Thoughts from an “old friend”

“Granddad, are you old,” our 4-year-old granddaughter, Anna, asked.

It was an interesting question because it came just days before my 70th birthday. I had to stop and think before I could give her an answer and I actually was hoping that she’d get tired of waiting for my response and go on to something else. Which is exactly what happened.

But I kept thinking about it. How old is old? Is 70 old? I’ve been watching friends and high school and DePauw University classmates turning 70. After a lifetime of resisting it, are we now officially old?

As a young man I never spent any time considering the fact that one day I would grow old. I never imagined myself at 70. I was too busy pursuing dreams. I found a woman I loved and loved me in return, we had a family and careers and built a life together. There was no time for getting old.

It turns out it happens whether you’re thinking about it or not.

I was 20 years old in 1968, when Simon and Garfunkel released the song Old Friends: “Old friends, sat on a park bench like bookends . . . Can you imagine us years from today, sharing a park bench quietly.

“How terribly strange to be 70.”

So now that it’s happened to me, is it terrible strange to be 70?

Honestly, I really enjoy celebrating birthdays — as long as they’re not mine. Birthdays can be terrifying things. You go to bed one night and you’re a youngster in your 60s. You wake the next morning and everyone says you are 70. What kind of nightmare is that! I feel like Rip Van Winkle who took a 20-year snooze.

Actually, the only birthday I dreaded was my 30th. At 30 people don’t consider that one day they will be old. But they do start to think they might not be young forever and might soon be forced into middle age when they will have to be grown up and responsible. And who wants that? I remember friends gave me an incredible 30th birthday party. They had police arrive and arrest me for being old, which is a crime when you’re 30.

I decided I’d celebrate my 70th birthday with all enthusiasm of my 30th. Except I would need to be in bed by 9 o’clock.

The problem with birthdays is that they come around way too often.

Is 70 old?

They say getting old is just a state of mind. But don’t tell that to a 70-year-old man who just rushed into a room and can’t remember why. Getting old is not all in your mind. It’s in your fingers, your knees, and your back and occasionally it’s aches in places you didn’t even know you had when you were young.

Is 70 old?

My mother always said we are “too soon old and too late smart.” I suppose we’re supposed to be smart by the time we’re 70 after a lifetime of experience. We’re supposed to have wisdom to pass along to the young. But that’ just silly. Young people aren’t going to listen to old people no matter how wise we are. They’re going to make their own mistakes the same as we did. And don’t forget that some of those mistakes were fun – for a while.

Here are some of the things I’ve observed at 70.

• I realize at 70 I can no longer do a lot of the physical things I did when I was 20. The good news is I no longer want to do those things.

• Young people are starting to get up and offer me their seat on crowded public transportation. This happened every day I was on the standing room only monorail at Disney World in January. I thought, “how nice” and actually accepted. I also thought “I wonder how bad I actually look to these people?”

• At 70 I get carded if I want to buy a bottle of wine at the grocery store. But I get the McDonald’s senior coffee price without even having to ask. I’m thinking about getting a fake driver’s license that says I’m 18 just to mess with people.

• Life doesn’t always work out the way you want. It’s my hair that has gotten thinner, not my waistline.

• At 70 I sleep just fine. Unfortunately, it’s not in the middle of the night. It’s in the middle of the afternoon in a reclining chair where there are rumors that I snore.

• Men do not understand women any better at 70 than they did when they were 13. In fact, they are mostly more confused than ever.

• At 70 you’ve slipped the bonds of middle age so you no longer have to be grown up and responsible. You can have fun again like you did when you were 20.

I am a very lucky man. My wife, Jeanne, is a wonderful woman. At 70 I realize love is a living emotion and it doesn’t grow older. It grows bigger and better. We have three children who are the love and pride of our lives. At 70 I realize I learned far more from them then they ever could have learned from me. We have five grandchildren. They are all perfect. At 70 you understand why grandchildren are called grand.

I have nothing to complain about. Of course, that won’t stop me. Complaining is among the few pleasures left for men when they’re 70.

So how about that question our 4-year-old granddaughter asked.

“Granddad, are you old?”

Well, I’ve thought about that and I know how I want to answer.

No, Anna, I’m not old. It will happen and maybe sooner than I’d like. But, not yet. I have family like you and friends and a whole lot of living left to do. And Jeanne says I can’t be old because she doesn’t want to be married to an old man.

It’s terribly nice to be 70.

Thoughts from an “old friend”

“Granddad, are you old,” our 4-year-old granddaughter, Anna, asked.

It was an interesting question because it came just days before my 70th birthday. I had to stop and think before I could give her an answer and I actually was hoping that she’d get tired of waiting for my response and go on to something else. Which is exactly what happened.

But I kept thinking about it. How old is old? Is 70 old? I’ve been watching friends and high school and DePauw University classmates turning 70. After a lifetime of resisting it, are we now officially old?

As a young man I never spent any time considering the fact that one day I would grow old. I never imagined myself at 70. I was too busy pursuing dreams. I found a woman I loved and loved me in return, we had a family and careers and built a life together. There was no time for getting old.

It turns out it happens whether you’re thinking about it or not.

I was 20 years old in 1968, when Simon and Garfunkel released the song Old Friends: “Old friends, sat on a park bench like bookends . . . Can you imagine us years from today, sharing a park bench quietly.

“How terribly strange to be 70.”

So now that it’s happened to me, is it terrible strange to be 70?

Honestly, I really enjoy celebrating birthdays — as long as they’re not mine. Birthdays can be terrifying things. You go to bed one night and you’re a youngster in your 60s. You wake the next morning and everyone says you are 70. What kind of nightmare is that! I feel like Rip Van Winkle who took a 20-year snooze.

Actually, the only birthday I dreaded was my 30th. At 30 people don’t consider that one day they will be old. But they do start to think they might not be young forever and might soon be forced into middle age when they will have to be grown up and responsible. And who wants that? I remember friends gave me an incredible 30th birthday party. They had police arrive and arrest me for being old, which is a crime when you’re 30.

I decided I’d celebrate my 70th birthday with all enthusiasm of my 30th. Except I would need to be in bed by 9 o’clock.

