tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88546247382231194072024-03-20T16:03:23.337-04:00Murphy's CrawSome whimsical wanderings through the worlds of words, writing, and old movies and TV -- along with some selected short subjects.Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.comBlogger394125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-79139266908242392072024-03-17T10:30:00.002-04:002024-03-20T16:02:38.725-04:00Please Don't Play Games With My Eyes<p><i>“It’s fun to play games with vision, but don’t play games with your eyes!” <p align="right">— old public service commercial</i>
<p>One day, while I’m in the fourth grade, I am told that I need glasses.
<p>For years I go to a local guy, Mr. Sacco, whom I can always count on — until he retires. Gradually most of the local opticians fade from view as the chain stores pretty much take over.
<p>I go to one of them for a few years. It’s OK, but one day, two years ago, I decide to go elsewhere because I can’t seem to negotiate the store’s phone menu when I call for an appointment.
<p>Someone I know recommends another place — a local store run by two guys.
<p>One of them is there when I arrive without an appointment. He greets me cordially. As we discuss my prescription, it occurs to me that this place is like Mr. Sacco’s — I feel I’m being treated like a valued customer and not like grist for some corporate lens-grinding mill.
<p>I tell him how nice it is that I have now found a local place that I can depend on for my eyewear.
<p>A few days later, when I come to pick up my glasses, the guy’s partner takes care of me. He’s also pleasant, and as we chat he mentions his years of experience, including time spent working for one of the chains. Oh the stories I could tell you, he says.
<p>I leave the store as a satisfied customer.
<p>A couple of weeks later I’m riding a bus when it passes the opticians’ building.
<p>I look out the window. I notice a sign.
<p>The business has gone out of business. Thanks for your patronage, etc.
<p>One year later I take a deep breath and go back to the chain store with my latest prescription. In addition to the basic lenses, for years I’ve been getting progressive bifocals.
<p>They take me without an appointment, and a few days later someone hands me a case containing my new glasses. This seems odd; usually opticians have you try them on.
<p>Fast-forward to a week and a half ago. I have my annual exam, but the doctor tells me that the glasses I’ve been wearing don’t have progressive bifocals. He assures me his prescription called for them. <p>He suggests that I go back to the store and tell them. Maybe I’ll get a refund or discount.
<p>I go to the store and make my case. The guy asks me if I have last year’s prescription. I tell him the doctor said they should have it on file. I wind up having to tell him this twice.
<p>He finds the prescription on his tablet. He points to something and seems to say that there’s a specification for progressive bifocals, but apparently (assuming I’m understanding him correctly) I was supposed to specifically ask for them.
<p>I’ve never had to do that, I say. It’s always been this way, he says. Besides which, I had a hundred days to complain about my glasses and I didn’t, so no refund.
<p>I also mention how the glasses were handed to me in a case, with no one offering to let me try them on.
<p>“You always had that option,” he says. Somehow I’m in the last reel of “The Wizard of Oz,” where Glinda tells Dorothy she could have gone home any time she wanted to do so. (Even as a kid seeing the movie for the first time, I wanted to punch Glinda. Didn’t you?)
<p>So I schedule an appointment with another local place, which I had avoided because I heard it’s pricey. But at least it’s not a chain.
<p>Turns out it’s run by a guy who seems to do the things Mr. Sacco used to do, and even more. He takes measurements, glances at my face from several angles and charges a price I think I can afford. (I do have a couple of tax refunds coming.)
<p>He has been in business for 25 years, and he says he’s not going anywhere soon. He says he’ll call me in a couple of weeks.
<p>We’ll see.
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-42054759487229431582024-02-17T10:43:00.000-05:002024-02-17T10:43:00.631-05:00Two Women Named Barbara: Part Two<p>I don’t remember where I first heard of Barbara Lakey (better known as “Babs”) or Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine (better known as “FMAM”), which she founded and published.
<p>I do remember that I had written a mystery story and I was looking for a place to send it.
<p>You have to be careful when you’re marketing your work. Not every publisher is honest; there’s a reason there’s a website called Writer Beware.
<p>But as I read about Futures, I saw a name I recognized: Henry Slesar, who was one of FMAM’s advisers, had written stories for Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; had adapted some of those stories for Hitchcock’s TV show; and had served as the head writer for a daytime soap, “The Edge of Night,” for many years. And on the side he ran his own ad agency.
