A Little "Good News" Can't Hurt

           Listen, I can take a smidge of criticism. I had an earful, and then some, just this week. Seems a fella took exception to my little nothing stories. At least, he questioned why I didn't write more on the "real world". He felt, and he made himself perfectly clear, that I was ignoring the "facts of life" and was down to dispensing nothing but a little fluff. "Pure fluff" is the term he used.

           He had a valid point.

           And I am guilty as charged.

           My only possible defense is ignorance. I'm not smart enough to tell another person how he ought to live. And I certainly don't have the intelligence to understand the complexities of multi-national relationships, the importance of drawing down-or not drawing down-our atomic weapon arsenal, the economic wisdom of "bailing out" big car manufacturers or whether securing our borders, lowering the national debt or finding jobs for our citizens should be priority one. I don't even know what "unilateral" means!

           And I am not about to write a story on sex offenders use of the internet. I don't care to report on the goings and comings of the San Francisco city council. No one should ever have to write about the mother that drops her one-day old child in a wastebasket. And I don't like stories about people being shot, spindled or mutilated. 

           I'm not trying to be Chet Huntley, Larry King or Bill O'Reilly.

           Don't you think we've got enough folks happy as pigs in slop to bring us every gory detail of the latest suicide bomber in Beirut? There are real reporters waking up every morning eagerly awaiting the next baby abduction or the impending hurricane or the psycho with the automatic weapon holding hostages in the mall. I appreciate we've got people willing, and pleased, to do that. It just ain't my cup of tea.

           If you like mystery, intrigue, twisted plots and sordid affairs pick up one of those "up by the cash register" magazines. If you're looking for headlines that decry "police interview witnesses", "gunshots ring out in neighborhood" or "Hollywood super star accidentally wounded in late night fracas at well known watering hole" you're barking up the wrong tree here. I sorta tend to think that nothing that happens in a bar at 2 a.m. should be considered an accident!

      I'm not trying to raise you or lift your socio-economic standards. I don't care how you voted in the last election. I have Democrat friends that don't know as much as they think they do. And I worry about my Republican buddies who do nothing but grumble as they wait for Abraham Lincoln to come riding back and proclaim "a house divided against itself cannot stand". I am more interested in keeping my good health than fretting over what I'm going to do if I lose it. I love kids, older people, dogs and NCIS. But I'm not going to get mad if you don't!                                                                                                                                      You're not going to lose weight or get rich quick reading my little blurbs. I like Hershey bars and Butterfingers better than oat meal and alfalfa sprouts. I'm not going to dazzle anyone with my financial knowledge. I don't know Mr. Standard from Mr. Pore. As a matter of fact, and I don't want this widely publicized, I caused the worldwide depression that we are currently mired in...I bought a piece of property!                           

      I hate to disappoint the ones out there that think I ought to be reporting on the war in Afghanistan, the national interest rate, the latest scandal in the Scientology cult or what Tiger Woods does on his late night excursions. Most of those things have a habit of keeping themselves in the news without any help from me.                     

      I apologize that my journalistic ability is not up to your expectations.

     Here is the way it is. I like Larry Ridinger better than the guy who takes a loaded gun into an office building in Pennsylvania. I'd rather report on Larry slipping down the fire escape at the old high school in McKenzie, Tennessee, and hurrying back with those chocolate glazed doughnuts than trying to bring reason and order in a commentary on some disgruntled maniac that "was not understood" by a teacher in the fourth grade.

           Kay King was fun. She laughed long and often. I never dated her. I only kissed her once at that spin the bottle thing Susie Branon had at her house when we were in junior high. But I was touched by her smile and her kindness. When I learned of her death I shed tears for a friend I hadn't seen or heard from in years. I'd rather remember her ten hundred times more than some call-girl wife in Boynton Beach who hired a hit man to kill her husband.

           I drove miles out of my way last winter to hug Bobby Brewer. We laughed and talked of those thrilling days of yesteryear. We hugged again. That, of course, is not a "reportable" story. But I'd like to think someone in this world has a boyhood friend that's worth going a few miles out the way to see.

      A co-worker in the office yesterday mentioned the old skating rink here in town and I immediately thought of Jane Hill. She had her tenth birthday party at that old rink over in Huntingdon. And she thought enough of a little dogged eared guy down at the end of Stonewall to ask him to come..

      It might be fluff to you! But I tell you, there is something special about those childhood relationships born out of proximity, necessity and chance. We fought those growing up wars together! We gawked and stared and turned red. We looked stupid. We laughed at, and with. We cried on each others' shoulders. We danced when the music was real.

      I don't apologize for telling those stories!

          Respectfully,

               Kes