The problem with birthdays is that they come around way too often.

Is 70 old?

They say getting old is just a state of mind. But don’t tell that to a 70-year-old man who just rushed into a room and can’t remember why. Getting old is not all in your mind. It’s in your fingers, your knees, and your back and occasionally it’s aches in places you didn’t even know you had when you were young.

Is 70 old?

My mother always said we are “too soon old and too late smart.” I suppose we’re supposed to be smart by the time we’re 70 after a lifetime of experience. We’re supposed to have wisdom to pass along to the young. But that’ just silly. Young people aren’t going to listen to old people no matter how wise we are. They’re going to make their own mistakes the same as we did. And don’t forget that some of those mistakes were fun – for a while.

Here are some of the things I’ve observed at 70.

• I realize at 70 I can no longer do a lot of the physical things I did when I was 20. The good news is I no longer want to do those things.

• Young people are starting to get up and offer me their seat on crowded public transportation. This happened every day I was on the standing room only monorail at Disney World in January. I thought, “how nice” and actually accepted. I also thought “I wonder how bad I actually look to these people?”

• At 70 I get carded if I want to buy a bottle of wine at the grocery store. But I get the McDonald’s senior coffee price without even having to ask. I’m thinking about getting a fake driver’s license that says I’m 18 just to mess with people.

• Life doesn’t always work out the way you want. It’s my hair that has gotten thinner, not my waistline.

• At 70 I sleep just fine. Unfortunately, it’s not in the middle of the night. It’s in the middle of the afternoon in a reclining chair where there are rumors that I snore.

• Men do not understand women any better at 70 than they did when they were 13. In fact, they are mostly more confused than ever.

• At 70 you’ve slipped the bonds of middle age so you no longer have to be grown up and responsible. You can have fun again like you did when you were 20.

I am a very lucky man. My wife, Jeanne, is a wonderful woman. At 70 I realize love is a living emotion and it doesn’t grow older. It grows bigger and better. We have three children who are the love and pride of our lives. At 70 I realize I learned far more from them then they ever could have learned from me. We have five grandchildren. They are all perfect. At 70 you understand why grandchildren are called grand.

I have nothing to complain about. Of course, that won’t stop me. Complaining is among the few pleasures left for men when they’re 70.

So how about that question our 4-year-old granddaughter asked.

“Granddad, are you old?”

Well, I’ve thought about that and I know how I want to answer.

No, Anna, I’m not old. It will happen and maybe sooner than I’d like. But, not yet. I have family like you and friends and a whole lot of living left to do. And grandma says I can’t be old because she doesn’t want to be married to an old man.

It’s terribly nice to be 70.

Summer’s half over; it’s time for unimportant things

Our grandmother was mormor, although we never called her that. We called her grandma. But mormor is Swedish for mother’s mother and that’s what she was, our mother’s mother.

I can see her vividly in my mind. But she died in 1952 when I was only 4 years old and in my memories I can only faintly hear her voice.I wish it were stronger.

Grandma had come from Sweden to America as a teenager and settled in Chicago where she met and married our grandfather, who had immigrated from Norway at about the same time, all before the turn of the 20th century. Today we hardly let teenagers venture to the next town. But our grandparents as teenagers ventured on their own to a new world which at the same time must have seemed strange and magical to them.

As kids we were fortunate to grow up around these immgrants who spoke with Swedish and Norwegian accents, who talked about the “old country” where they were born but loved this “new land” of opportunity. I can hear them in my head, talking half in Swedish, half in English and laughing so loud, always laughing. You have to be an optimist to leave one world and venture to another.

Too few people today have had the opportunity to know their immigrant family, to understand the hardships they went through to get here and how they struggled to survive and how much they loved America.

I think about this grandmother on the Fourth of July because she always said on this date that the summer was nearly over. I don’t think she meant it as “the glass is half empty.” I think she was reminding all of us it was time to do what we had planned with our summer before it all too quickly faded away. She was telling us “the glass is still half full. Don’t let it sit.”

Those Swedes and Norwegians cherished their summers. They were born and grew up in a country of long, cold, dark winters, where the arrival of summer was and is a celebration: Midsommar Dag, a time of dancing around maypoles and dreams of the future. We were in Sweden on Midsommar Dag about 15 years ago. The only place open where we could get dinner on the national holiday was a Chinese Restaurant. The first day of summer should be a holiday, nationwide.

This Fourth of July weekend I talked about with my mother who is in nursing care with dementia. Her eyes lit up when I mentioned her childhood dog Queenie and she remembered getting lost one summer and being found with Queenie at her side for protection. She remembered the summer she left her roller skates on the street one night and how her father picked them up and put them away but didn’t tell her until she confessed what she’d done. She remembered the smell of bread baking every day in the hot kitchen and the aroma of fresh coffee in the pot. At nearly 91 years old she remembers her summers. They’re just yesterday to her now.

Summer actually is about half over on the Fourth of July, so we should all make sure to use the remaining days for something other than work and the rush and rumble of modern life. We like to think about Old Fashioned Fourths. I think in days past people just understood how to enjoy the simple, unimportant things of summer.

Have a cookout, a picknic, a family reunion. Take a child fishing. Listen to the sound of a wooden porch door slamming and watch fireflies sparkle like diamonds in the black of night. Look at the stars and the moon. Lie in the grass and watch the clouds. Go to a lake or an ocean beach. Listen to the sound of a lone boat cutting through the water in the early morning. Listen for a loon. Sit on a porch with friends and talk about nothing important. Listen to frogs. Play fetch with a dog.

Go to the community baseball field and watch the kids. Swat mosquitoes. Get up very early in the morning when the day is still fresh and take a walk. Smell flowers. Hike in the woods. Ride in a convertable. Drink lemonade. Float down a river. Eat sweetcorn and watermelon. Smell the newly mowed grass. Climb a tree. Listen to birds. Eat ice cream cones with the kids and don’t care when it drips on their clothes. Watch a hummingbird do its work. Sit on the porch and watch an evening thunderstorm cool the air and light the sky. Swing on a swingset. Relax.

