their limit, usually ending with 'throwbacks'. 
I've been fishing since I was six years old.  In recent years, my best friend and I have been setting aside a weekend or two to go out and set aside the doldrums of daily life for the sake of getting back to basics.
This is really what it's all about...especially to those who ask "wouldn't it be easier to go out to Long John Silver's if you want fish?"
It's so much more than catching the meal of the day, if you're a survivalist.
Babe Winkelman, the Minnesota-based professional fisherman who still hosts his weekly how-to TV program, taught conservation in addition to his pattern approach to fishing that brings in the big ones.
His approach, once found successful, could make one dangerous to the fishing population, he claimed.  Therefore, he called upon anglers to release smaller fish to allow them time to grow and spawn, and to keep only a select few to eat.
For me, it's about the beauty and splendor of the outdoors.  The tranquility of the streams over well-worn rocks that will still remain long after you and I are gone.  The rustle of a gentle breeze through the forest.  Wading into cold knee-deep water (in your waders, of course) to be "one" with your potential catch.  Knowing you're not alone in the world, as you intrude upon space where wildlife sleeps.
I don't care if I don't catch anything, truth be told.  But it's nice to know you can...when you can freely leave your briefcase at home and pick up the tackle box, heading to the nearest trout stream.
And sadly, this is a part of our culture that the next generation is losing sight of.
Neo-conservationalists, animal rights activists and vegans preach the cruelty of fishing and convince others to abandon the practice entirely.
Living off the land is nothing new.  It dates back to Biblical times.  Are we so much in this world that we've forgotten what it's like to survive on our own?
As it's often said, "give a man a fish, you feed him for a day.  Teach him to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime."
This is why I'm an advocate of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America, our military personnel, and the concept of hunting and fishing. 
Maybe we don't have to struggle to survive now.  But if push came to shove, we know we could do it, with these skills.
My daughter often asks me if I can take her fishing with me one of these days.
I tell her someday.  And I mean it.
But for right now, I'm content with her playing with her dolls, picking flowers, and coloring in her books.  Fishing does require a considerable amount of silence, patience and attention, and those attributes are not something a soon-to-be five-year-old has at this stage of the game.
She has the rest of her life to decide if she wants to follow in her daddy's footsteps.
And I'll be ready.



NEXT WEEK:  Officer Bob

Resurrection Shuffle

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaccccccck....
Well, another Lenten season has come and gone with today being Easter Sunday.  Again, I stuck to my intent of giving up social media for what I call the "Full 40".  That is, giving up Facebook and LinkedIn for the full 40 days, rather than relying on the Sunday dispensation day where I could indulge.
I chose that because growing up, either we didn't have dispensation or the knowledge of it was kept from me all this time.  The sacrifice, to me, is much more effective (painful) if you go the full 40.
Pope Francis, you picked a good one.  This one stung.
Big time.
My twelve-year-old nephew Alex said to me one day "didn't you do that last year?"
This kid's memory astounds me.
I did do it last year.  But I took advantage of the Sunday Lenten Loophole.  This time I was determined not to.  As most athletic coaches will tell you, it doesn't do any good unless it hurts.
And this one stung like a bee.  Not the yellow jacket kind, either.  The kind from the fat bumblebee where you have to take a butterknife to scrape out the stinger and hope you weren't allergic to the venom.
Ow.
It's had it's advantages, though.  I've learned to like fish on Fridays.  Not that I had any problem with it to begin with, but my wife has been willing to prepare fish dishes for dinner or allow me to take her and our daughter out to places that feature fish on the menu.
It just can't be a fast-food joint is all.  No problem on my end.
A lot has also happened in that 40 days.  I've had another "Chicken Soup for the Soul" story accepted for publication in May, and am working on a memoir about the time I've spent in radio.
The latter came from the suggestion of co-workers and colleagues of mine since leaving the business, who have told me that I should write about the stories I tell about the business from time to time.  After realizing that few people have heard them, I've decided that's not such a bad idea.  Especially after my fellow 'retirees' have done the same thing and have had success of it.
I've also reconnected with some colleagues who did not know of my departure from radio and couldn't understand why.  After telling them that I've left the business voluntarily and why, they seem to understand.
And to my surprise, I've found that some others also want to leave it, but aren't sure of what the next step is.
The next step for me was to lean on my family.  The rest kind of fell into place. 
George Osmond, better known as "Father Osmond" to fans of his pop band brood from the 1970's, often gave his boys a pep talk before they went onstage.
"Faith, family, career...in that order."
This is where I pause and say "I got nothin'".