<p>So I figured I could trust Babs Lakey, even if she could have chosen a better name for her magazine. She meant “futures” in the sense of investments, like gold futures; she felt she was investing in new writers. Unfortunately, after I began selling stuff to Futures, some people I know thought I was a science fiction writer. Oh well.
<p>Not long after I found out about Futures, Mr. Slesar died and Babs launched a short story contest in his memory. I entered it, won third place, and had the option of submitting it to the magazine, which I did.
<p>The fiction editor surprised me by rejecting it, so I wrote to Babs.
<p>“Why don’t you email a copy of this story, would you?” she wrote back. “I always enjoy seeing what we turn down.” So I did.
<p>I also submitted another story, based on my experiences as a newspaper copy editor. By this time there was a new fiction editor, “an old newshen” who said she really liked the story, which was about 8,000 words, but could I cut it to 5,000 to 6,000?
<p>Gulp. Then again, I had sometimes slashed the hell out of reporters’ stories, and those who live by the delete key must die by the delete key. And of course the shortened story was much better.
<p>But after a few months went by with no word from the new fiction editor, I wrote to Babs. Turns out that the new editor had left and there was still another fiction editor. Because of a problem with the file system, he had only the original version and liked it but wished it were shorter. So I told Babs about the shorter version, she told me to send it, and he immediately accepted it.
<p>And within a few hours I received word that the story from the contest had been accepted for the magazine. Babs even put my name on the cover of that issue.
<p>Two sales in one night! (I also remember that this was the same night that Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California. I was at least as happy as he was.)
<p>I wish I could say I sold many more stories to Futures, but it folded despite Babs’ tireless efforts. She lost a lot of money and, from what I’ve heard, her health. I’ve read that she is retired now, and I’m sorry to say that we’ve lost touch. I hope she is doing OK.
<p>And I’ve always kept the note she sent me about my newspaper story, “An Eye for Detail,” which is probably my best mystery so far:
<p>“Just did the layout for your story and wanted to tell you what a GREAT one!!
FABulous job, Mark!!
<p>babs”
<p>Could anybody ever ask for a better editor?
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-88905811199895673972024-02-04T11:37:00.000-05:002024-02-04T11:37:05.027-05:00Two Women Named Barbara: Part One<p>I owe a lot to two women named Barbara.
<p>First there was Barbara Clarkson, a published poet who taught creative writing at my alma mater.
<p>Her creative writing course was open only to juniors and seniors, but I used to see her around the campus before I ever took it. On the surface she seemed friendly and pleasantly eccentric.
<p>When I finally got into her class — I think I was a senior — I found out she was indeed friendly and pleasantly eccentric. But when she handed my stories back I learned that she was also a friendly, pleasantly eccentric and damned hard-nosed editor. If she saw a word that she thought didn’t belong, or was redundant, she’d circle it.
<p>She circled a lot of my words — so many that as I think of it now, I’m surprised I ever became an editor. I’m sure that she herself would have been a godsend to the copy desk at the paper where I eventually worked.
<p>But she did like my work. When the college’s annual literary magazine came out, she saw to it that the issue began with one of my stories.
<p>As my graduation approached, Ms. Clarkson wanted me to get the college’s commencement award for writing,
<p>The head of the English department wanted somebody else to get it. The college had recently added a minor in communications, and the department head, apparently in an attempt to promote this new focus, wanted the award to go to the editor of the college paper.
<p>I could see the department head’s point. I knew the editor. I had even worked for him on the paper; he was a good guy, and he had led the paper during a time of controversy on the campus, and the stories he wrote about the controversy were about as professional as you could get at a school that didn’t have a journalism department. Not surprisingly, he is now the president of a corporate communications company.
<p>But Ms. Clarkson pushed for me, to the point where the department named two recipients: the editor and me. As much as I still appreciate this, I remember Ms. Clarkson more as the person who let me know, without ever explicitly saying it, that I was indeed a writer, that the career choice I had made in the late 1960s was not a stupid one.
<p>I wish I could say I kept in touch with her through the years, but several months after my graduation I began a 30-year stint at the local paper, and that, among other things, kept me busy.
<p>One New Year’s Day, she died. She hadn’t been sick; the way I heard it, she was here one moment, gone the next. Someone else who knew her told me it was the perfect way for her to go.