There are so many unimportant things left to do this summer, and so little time.

 

 

Ode to a great writer

Thirty-nine years ago this Sunday (July 3, 1972) I started a new job as a reporter for the Lafayette, Indiana Journal and Courier.

July 3 fell on a Monday that year and since it was the day before a national holiday, City Editor Bob Kriebel, who hired me, told me I didn’t have to report for work until Wednesday, July 5.

“If I start on Wednesday will I get paid for the holiday on Tuesday?” I asked. Bob said I wouldn’t. “Then I’ll be there on Monday,” I said.

I was broke.

But there’s no disgrace in being 24 years old and broke. It’s good training for when you have children.

Bob was the first person I met at the newspaper. As editor of the Brazil, Indiana Daily Times I knew I was young and inexperienced and needed to work with people who would teach me the news business that I loved. So I wrote Bob a letter and asked for a job. The Journal and Courier was and is one of the most progressive newspapers in the state.

“This guy is a good writer,” Bob is reported to have said. “But he can’t spell worth a darn.” He would later credit me with being the “worst speller in the state of Indiana.” That was after I wrote a series on cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

This was before computers and spell check and you’d be surprised how many different ways I found to spell cardiopulmonary resuscitation. It almost put Bob in need of cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

After reading my job request letter and clips, Bob invited me to Lafayette to interview and took me to lunch at the Downtowner.

“I played basketball,” he told me over cheeseburgers. He’s since been inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. “When I was playing at West Lafayette High School we had a game in Brazil, Indiana and your newspaper ran a story that the Red Devils were coming to town led by ‘big Boob Kriebel.’ I’ve always wondered if that was a typo or intentional!”

“That was before my time,” I said. I thought I was doomed, but he hired me.

I learned most of what I know about journalism and a lot of what I know about life from Bob along with then-Assistant City Editor Angie Rizzo. After the daily miracle of putting out a newspaper, Bob would often sit by my desk smoking a “victory cigar” and talk about great writing and great reporting.

“A good reporter can write a story about anything,” he said one day. “A good reporter can write a story about this pencil. How do they get the lead in there? Why is it yellow? How do they make erasers?” He went on and on.

Ever since I’ve wanted to write a story about a pencil.

In those days of the inverted pyramid writing style, he was tolerant and even encouraged my unorthodox style. “John, I don’t see your lede here,” he said while reading one of my stories. “It’s at the end,” I said.

I don’t remember how he responded. It’s probably just as well.

That exchange made our “Words to Live By” list proudly kept pinned on the bulletin board with infamous statements from other staffers such as: “You can’t libel a dead person;” and “Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.”

When I arrived at the Journal and Courier Bob was writing a column titled “What a Week.” It ran in the last column of the last page of the paper on Saturday, the last publishing day of the week in those days. The title came from an exchange Bob used to have with a printer every Friday after the paper came out: “What a week brother!”

When Bob went on vacation I wrote the column for him and in March of 1973 he turned it over to me, full time. The title was changed to “The Last Word” since it was the last word in the newspaper every week. It had other titles over the years such as “Norberg at Large.” When the editors doubled its length, Lafayette newsman (WASK, WLFI) and friend Mike Piggott called it “Norberg at Length.” The column still runs (much shorter, no title) and it’s hard to believe it’s nearing 40 years old. It’s due for a mid-life crisis.

My wife says I’ve been having a mid-life crisis for the past 25 years.

Bob has five children. I remember one day as he smoked his “victory cigar” he talked about a man who was showing off his brand new, expensive Cadillac, which Bob wouldn’t buy with his large family. “But I went home to my family and looked at my children and realized — I’ve got five Cadillacs,” he said.

He also has a beautiful Lamborghini in his wife, Nancy.

Bob retired from the Journal and Courier in 1993. At the retirement party I noted he was a legend in our community. “And you know what the word ‘legend’ means,” I said.

“It means ‘old.’”

Well, retirement parties can’t be all serious. Actually what I meant was that we all loved him. And I said that, too. But he always reminds me that I said “old.”

Bob continued writing a history column “Old Lafayette,” published weekly in the newspaper. He worked on books and has now written 12. He’s given countless talks in the community and been inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.

On Sunday, June 19, Bob announced he was retiring his column, ending a newspaper career that spanned 55 years. He’s already missed.

You really are a legend, Bob — and a friend and mentor to me and many others. Over 39 years you’ve done more for me than you will ever realize. I can’t thank you enough.

I hope our friendship goes on another 39 years, although we’ll both be a little past middle-age by then. And I know what you’ll say if you read this:

“John, I don’t see your lede here . . .”

Elevators and governors

I was in a crowded elevator in Chicago last weekend. It kept filling with more and more people. We all moved toward the back as we violated the personal space of those around us. The only time we stand that close to people we don’t know is in an elevator.

And it makes everyone uncomfortable.

“Can we squeeze one more in?” a woman asked, as she squeezed herself in and everyone moved back again. A 10-year-old boy was completely lost beneath the crowd as we each looked at the elevator maximum load capacity and wondered how much that guy at that front actually weighed.

We get close to people on elevators. But in another sense, we don’t get close to them. When the doors open we all rush out and go our separate ways without so much as a goodbye, never to see each other again.

I actually made a short elevator friendship five years ago this summer, in 2006. It took place at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. My wife and I had a wonderful time. We went up to a cupola of the hotel to enjoy the view and took an elevator down.

We were the only ones in the large elevator, but just as the doors were closing a man rushed sideways inside. There was plenty of room for the three of us. He stood as far away from us as he could, looking toward the floor. He was dressed in a dark Spandex running suit and running shoes. I looked at him closely.

“You look remarkably like the Governor of Illinois,” I said. He looked uncomfortable.

“Why do you say that? Are you from Illinois?” he asked.

“No. We’re from Indiana. But we’re Chicago natives, we have lots of family in Chicago, and you look a lot like the governor of Illinois.”

He held out his right hand. “Rod Blagojevich.” He WAS the governor of Illinois.

We talked for awhile, so much that we all forgot to push the elevator button for the lobby. I told him I had read, seen and heard a lot about him through the Chicago media.