NEXT WEEK:  A Fish Story

Give it Up!

As promised, the Lenten season will soon be upon us.  That means that Catholics and Christians from other denominations will discipline their will by abstaining from a favorite activity for 40 days and learning to like fish each Friday.
The latter is not a problem.  I do like seafood, and few things taste better than salmon grilled outdoors, but with the weather we've been having, it would only thaw out just to refreeze moments later once it hit the outside air.
Guess I'll have to settle for Long John Silver's.  Arthur Treacher's just isn't what it used to be anymore...with its few remaining franchise holders flying blind in the wind.  That my friends, is no fish story by any means.
But I digress.
My Catholic friends and I will kick some ash this Wednesday, thus kicking off the Lenten season.  I am proud to say that I pretty much stuck to my vow of giving up social media last year.  However, I did backslide, but only because I was seeking a new job and had to keep an eye on new prospects that may contact me through those channels.
That now is no longer a concern, and I can freely abstain this year, and I pledge to do it for the Full 40.  No Sunday dispensation or any other loophole.  It will be tough, but I think I can get 'er done.
No Facebook or LinkedIn.  You already know I don't 'tweet'.
Or blog.
That's right.  Once again, this column will go on hiatus for the next several weeks.
It'll give me time to refresh, regroup, and re-evaluate how I want this column to continue its progression, if I decide to continue it.
I do want to continue it.  Who am I kidding?
I will also reflect fondly on how I will use the time that I'm not spending checking on the statuses of others, 'checking in' or otherwise stretching my aging iPhone 4 to its limits.
By the way, does "Words With Friends" count?
See you Easter Sunday.


NEXT COLUMN:  Sunday, April 20, 2014

White Noise

You may have noticed that I didn't put a subject line at the end of last week's column.
As you may have already guessed, there is a method to my madness.
It has to be madness.  I can think of no other reason.
But consider it.  A white background.
White can mean so many things.
Silence.  Or noise.
The beauty of the abstract.
Cleanliness.
Now consider purple.
What does one think of with the color purple?
I just gave you a hint, if you're of my generation.
That movie with Whoopi Goldberg.
Then there's that rock/funk star who uses it as a lyric for songs like "1999" and "Purple Rain".  Oh yeah, and there's a movie by that same title.
The dinosaur on PBS that everyone hates.
Next week it becomes symbolic of sacrifice in the Christian world.
In the Catholic church, it's just about all the priest wears for the next 40 days beginning on Ash Wednesday.
By the way, it's on Wednesday, March 5th.
It still gives me time.
Time to decide just what it is that I feel I can give up for the next 40 days.
Over the years, I've given up soda, candy, pizza, and other niceties that drove me crazy until Easter Sunday.
Last year it was social media.  That almost drove me bonkers.
Then just a few years ago I learned of Sunday dispensation.
This allows a Catholic to indulge in their Lenten sacrifice weekly.
Now where was THAT when I was growing up??
That 40-day rule was strictly enforced in my house, when I didn't think I could make it for another day, when Mom urged me to stay the course.
Weaknesses be damned.
And if I wavered, my soul would be too.
I was an altar boy from 1980 to 1988 at my local church.  The fear of God was something we all took very seriously.  Nonetheless, we learned to do our 'bad boy' things with the understanding we'd be in the confessional the following week, and could knock out the penance in using our time efficiently.
It was usually a rosary.
I still haven't decided yet just what I'm going to give up.  But I intend to stay the course for the Full 40. Being in the advertising business for most of my life, I've learned that branding is highly effective in successfully marketing a product.
And I think the church knows it too.
I'll let you know what I've come up with.