<p>Before she died, I did have one more, quite unexpected encounter with her.
<p>A colleague of mine had become an adjunct instructor at the college. One night at the paper, when he wasn’t there, the phone rang.
<p>“Is Dan Valenti there?” I knew the voice immediately.
<p>I explained that Dan wasn’t there, then hesitantly asked her if she was Ms. Clarkson.
<p>“Yes! Who’s this?”
<p>Filled with pride at being a successful (so far) alumnus, I told her.
<p>“Mark! What are YOU doing there?”
<p>I still laugh at this, while remembering how I sometimes asked myself various versions of the same question over those 30 years.
<p>Next time: The Second Barbara.
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-60818240734413814702023-11-21T20:47:00.001-05:002023-11-21T20:47:35.552-05:00Where I was when the lights went out<p>It’s a Tuesday evening in November, 58 years ago.
<p>My family is home. My mother, as I recall, has cooked “soft steak,” consisting of meat in gravy and maybe some onions. Years later, I can still smell and taste it. My younger sister still knows how to make it. It’s especially nice if you place a piece of bread underneath the steak and gravy.
<p>At some point after dinner, Father Smalley from St. Vincent’s, our parish, is coming over to talk to my mother about something. Although he’s never visited our house before, I don’t have the impression that anything is wrong.
<p>At 5:22 p.m. our power goes out — lights, TV, everything.
<p>Turns out we are among 30 million people, from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, who are literally and figuratively in the dark.
<p>Were we in the middle of dinner? Maybe, maybe not. I do recall candles being brought out and lighted. And someone turning on a transistor radio; one of the radio stations is still broadcasting, on “auxiliary power.” Not that this does much good; nobody at the station seems to know what happened either.
<p>We stay calm, and after maybe two hours the power comes back.
<p>And we’re still expecting Father Smalley.
<p>Father Smalley is an assistant pastor at St. Vincent’s. He’s a young, pleasantly down-to-earth guy whom everybody seems to like. My mother knows him because of his involvement with the parish’s Mothers’ Club, and they get along well. Father Smalley’s boss is Father Hearn, the pastor, a much older man who has an unpleasantly acerbic and not particularly funny sense of humor. A few years later, when the hippie movement takes hold, Father Hearn will refuse to give Communion to a boy who has long hair. (He’ll also give me grief for sporting long sideburns, which I have grown mainly to prove to the other guys that my chemical makeup really does include testosterone.)
<p>Father Smalley is also into show biz. When it’s time to stage the parish’s variety show, he is the auteur. When “folk Masses” come into vogue, he introduces them to St. Vincent’s. I don’t know how Father Hearn reacts to this, but I’m sure I could guess.
<p>Not long after Father Smalley arrives he talks to my mother. He has come to ask for her help. Every Tuesday the kids in our Catholic school get out early and kids from public school come over for religion classes that are taught by volunteers, all women. Thing is, some of these women are also mothers and need baby sitters, so Father Smalley is asking my mother, who is in the process of raising six kids, to let one or two of the women drop their children off at our house and baby-sit them while their mothers teach. My mother agrees to this.
<p>But before Father Smalley talks to her, and in an apparent attempt to break the ice, he looks at me and immediately, apropos of nothing whatsoever, launches into a letter-perfect rendition of “You’ve Got Trouble, My Friends, in River City” from “The Music Man.” He’s no threat to Robert Preston, but he isn’t bad.
<p>Father Smalley will eventually leave St. Vincent’s, leave the priesthood, move to San Diego, get married and become a fundraiser for nonprofits.
<p>And I will always remember the night of the soft steak, the blackout and the transistor radio, with a show tune thrown in — no cover charge.
<p>Just another night in the Murphy household.
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-84527498199753419392023-10-31T15:46:00.002-04:002023-10-31T15:48:31.020-04:00Halloween night in the old neighborhood<p>It’s a typical Halloween night in the 1960s, a time when most of the folks in my neighborhood knew each other; when kids could roam from one backyard to another, even to the end of the block, without any fences blocking their way; when the worst thing a trick-or-treater’s parents had to worry about was the next dental bill — and not the cost of an ambulance ride necessitated by a purposely misplaced razor blade.