“Don’t pay any attention to what you hear,” he said. I laughed. I didn’t tell him we were former news reporters. He told us he worked hard to get an auto plant to locate in Illinois but lost out to Indiana. “You have a good governor,” he said. “I like him.”  

While it appeared he didn’t want to be recognized when he first entered the elevator, he quickly became quite friendly. We finally reached the lobby, shook hands again and he was on his way, out for a run.

“Good luck in the election this fall,” I said.

“We’re going to do great,” he said. “The poll numbers look real good.” And he gave me a thumbs up!

I didn’t see my elevator friend again through the rest of our stay, but I have followed his saga closely ever since.

He was a nice man. But the truth is, I did pay attention to what was being written and said about him.

 And he should have, too.

Nothing new under the sun . . . or stormy sky

POMEROY, Iowa — This town of 700 people in northwest Iowa is surrounded by farmland, acres and acres of green corn plants just breaking the black soil in late May, forming straight lines across the endless landscape.

Wet, stormy weather meant a late planting this spring and some fields in May remained still untouched from last fall. But this county calls itself “The Golden Buckle on the Corn Belt,” and the harvest will be bountiful by fall.

The land is flat here, flat like people who haven’t seen it can’t even imagine. In every direction, the only trees are those planted as windbreaks around homes. You can look in the distance all around you and see the horizon where the black earth meets the blue sky. Roads run from one end of the county to the next with hardly a bump or a bend, so straight the only time you turn your steering wheel is to dodge a pheasant that is half-walking, half-flying, half-too-slow across the long highway.

Here and there plumes of dirt rise behind a tractor plowing a field miles away. The wind blows almost constantly, so it’s no surprise to see fields filled with big, sleek white, metal windmills spinning almost silently among the corn plants. There’s a new crop in rural Iowa: energy.

Since my wife, Jeanne, and I visited here this May there have been a large number of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms working their way through Iowa, into Illinois and Indiana, where we live. There have been storms in Missouri and Wisconsin. Lake Delton in the Wisconsin Dells, where we vacationed when we were kids, burst through its banks and is gone. A whole lake is gone! You can hardly turn on a TV news show or pick up a newspaper this month without seeing video and photos of destruction and human suffering in the wake of storms and flooding.

All news, like politics, is local, but in these days of incredible communications technology all news is also national. We can see individual county tornado and severe storm watches posted on national networks like CNN and the Weather Channel. Nothing bad happens anywhere in this country without the national news media telling us about it again and again, over and over, hour by hour.

While in Iowa, Jeanne and I stopped in Pomeroy to visit a cemetery on the outskirts of town where we found the grave sites of a number of her ancestors. Two tall monuments topped by crosses marking the final resting places of Margaret Quinlan Doyle and Patrick Doyle were of special interest, because two years ago Jeanne and I stood on farm field outside of Limerick, Ireland in the very place where Margaret’s family had lived before immigrating to the new world and a new life. Over time, the two old monuments have leaned slightly toward one another for the journey through eternity, just as I imagine Margaret and Patrick learned together through their lives.

There were many more markers from my wife’s family in this cemetery including Agnes Quinlan, her brother Edward Doyle and her infant, Michael. These three all had the same date of death inscribed on their headstones — July 6, 1893. It’s a sight that has stayed with me these past few weeks as we followed the storms rampaging through Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin Illinois, Indiana and elsewhere.

On July 6, 1893, Pomeroy was struck by a tornado that measured F5 on the Fujita scale. F5 is a tornado with 261-380 mph winds capable of “incredible damage.” According to a website it means: “Strong frame houses lifted off foundations and carried considerable distances to disintegrate; automobile sized missiles fly through the air in excess of 100 yards; trees debarked; steel reinforced concrete structures badly damaged; incredible phenomena will occur.”

With a damage path 55 miles long, the tornado, or “cyclone” as the called it then, destroyed 80 percent of the homes in Pomeroy, killed 71 people and injured 200 more. Seventy-one deaths. That was 8 percent of the total population of Pomeroy. Almost one-third was killed or injured. No families escaped the suffering.

Among those who died were Agnes Quinlan and her baby. Her husband, Michael who is called Mike in newspaper accounts, had kidney and scalp wounds. He was 24 years old and with his loss, his emotional wounds ran far deeper.

The loss to Margaret and Patrick Doyle that day was unimaginable, but chillingly common in that storm. They lost a daughter, Agnes, a son, Edward, and a grandchild, Michael.

Here is how this “cyclone” was described in one newspaper of the day: “One of the most dreadful calamities in the history of the state visited this section last evening in the shape of a devastating cyclone. Owing to the demoralized conditions of telegraph wires it is impossible as yet to get all the details. As far as can be learned the cyclone started southwest of there at about seven o’clock last evening. It swept almost due east leveling everything in its path for a width of a thousand yards, killing and maiming the inhabitants in the towns and thickly populated farming districts. The loss of life is known to be very great, though actual details are far from full. The loss of property is beyond estimation.

“As soon as the news of the disaster was learned, special trains with physicians and nurses were sent from here and Fort Dodge, and every able-bodied man in the vicinity lent a helping hand to the wounded and dying. The wounded were found lying about the streets beseeching help. It was several hours before the condition of affairs was fully known here. The town was in total darkness, the streets were filled with wrecks of homes and business houses. The scenes were appalling as the men, with lanterns, went about among the debris. In some instances entire families were wiped out, the mangled remains being found in the ruins of their homes. The work of rescue was slow and the trainloads of helpers made little headway.

“The south half of the town was completely razed to the ground. A church just outside the track of the storm, was turned into a hospital. Here the surgeons worked by the aid of lanterns and lamps. Those with broken bones were stretched upon the pews, while those less severely injured were compelled to lie on the floor and await their turns. The dead were laid out upon the ground in a vacant lot at the edge of the devastated district. Through the aisles between bodies the survivors passed, looking for loved ones.

“At the approach of the storm, which took on a greenish tint, followed by darkness and what appeared to be a column of smoke, many sought shelter in cellars. Others mounted horses to flee from the path of the destruction.”