NEXT WEEK:  The Full 40

If I Were A Carpenter...Part II

She was an average American kid with middle-America values, growing up with others in the fabled baby-boom generation in the 60's.  She was the daughter of a printing pressman and a homemaker from New Haven, Connecticut.  The younger sister of a talented musical prodigy.
Karen Anne Carpenter was more or less dragged along for the ride when Harold Carpenter made the decision to move his family to southern California, having had enough of New England's freezing winters and a desire to further his son's yet-to-begin music career.
Yes, they'd only just begun.
Though Harold had a move on his mind as early as 1955, it would not be until eight years later that he activated his decision and moved his family to Downey, California...an L.A. suburb close enough to afford Richard opportunities to develop his career, yet far enough away from the hedonistic superficiality often associated with the City of Angels, even then.
In 1964, Karen finally developed a feel for music when she took up the drums, after the flute and accordion had gone nowhere.  Richard by this time, was slowly making a name for himself and eventually, Karen began to tag along.
They eventually evolved into Spectrum, and the Richard Carpenter Trio.  Then finally, a demo tape made by a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, found its way to Herb Alpert's desk at A&M Records. 
And the rest, as they say, is history.
But what if?
Woulda, shoulda, coulda.
What if Harold and Agnes Carpenter decided to stay in New Haven?  What would their children become?
Richard likely would have still found a career in music.  Either as a teacher, or making the relatively short drive to New York City for more.  After all, there was the famed "Brill Building", which gave birth to the talents of the likes of Gerry Goffin, Carole King, Neil Sedaka, and other gifted songwriters.
One thing I've learned about New York City, is that it's far more real and much more accepting of outsiders than its cross-coastal sister.  Just about anyone can blend in.  Fad dieting and obsession with physical appearance doesn't seem to be the mainstay.  At least not as much as L.A.
And Karen was very much 'one of the guys', if you were to ask anyone around her growing up.  She loved sports, eating junk food and sweets, but could still be the girly-girl if need be.
She was very much the quintessential All-American girl.  Unfortunately, the Midwest Farmers' Daughters all undergo a morph of some type once landing on the West Coast.  She was certainly no exception.
Thin was in.  She had all but mastered the techniques of the expert anorexic, when it came to willingly deprive her body of the food it needed to fuel itself.  She felt this was the sacrifice she needed to make if she was to be at the center of attention onstage...and sadly enough, offstage.
What if the all-American girl stayed in New Haven? 
Maybe the Carpenters could still have been a possibility.  They do have recording studios in New York City too, ya know.
I would have seen her as settling down, having two or three kids, and relishing the thought of being a stay-at-home mom.  Desperate for children, she abhorred the thought of having a child in her line of work and then turning them over to a nanny.  She saw her short-lived marriage to real estate developer Tom Burris as a springboard to that future.  However, those closest to her were less optimistic.
To Richard, the marriage "didn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of working."
"Because We Are in Love", penned by brother Richard and longtime songwriting partner John Burris, seemed to be an answer to those asking "Why, Karen?"
Karen herself wavered in going through with the ceremony, because her knight in shining armor turned out to be a pig in a poorly disguised blanket, revealing just days prior to their nuptials that he had undergone a vasectomy some time ago.  It was also discovered that the real estate tycoon, hiding behind expensive homes and cars, was barely able to keep his head above water, and burned through his new wife's fortune very quickly in failed real estate ventures. 
Trying to survive in a 'thin-is-in' culture.  An emotionally detached and domineering mother who openly favored her talented older brother.  Pressure to fight stage fright as she was now the front of their act.  A flim-flam man of a husband.  An aborted solo album that cost her (and her brother) almost half a million dollars to produce, charged against future Carpenters album sales royalties.
It was life in the fast lane to a girl clearly more comfortable with the scenic route.
We will never know what your family has gone through since your passing.  We have been blessed with the legacy you left behind.  The same legacy that rock and roll visionaries later took notice of and saw the contributions you made to pop music.  So much so that a compilation CD of covers by modern rock bands was subsequently released in 1994, and your solo album finally became released two years later, as you originally approved it.  It was truly a masterpiece way ahead of its time.
Thank you.
What more needs to be said?


NEXT WEEK: 

