Category: Stories Told
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On the small screen
I debuted on TV in 1976, back when stay-at-home moms were still called homemakers. There were enough of them then that locally produced homemaker shows aired in the morning on stations across the country. A woman named Betty somethingorother hosted South Bend’s homemaker show, The Betty Somethingorother Show, live each weekday on WSBT-TV. It was…
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What’s the use?
In 1989 I bought my first brand-new car. I had just graduated college, gotten a job, and moved into an apartment when Dad said, “Enough freeloading; I’m coming in two weeks to get my car back.” I looked for a used car, hoping to save money, but nobody in town would lend me money because…
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Pride of workmanship, part 2
I moved to Indianapolis many years ago to take a job editing technology books. My first project was editing a new edition of one of the publisher’s biggest sellers. I drew this plum assignment not for my l33t editorial skills, but for being the new guy. You see, the author had a reputation for running…
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Pride of workmanship, part 1
Quality guru W. Edwards Deming, who helped transform Japan into an industrial powerhouse, claimed that workers who feel pride in the quality of their work are critical to a company’s success. Pride in my work is certainly critical to my satisfaction on the job, right along with being challenged and enjoying the environment. When I…
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Wanted by the FBI
When I was 16, I spent a summer on an exchange program in Krefeld, Germany with 30 other Hoosiers. On the flight over, engine trouble forced us to land in Düsseldorf rather than in Frankfurt as expected. Düsseldorf expected no international flights that day, and so nobody was working in customs. My passport went unstamped;…
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Re-integrating joy
My dad once told me that I was the most joyful little boy he had ever known. During my first few years, he said, I seemed to constantly have a big beaming smile on my face, and everything seemed to make me happy. Now, I’m sure I didn’t enjoy it when I got in trouble…
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Brushes with greatness
In the summer of 1986 I drove a rusty brown 1975 Ford Pinto all over northern Indiana delivering papers and small packages for a courier service (owned by my aunt, thank you nepotism). This car came complete with manual steering, manual brakes, and an AM radio with a single speaker mid-dash. The South Bend AM…
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Home alone
My ex-wife was happiest when she was busy, and so she always had an astonishing to-do list going. Saturday mornings she’d bounce out of bet at six and work hard and fast, a million things to do, all day. She reminded me of the episode of Gilligan’s Island where Mrs. Howell ate the radioactive sugar…
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A place to start
I got my first apartment just before I turned 22. I was excited about having a place to myself, but I didn’t make much money and the classifieds showed affordable apartments mostly in Terre Haute’s rougher neighborhoods. On the way to see one of those apartments one afternoon that summer, I passed through the Collett…
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A good icing
Indianapolis winters have been mild as long as I’ve lived here. I can count only a handful of bad snows, which always bring grief as the city can’t plow the streets fast enough. More than once this has made my driving home across town from work a four-hour endurance test. We just went through a…
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Restored in Bridgeton
Years ago, when I lived in Terre Haute, I used to sometimes drive up to Bridgeton in Parke County, which is arguably the world’s epicenter of covered bridges. They celebrate their bridges every October with a huge festival across the county. Bridgeton figures prominently in the celebration and is usually cram-packed with people. (I stay…
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Welcome to Thorntown
My last road trip in 2006 included driving Indiana State Road 47 from end to end. It is lovely as it winds through the wild terrain around Turkey Run State Park at its western end just north of Rockville at US 41. As the road heads east, those steep hills become the rolling terrain of…