Here is another newspaper account: “Pomeroy, Iowa, July 8 – The dead here now number forty-four. It is one of the saddest scenes ever witnessed, and even the strongest are compelled to turn away from some of the sights at City Hall hospital where the worst of the injured are. Every dwelling left standing will be termed a hospital as all have been opened to the sufferers and contain from two to eight each.

“Governor Boles is still on the ground doing all in his power for the comfort of the wounded. Physicians and nurses are needed badly. Only ten doctors are here today and calls cannot be promptly answered. The neighboring towns and cities are providing nurses liberally but more are needed.

“The work of burying the dead at Pomeroy has commenced. Seventeen were interred late yesterday and twenty more will be buried today. A number of bodies will be shipped away. The scenes are so heart rendering as relatives from a distance come to gaze upon the features of their dead. Two hundred and eight residences were swept completely from the face of the earth. Not a board was left. Hardly a residence remains untouched and the business portion is so badly wrecked it can be said with truth that Pomeroy is no more.

“The dead carcasses of horses, cattle and hogs are being taken from the ruins today and buried. Company G of the state militia, of Fort Dodge, assisted by companies from Storm Lake and Perry, are on the guard night and day. It seems as though as many fatalities resulted from going into cellars as from staying above ground. The seven churches of the town are all demolished and no services will be held tomorrow. All is sadness and gloom.”

One more account: “The awful work of the Pomeroy cyclone of last Thursday evening continues to be the principal topic of conversation and newspaper comment throughout Iowa and the continent. And well it may be, for a more terrible example of the wonderful power of warring elements is seldom witnessed.

“Where stood, shortly before 7 o’clock in the evening of July 6, a hundred or more pleasant, comfortable, and some even luxurious, homes, a few minutes later was a wilderness of broken timbers and debris, with wounded, bleeding, dying and dead humanity upon every hand. No pen could ever picture the awful terror of that night. Strong men were pinned to the earth and forced to hear the shrieks and groans of the wounded and dying while unable to lend a helping hand.

“Fathers and mothers, husbands, brothers and sisters searched in vain amid the darkness and ruins for their loved ones, and children wept for their parents lying cold in death. Searching parties were organized as speedily as possible, but no lights were at hand and but comparatively little could be done toward securing the wounded until the welcome dawn appeared.

“Then the scene which met the eyes of the uninjured, must have made the strongest feel sick at heart. But willing hands soon conveyed the wounded and dead to some of the few buildings which remained standing in the town, and people poured in from the surrounding country and neighboring towns to render much needed assistance.

“From the narratives of many who saw the storm cloud it appears that it was tornado of the compound sort — that is, it varied from the true balloon tornado in that it had four stems or funnels, instead of only one. At some places along the track of the storm it seems that one or more of these funnels simply touched the tops of the trees, while another, perhaps, would sweep the ground.”

The Pomeroy storm made news “throughout the continent,” including the New York Times, and it’s likely this was a story that went around the world, although the telling would have taken much longer 115 years ago than it would today.

There is little evidence of the tragedy in Pomeroy today. The town looks the victim of time more than anything else. As it takes fewer and fewer people to farm these thousands and thousands of acres of rich, black soil, young people have grown and left Pomeroy for other opportunities. Only a few buildings still stand in town: the grain elevator; a brick church building that is just a shell, the stained glass windows removed to be used elsewhere. A town library stands as a reminder that people here are proud of their community.

There is just one reminder of the storm that killed 71 people. It is the repeated date — July 6, 1893 — on headstones in two cemeteries at the outskirts of town.

It was a day of unimaginable devastation and human sorrow; a day like so many others, ultimately lost in the sweep of time. We shouldn’t dwell on tragedy. But we shouldn’t forget it either.

A matter of speech

Speeches matter.

I should disclose at the onset that I am a speechwriter, so you would expect me to say this. If speeches don’t matter, I’m out of a job and I’m one of those poor, hopeless people in a tanking economy that politicians are always talking about in their speeches.

Speeches define what a person believes in and how he or she will address challenges. There are also many subtle messages in speeches that are not stated directly but are implied: attitudes, personality, a sense of humor, fairness, energy, and excitement.

As the votes were being counted in the South Dakota and Montana primaries Tuesday evening (June 3, 2008) we had the incredible opportunity to hear speeches from the three political candidates who have dominated the news this year: John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama

It was Obama’s big moment as he went over the top finally capturing enough delegates to declare himself the Democratic Party nominee in the general election. It was an historic moment, and Obama was given the opportunity to speak last. I’m not going to talk about who is best qualified to be president or whom I support. I’m just going to talk about these three speeches and speaking styles because they were very different.

McCain opened the evening with a talk to a relatively small group of people outside New Orleans. The cable news networks said there were about 100 people present. The room was too large for a group that size, making it appear and sound like a very small crowd indeed — especially when a couple thousand were expected for Clinton’s rally and 18,000 for Obama at an arena in St. Paul, Minnesota. In fact, the crowd reaction to McCain’s talk seemed to echo.

McCain’s speech was critical of Obama while going out of its way to court Clinton voters who have been threatening to defect the Democratic Party. Given that Obama is the first African American in our history to be nominated by a major political party, it was a turning point in history that McCain ignored while he did allude to the historic nature of Clinton’s campaign. He spent 64 words praising Clinton. The only positive thing he said about Obama was that he would be “a formidable” opponent whose Democratic Party victory was being “declared by pundits and party leaders.”

McCain had trouble with the Teleprompter and looked very uncomfortable and awkward delivering his talk in front of a green background that didn’t look good on TV. His speechwriter picked up on a theme that had potential: defining Obama’s positions (as McCain sees them) followed by the line : “And that’s not change we can believe in.” It played off Obama’s campaign theme “Change We Can Believe In.”

McCain’s speech should have been delivered with power, force and speed, firing off a series of Obama positions followed by the forceful line “and that’s not change we can believe in.” The speech should have had rhythm and passion. Instead McCain recited the “change” line again and again with a silly Cheshire cat grin on his face and a tone that sounded wishy-washy and like he was in a hurry to get out of there and go to dinner. Negative reaction from the audience to Obama’s positions detracted from the event and what McCain was trying to accomplish. It made the speech sound like it was intended for hardcore McCain voters, when he was actually looking for broad appeal.