<p>On this particular night I and my three younger siblings, accompanied by at least one of our parents, have stood on the thresholds of neighboring homes while people tossed goodies into our bags. If there’s an easier gig, I don’t know what it is.
<p>But now we’re at the home of Annie and Pearl Kallikack, where Halloween is a bit different. (As you may have guessed, those aren’t their real names. I’m not afraid they’ll sue me — they’re well beyond that — but they could theoretically haunt me, so why take chances?)
<p>Annie is at least on the cusp of middle age, and Pearl is her mother.
<p>Annie is good-hearted, but tactfulness isn’t always her strong point. I was somehow able to read long before I entered kindergarten, and Annie, convinced that this ability was some kind of trick, was not above shoving a Newsweek in front of my pre-k puss and demanding that I read it out loud, which I easily did, though I probably didn’t understand the words.
<p>Annie is also not overly fond of modern entertainment. Years later she will go to a Steve Martin movie called “Pennies from Heaven,” thinking that it’s the kind of innocent musical she grew up watching. When she finds out that the movie is the exact opposite of what she was expecting, she will angrily flee the theater.
<p>My two aunts will find Annie’s moral scruples ironically amusing, saying that in her younger days, Annie had a reputation for being “fast.” Then again, my two aunts were nuns, so their idea of “fast” might be considered life in the slow lane today.
<p>As for Pearl, she too is kind-hearted and definitely not shy; had she lived a few decades longer, she might have been a shoo-in to play Sophia on “The Golden Girls.” But when people talk about Pearl, they are more likely to mention her eyesight. I think I remember them using the phrase “blind as a bat” more than once, especially regarding their concern that she is still driving. The thought of Pearl Kallikack operating any motor vehicle scares the neighborhood mothers more than any nightmare Stephen King could dream up. If you don’t believe in miracles, please consider that, as far as I know, she never had an accident — or at least anything that made the news.
<p>On Halloween, you can’t just stand on the Kallikacks’ threshold. You have to come into the house, where the dining room table is loaded with enough sweet treats to give an earthworm diabetes.
<p>And there’s another rule: You can go around the table, grabbing all the treats you want, but only once — no second helpings.
<p>As we promenade around the table, things are peaceful until Pearl erupts. “Hey!” she says to one of my siblings. “You can’t do that! You’ve already been around once!”
<p>“No, Mama!” says Annie, rushing to put out what, for her, is probably the latest of umpteen fires. “He didn’t go around before! This is another boy!”
<p>Pearl calms down, we eventually leave, and another Halloween at the Kallikacks’ is in the books.
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-70088265981533839722023-10-16T20:24:00.005-04:002023-10-16T20:24:57.107-04:00Roughing it in black and white<p>On Sunday mornings one of the cable stations shows episodes of “Batman,” the campy series from the 1960s.
<p>Sometimes I watch the beginning of an episode and feel a mixture of pain and nostalgia. The pain comes from remembering what a doofus I was back then — one of the few people (if that) in the country who didn’t realize that the show was a tongue-in-cheek spoof. Yes, reader, I took it seriously for a while. Then again, I’ve read that Neil Hamilton, who played Commissioner Gordon, also didn’t get the joke. At least he had something of an excuse: His career stretched back to the silent era, when scripts and performances weren’t always subtle, and his over-the-top theatricality added to the show’s fun.
<p>The nostalgia I feel comes from each episode’s intro, when we are informed that “Batman” is “In Color!” This was after ABC and CBS finally caught up with the NBC Peacock, which had ruled the panchromatic roost for ages; for a couple of seasons the two also-rans always trumpeted their shows’ color at the beginning of each show, as if we stupid viewers couldn’t have figured it out for ourselves.
<p>“Batman” was one of the first color programs I ever saw — but not at home.
<p>We still had a black-and-white TV. I think my parents knew that we kids wanted a color set, but there were six of us youngsters, and given the cost of clothing and feeding us, we sensed that for some time to come we were going to have to take CBS’ word that Lucy had red hair.
<p>In an attempt to make us feel better about this, one day Mom brought home a rectangular plastic sheet that was supposed to simulate the joys of color TV if you placed it over the screen of your black-and-white Zenith. The top third of the sheet had a blue hue, the bottom third was green and the middle section had another color — orange, I think. I remember that most of us kids were kind enough to go along with this, at least for a while.