If I Were A Carpenter...Part I

They were praised and ridiculed.  They were hip yet square.  They were simple yet complex.  In short, they were everything you could find in any other popular music act at that time.
In their case, it was all a matter of presentation.
This past week marked the 31st anniversary of the passing of Karen Anne Carpenter.  At 32, she succumbed to complications arising from anorexia nervosa, which few people had heard of until the news of her death spread worldwide.
I was 13 when it happened on February 4, 1983. 
I was returning home from the Super Dollar grocery store with my father, who was nursing a back injury after tripping over a telephone line cord at work that day.  We had the radio on and heard "Close to You" broadcast over 3WS, then an adult contemporary formatted station before switching to oldies in 1988.  The DJ came on the air and back-announced the record, played "in memory of Karen Carpenter...Karen died this morning at the age of 32."
My dad and I looked at each other with widened eyes.  We were both distraught.
We came home and asked my mother if she saw anything on the news.  Her jaw dropped and she gasped.  The story was obviously still developing.
My parents were Top 40 radio people.  What they listened to, I listened to as well.  Therefore, I had grown fond of acts like Fleetwood Mac, the Bee Gees, the Eagles, Chicago, America, James Taylor, Jim Croce, Harry Chapin and Carly Simon. 
And yes, the Carpenters.  We had the 8-track of their Greatest Hits album, "The Singles 1969-73" released in 1974.  Plus some of their other albums. 
I found myself listening to more of their music, and gaining a new appreciation for it during my teen years.  I was spending allowance money on 45's and albums bearing their name. 
For Christmas of 1985, I asked for and received "Yesterday Once More", which was a VHS montage of film and videotape performances they had made of their hit songs back in the days that predated not just MTV, but cable television as we know it.  Such films were usually produced by record labels to sell product to record store buyers and influence concert bookings. 
I had brought the tape in for a classmate to borrow at high school one day, as she was a fan.  Others seeing me with it asked what it was.  Then they asked if they too could borrow it for the night.
All told, the tape ended up in probably a couple dozen VCRs in the first three months I had it. 
And oddly enough, some students who asked me to borrow it looked as if they'd rather be caught dead listening to a Lawrence Welk Christmas album before anything from the Carpenters.
Students watched it with their parents.  Teachers watched it with their families, explaining who Karen Carpenter was and what she and her brother Richard brought to the world.
Some even cried, seeing the New Haven, Connecticut native zigzag between 110 and 80 pounds throughout her professional career, and the montage of family photos at the final video on the tape set to "Close to You". 
Until recently, I had no luck in finding this presentation on DVD.  It recently resurfaced as "Carpenters Gold", the same identical product repackaged under a different name. 
And next paycheck, it will find its way into my DVD library.



NEXT WEEK:  Part II

Weather Whoas

Who in my home base of western Pennsylvania is sick and tired of this weather?
Frigid temperatures since the week after New Year's.  Then milder.  Then frigid again.  The volume of snow ebbs and flows.
Back in the late 70's, when my younger brother and I enjoyed playing outside in this stuff, it was at least a foot deep, and the thermometer usually hovered between the lower to upper 20s.  You usually didn't see grass between New Year's Eve and the second week of March.
Today marks the annual event where people congregate to the their radios and TVs to hear the prediction given by a groundhog in a small town in northwest Pennsylvania.  Six more weeks of winter, or an early spring?
In a world of Doppler 4,000,000, state-of-the-art weather systems from dozens of satellites orbiting the earth, we turn to a woodchuck one day out of the year for his prediction.
Having been professionally connected to Punxsutawney for five years as a broadcaster, I've learned many things about this little town of about 5,500 residents, including its most famous one.
Speaking ill of the groundhog in ANY way will get you run out of town on a rail.  I'm not even close to kidding on that one. 
Just about every businessman in town is involved in the Groundhog Club (caretakers of Punxsutawney Phil) Inner Circle.  They know secrets they will take to their graves...and have.
It's one of the friendliest towns I've ever had the pleasure of working in.
Danny Rubin (who wrote the screenplay to "Groundhog Day" starring Bill Murray and Andie McDowell) is very accessible and a great interview.
The town's population swells to approximately 20,000 on the day of the prediction.  In some cases, retail businesses in town earn enough revenue to sustain them until next year.  Or at least until the summer groundhog festival.  Didn't know there was one of those now, did you?
Local media are the daily newspaper and radio stations...and they work well with each other, albeit on an often shaky truce.  You won't see that in many other towns.
The school district has no metal detectors or internal drug problems of any kind.  You can send your kids to a school where they know they're going to be safe.
Punxsutawney Phil's predictions have NEVER been wrong.  Just ask any of the townsfolk.
The residents of Punxsutawney have mixed feelings of Groundhog Day.  Some welcome it with open arms, while others stay behind locked doors until February 3rd.
Phil receives frequent veterinary care.  Even if he nips one of his handlers, they're in the clear.
To this day, I miss the town and interacting with its people.
However, I look forward to the visits. 
One of which I hope to share with my daughter this year.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, Phil says...drum roll, please...
Six more weeks of this stuff.


NEXT WEEK:  If She Weren't A Carpenter