This speech had the worst possible outcome for a moment like this. It would have been better if he had not given it at all.

Clinton’s speech came next. It did a good job of stating her issues. The audience responded very enthusiastically. And by not conceding, she succeeded in focusing attention on herself rather than on Obama’s victory. The news story became “what will Hillary do,” instead of “what will Obama do.”

A problem with Clinton’s speech was one that she has repeated throughout this campaign: The use of words such as “I,” “me” and “my.” Her speech was 2,237 words long and I counted “I,” “me” and “my” about 93 times. That means every 24th word she spoke was “I,” “me,” or “my.” About every 12 seconds we heard Clinton talk about herself.

I marked up a copy of her speech using a yellow pen to highlight every “I,” “me” and “my.” The yellow marks are all over the place. In one 25-word sentence she used “I” four times. Listening to Clinton talk, you feel like this is all about her. It’s all about what “I” can do, it’s about “me” and “my” programs. It sounds self-centered.

Given that Clinton’s campaign theme has been “experience” I suppose she has to state what she has done. But I believe there are ways to do this without so much “I,” “me,” and “my” and the result would be better speeches.

McCain used “I,” “me,” and “my” 64 times in a 3,169 word speech, once every 49 words or once every 29 seconds on average. But his use of the words was more grouped (12 of them in one paragraph for impact). He sometimes went several minutes with using them at all.

Obama’s speech was 2,451 words, just slightly longer than Clinton’s talk. I count 28 uses of “I,” “me” and “my” in Obama’s speech. That’s once every 87 words or once every 40 seconds on average.

Better words are ones indicating that what is being accomplished and the challenges being faced are widely shared and success depends on everyone — not just “me.”

Obama used words such as “we,” “our,” “your,” and “us” about 60 times and Clinton used them even more — 77 times. But I think this positive impact was overshadowed by her use of “I,” “me,” and “my.”

Obama gets the speech win for the night. His message was delivered powerfully and grew stronger and stronger as the audience cheered. He did not stop and wait for the crowd reaction to subside before continuing his speech. He just went on, talking louder and the audience response grew louder. It created tremendous excitement.

Obama criticized and complemented McCain almost in the same breath and with an artful “dig:” (“John McCain is a man who has served this country heroically and I respect his many accomplishments even if he chooses to deny mine.”)

There was a little delay in bringing Obama out for his talk and I think that was because they were making changes in his speech, obviously in response to Clinton and McCain.

CNN commentator David Gergen is a professor of public service at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and director of its Center for Public Leadership. He is also editor-at-large for U.S. News & World Report and a Senior Political Analyst for CNN. In earlier years, he served as a White House advisor to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. In other words, this guy’s been around.

He compared Obama’s speech and style to Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. He said we haven’t had a presidential candidate with this incredible speaking ability since Ronal Reagan.

I covered Reagan speeches as a reporter and they were incredible. I remember one he gave in Indianapolis without a prepared text. He just talked from note cards and electrified the crowd. But, I believe Obama is a better speaker than any president or presidential candidate I have heard in my lifetime which dates to the day of Harry Truman.

It takes more than great speeches to make a great President. But the ability to communicate well with people, to give them a vision and to inspire and motivate them to pursue a goal is very important and maybe even critical at this juncture.

Speeches matter.

Where have all the men gone?

CHICAGO — I’ve been watching women all my life. I haven’t learned a single thing from doing this. But it’s been enjoyable and I’m still watching.

What I’m seeing lately is that women are traveling in groups. No men. Just women of all ages going out together in groups. I know this has been going on for awhile. But it seems like I’m seeing it more today.

I noticed it again last weekend when my wife and I were in Chicago to see the musical “Jersey Boys.” As we gathered in the foyer waiting for the doors to open, there were groups of women everywhere. Some of them looked like they were church groups of fully 20 women, all out together. No men. Others like looked like maybe bridge groups of 12 women, while still others were groups of maybe five or six female friends. There were groups of women everywhere.

All of this made me wonder. Where are all the men? Surely at least some of these women had men in their lives. But where were the men while their women were out in large groups having fun?

Were they home sitting on their Barcaloungers? Are men becoming extinct, like the dinosaurs? Maybe we’ve been hit by a giant meteor and are so wrapped up in ball games, we don’t even know it yet.

My wife, Jeanne, had an explanation. “Women get tired of their husbands complaining whenever they ask they them to go out someplace,” she said. “So eventually we give up, stop asking, and just go out with our friends and have a wonderful time. No one grumbles.”

I think that she saw this as a teachable moment.

One hundred years ago women didn’t go out unless they had a man escorting them, and I think it’s great that they feel comfortable going out today without male escorts. What I’m worried about is the men. Another hundred years of this and we could be obsolete where women are concerned, not unlike girdles and corsets: Uncomfortable items of the past that have lost their purpose.

I see groups of women everywhere today —restaurants, movies, the theaters. And in case any of you guys are wondering, they are having a wonderful time without us.

You don’t see men doing this. Two guys will go out together and do something. Sometimes even three guys go out. But men never gather in groups of more than four, which, not coincidentally, is the same number for the most common golf group — a foursome.

Men will go in foursomes to baseball and football games. But you never see 10 or more of them going out together. And you certainly never see them in groups at a musical play. While there were more groups of women than I could count at “Jersey Boys,” I did not see a single group of men. In fact, men are more likely to be seen out by themselves than in a group of more than four.

We had breakfast Sunday morning in Rockford, Illinois west of Chicago, at a restaurant called the Machine Shed and there were groups of women there, too. It’s a fantastic restaurant, unless you’re on a diet like I am and can’t eat anything described on the menu with the words “hearty,” “man-sized,” or “dripping in butter.” I can only order things off the menu if they’re described as “dry,” “tasteless,” or “unfilling.” You don’t eat a lot of that stuff, so you lose weight.

This restaurant features homemade cinnamon rolls as big as a breadbox, made from scratch with real butter and brown sugar and heaven knows what else. They come to the table warm and while I couldn’t eat them it was worth going to this place just to smell them on Sunday morning.

If you are ever condemned to death, pick these cinnamon rolls for your last meal. You will not be disappointed. With the cinnamon rolls, at least.

The reason I mention all of this is because a group of women came in and sat down at the table next to us. No men. Just women. Six of them.

There were three teenage girls in their blue soccer warm-up uniforms, obviously ready for a game later in the day. These were the kind of teenagers you look at and feel good about the future. You could see these were very bright young women.

The three girls were accompanied by their mothers. Two of the women had medium length, dark hair. They wore no make up early on Sunday morning. They were dressed for going to a soccer match. They dressed in loose dark clothing, chin to toes.

The third mother had very long streaked blonde hair. She was wearing a tight top that did not cover her midriff. She had tight pants that rode a little – shall we say – “low.” And all of this was done for the purpose of exposing a neon blue thong.

Not that I noticed.

The group of six women, all thin and fit, promptly ordered several warm, buttery cinnamon rolls with icing dripping from the top. The sweet aroma wafted over to my table. I tried to eat it out of the air. When they finished every crumb of the cinnamon rolls, they each ordered a huge breakfast of waffles and omelets and sour dough French toast and hearty skillets. How could these thin young women eat like this when I had nibble at crumbs?

So, this is how it was when I saw these young woman, one in a neon blue thong. I was thinking about sweet rolls and sour dough French toast. This is what diet does to a middle-aged man.

But I had to wonder through it all what the two conservatively dressed mothers thought about their friend and how she dressed for a girls’ soccer game. Why did she wear this to go out with other women?

I know the dynamics within a group of women are very complicated and men who attempt to even consider this are at grave personal peril. But I couldn’t help but wonder. What would the two women say to their daughters about this? What would they say to each other? What would they say to their husbands who would be at the game later? “Keep your eyes on your daughter.”

I don’t know any of the answers. I just know that groups of women are going out together at all times of the day and evening and having a great time and men are nowhere to be seen.

This has been quite a revelation for me and it’s given me new understanding and insight. It’s changed my thinking and helped me understand what I need to do.

I need to get a Barcalounger and find out what all these guys like about them so much. That, and I’m never, ever, going back to the Machine Shed without ordering homemade cinnamon rolls dripping with icing right out of the oven.

If a group of women can do it, I can, too.

A Place To Find Your Grin

What I’ll always remember is the smile on his face.

It was really more of a grin than a smile. A smile is something formal. It’s what you do when they point a camera at you and the look on your face is going to be preserved and displayed for the rest of your life. It’s what you do when you meet someone for the first time and you’re a little nervous about it. A smile is what you use to cover-up how you really feel.

But a grin is something you can’t stop. It takes over your whole face. It grabs control of the corners of your mouth and before you know it, your nose and eyes are involved. Even your ears get involved when you grin. A grin is a giggle all over your face.

Sunday afternoon Matty was grinning. I should call him Matt, because when a boy grows taller than his granddad, I don’t know if he’s a Matty anymore. But he’ll always be Matty in my heart.

Our 12-year-old grandson Matt had a band concert Sunday and when it was over I saw him grinning. He was grinning so much it made me grin. There is no better way to spend a Sunday afternoon, or any afternoon, morning or evening for that matter, than grinning with your grandson.

It was a wonderful concert and Matt felt good about his performance. He is a percussionist. That’s a drummer, but they do so much more and play so many different kinds of drums that percussionist is more correct.

But I can remember when Matt wasn’t even as big as the word “percussionist.”

The concert was in our town of West Lafayette, Indiana, which is not a big community but it is home to Purdue University. We all gathered in the West Lafayette High School gym to listen to bands featuring students ranging from fifth grade to seniors in high school.
The entire gym floor was filed with band groups and one side of the bleachers was filled with parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers. We were all grinning.

It’s wonderful when you bring hundreds of parents and family members together for performances like this, whether it’s band, choral, theater, art, sports — whatever. We come together as people and bring all the joys and sorrows of life with us. We all have so many worries and concerns. But no one worries about $4 a gallon gasoline while watching their child or grandchild play a beautiful theme on a bassoon or bring the house down rat-a-tatting on a drum. Free of the unimportant things that bring us down and trouble our lives, we’re able to enjoy what matters most to us all: our children.

It’s as fun to watch the parents as it is to watch the children during concerts like this: the excitement, the pride, and the terror when their child stands to do a solo and the total joy when it goes well.

School band concerts put perspective back in our lives. There’s nothing more important than our children. They are tomorrow. They are our future. They are the greatest natural resource of our nation and world. I felt pretty confident about tomorrow after the West Lafayette school band concert and watching those grinning students.

I felt very good about the teacher in charge of this, too. His name is Matt Conaway. He gets to school before 7 a.m. to lead the younger children, works all day and I’m sure into the evening, along with weekend competitions and events. The students clearly love working with him. And he brings out the best in them. When School Boards consider budgets they should invite the band to perform before the meeting. It’s important to see the great returns on your investments.

We’re near the end of another academic year and there are lots of performances at schools in the weeks ahead. Sometimes we look at our calendars and wonder how we’ll get through it all. We just need to go and enjoy.

A couple years ago my wife, Jeanne, and I went to a concert in a community center in Bertesgarten, Germany. It turned out we had misread the posters for the event. We thought it was a community orchestra concert. It turned out to be children, one by one, doing piano recitals to a theater packed with parents and grandparents. Beethoven would have run screaming from the building. But you’ve never seen so many happy, proud parents.

School concerts are a celebration of life, present and future. You should take all your troubles and worries to one as soon as possible.

I promise, you’ll find your grin.

Friends, nature, quiet; and a river runs through it

It’s mostly quiet on the river in the early morning; so quiet you can hear water gently gurgling around a bolder in the rushing current. It’s a sound that drowns your worries.

When you’re used to the noise from cities and towns, — the traffic, the endless chatter from TVs and radios, the whistles, bells and horns that all rise in a senseless racket — when you’re used to that, what you notice first on the river is the quiet. A bald eagle flies overhead, its huge wings feathered in the breeze. Silent. Squirrels scamper among trees along the shore. Silent. Clouds float in the blue sky. Silent.

Even the people are quiet, the fishermen along the banks wading waist deep in water as they throw line out into the river currents and wait; and wait. Except for an occasional motor from a passing power float boat, the only sounds are those that emerge from the river or the wind and it all feels very good against your ears.

My friends Larry, Stephen, Troy and I went fly fishing in northern Michigan last weekend, drifting down the big Manistee River with no destination in mind; just two days on the water remembering that what we really are is just another part of nature — most of it more powerful, more beautiful, and far greater than we.

I’m not really a fisherman. I have a brother-in-law and nephew who are great fishermen and they take me along. But calling me a fly fisherman is like calling a guy playing “Chopsticks” a concert pianist. Fly fishing is part sport and part art; a symphony of rod, reel and fishing line glistening in the sun as it whips back and then streams far forward, sailing over the water before floating gently down to the surface; all conducted by a person waving his arm in a fluid motion timed perfectly with the rod, the reel, the line and the river.

I remember many years ago taking our youngest daughter, Beth, out in a rowboat on a lake in Pokagon State Park in northeast Indiana. She was 10 years old. I put worms on our hooks. We dropped our lines into the water again and again and waited for hours. “Dad,” Beth finally said. “I love you. But you’re just not a very good fisherman.” She caught a bluegill. But she was right and I knew it.

It is my friends who have interested me in fly fishing, encouraging me along; rarely laughing when I get tangled in my line and turn that symphony of motion — line, rod, reel and river — into a discordant mess.

“You’ll have an easier time throwing that line out if you’re not standing on it,” says our guide, Chris. And he laughs.

Wellston, Michigan is the home of Schmidt Outfitters, owned by Ray Schmidt a guy with white hair and a white mustache who looks like a fly fisherman — and is, in fact, a widely respected expert, as well as a widely liked guy. Ray and his wife, Angie, own a great lodge, fishing store and a guiding businesses, doing a wonderful job sending people whose time is limited onto northern Michigan rivers filled, this time of year, with steelhead trout — big beautiful fish that are a steely silver in the fall and slightly darker in the spring when they come in from Lake Michigan to spawn.

Our guides are Chris and Bill. Larry and I went with Chris, Stephen and Troy with Bill.

“Do you remember John?” Larry asks, introducing me to Chris. “He hasn’t been with us for about seven years. He’s been too busy at work”

“Aren’t you the guy who lost that steelhead?” Chris asks.

“Yeah, you’re always talking about that,” Larry says. “He’s the one.”

So Chris recalls in detail how I had mishandled my rod and line and let a 10-pound steelhead make a fool out of me seven years ago.

“You’ve got a good memory,” I say.

“Some thing are unforgettable,” Chris says, and he laughs. He has a big, loud laugh and it’s friendly and he puts his arm around your shoulder so you’ll know it’s all in fun. You hope.

We get in our boat and move down the river to fishing spots known locally by names like owl’s nest, banana log, and three sisters. Larry points out logs stuck in high banks above the river that have been there since the clear-cut logging days 100 years ago.

It’s early spring the trees are beginning to show a touch of green. Off in the distance trees sway in their spring colors: purple, red, yellow and green. But Chris is focused on fishing.

He teaches me how to strip line off the reel and let it fall at my feet; how to take the rod back with my right arm and then swing it forward with an easy flowing motion, letting go of the line in my left hand at the last second. He shows me how it’s done and his line sails more than half way across the river. A lead weight on the line makes a plopping sound as it dunks beneath the water where the steelheads wait.

He hands the rod to me. I hold the rod in my right hand, the line in my left, sway back and then forward and my line sails three feet off the edge of the boat and tangles in a huge bird’s nest of knots. It takes 15 minutes to untangle the mess.

Larry throws his line out like a pro from the back of the boat while I struggle at the front. “You’re letting go of the line too soon,” Chris says. “I don’t know what else I can tell you. Hold onto the line longer.”

I go through the motions, first back, then forward. “Well,” Chris says, “when your lead weight hits the guide in the back of the head you can pretty well guess you aren’t doing it right yet.”

“Sorry.”

“Did you say one of your friends is a doctor? I’m going to need him before the day is out.”

I finally get it right and my line sails across the river into the rushing current. The weight pulls it down to the river where it dances along the gravely bottom. I feel every bump through the rod held tight in my hands.

Suddenly the rod and the line and the reel all come alive.

“You got one,” Chris shouts. “That’s a fish. Let go of the reel. Let him run. Keep your rod bent. That’s it.”

The fish runs downstream. It jumps from the water and glistens sliver in the sun. It’s strong and beautiful. “Pull the rod back,” Chris says. “Then lean forward and reel in. Pull back, lean forward and reel in.” This went on for maybe seven minutes. It felt like an hour.

“Keep the rod bent,” Chris says. “Get it down close to the water. Pull him in. Pull him over to me. Get the rod over my head. Don’t touch the reel.”

He reaches into the water with a net and scoops up the steelhead. “You got it. You got it,” he shouts.

I shout, too. Chris says it’s seven pounds, but I’ve been telling everyone it was 10. The steelhead is unhooked in the net, in the water. A camera is readied. We pick the fish out of the water, a photo is snapped and the steelhead is back in the river in a matter of seconds, swimming away.

“You redeemed yourself,” Chris says. He laughs with delight.

I caught two more steelheads during the weekend. Even more than that got away and I wrapped my line and flies in trees on the riverbank and in logs underwater. I had a wonderful time. Chris did a great job.

I told our daughter Beth about the trip and the fish and how we sent them right back into the river. She felt sorry for the fish. “You still hooked them,” she said.

I told her if it made her feel any better, I also hooked myself and the guide a few times and almost got Larry once.

I’m back at work now and way too busy once again. The problems I lost on the Manistee have all returned. But in the darkness of the night when I close my eyes to sleep I no longer toss and turn. I remember the quiet. I hear the river gurgling around a boulder. A steelhead rises and leaps above the water, glistening in the sun. I’m with my friends. Chris laughs.

And my sleep comes gentle and easy.