<p>Then, around the mid-1960s, my dad got a membership for a huge store, kind of a pre-Walmart Walmart, with every kind of department you could think of, including toys, electronics and groceries — not to mention the bags of extraordinarily tasty popcorn you could get as you were leaving; the memory still makes my mouth water.
<p>The store’s membership was open to government employees. My father wasn’t a government employee, but his company, an auto-parts warehouse, had government contracts, so he slid through that way.
<p>On Thursday nights, while he and Mom shopped in the grocery department, we kids would hang out in the color TV section, watching “Batman” and other shows. It was a thrill to see all these characters in color; for a little while each week, we got a taste of How The Other Half Lived.
And we also learned fairly quickly that these 1960s TVs had a knob you could turn if you wanted to futz with the color. I still remember seeing an ad for Kellogg’s blue cornflakes.
<p>By the time we finally got a color set I was entering college, and although I still lived at home, my academic workload tended to keep me away from the TV.
<p>I now have a 52-inch set that can do all sorts of things; problem is, I’m too dumb to figure out how to make it do all sorts of things. On a good day I could maybe figure out how to plug it in.
But the color is sharp and the audio is state-of-the-art, even if some of those Brits on the PBS shows still haven’t learned to speak up.
<p>Of course the manual says nothing about blue cornflakes.
<p>But you can’t have everything.
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-69732073607851514182023-09-22T21:21:00.000-04:002023-09-22T21:21:41.201-04:00Trouble at the ATM? You can bank on it<p>It’s supposed to be a simple bank visit — go in, get money from the ATM and catch my bus.
<p>As I cross the street, I’m not even worried by the guy who’s waiting at the other corner. From the look in his eyes I know he’s going to put the bite on me. I’ll just ignore him.
<p>When I get to the corner he asks me for a dollar. He says he wants a beer.
<p>It is a few minutes before 10 a.m.
<p>I walk past him. He follows me as I approach the ATM entrance. No guards in sight. Fortunately he doesn’t try to follow me in, and I never see him again.
<p>I put my card in the ATM and push all the right buttons. But when the time comes to return my card, the ATM holds on to it. It tells me I’ll have to notify the bank, which will send me a new card. The hell with that, I think, especially considering that the bank is open.
<p>A banker whom I've often dealt with -- with varying results -- passes by. I tell her my problem and she tells me she will look for someone to help me get my card back.
<p>I keep an eye on the outside door so I can warn any newcomers about the machine.
<p>The banker approaches another banker, who is meeting with a couple of customers. Then the banker, who is beginning to resemble a chicken with half its head cut off, goes to another banker.
<p>Soon a guy comes in to use the ATM. I tell him not to use it and explain that it ate my card.
<p>The guy, who reminds me a little of Eb, the farmhand on the old “Green Acres” show, asks me if I was using a card from the bank.
<p>“Yes!” I say, perhaps too forcefully, but I was merely trying to do the guy a favor and wasn’t expecting a countrified Joe Friday. (And did I mention that I have a bus to catch?)
<p>He begins to tell me why he asked about my card. From his leisurely tone I fear this will be a long story, so I tune him out as I focus on the banker, who has now approached a fourth (or maybe fifth?) employee, a teller who is now, with no apparent eagerness, following her to the little room behind the ATM.
<p>A few minutes later, the banker hands me my card. And then, just to show that she is on the ball, she assures me that they’re going to put a sign at the machine to warn people not to use it. It’s been eating people’s cards, she tells me.
<p>So, I say, this has happened time and again and NOW you’re putting a sign up? I am in full ballistic mode; if J. Robert Oppenheimer were here he’d be hiding in the vault.
<p>I shake my head and storm out. A guard sitting in the lobby tells me to have a nice day.
<p>I walk to the bus stop. It is now a few minutes past 10 a.m., and despite the bank’s best efforts, I am on time for my bus.
<p>And come to think of it, I sure could use a beer.
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-9740576755357144862023-06-16T11:45:00.000-04:002023-06-16T11:45:25.130-04:00One for the book<p>On a pleasant afternoon long long ago, the neighborhood mail carrier delivers a letter to me, a brief missive from someone who has never before seen fit to write to me.
<p>Namely the public library.
<p>Adopting what I’m sure it thinks is a lighthearted, nonthreatening tone, the library informs me that a book I have borrowed is significantly overdue and that I should consider returning it because other patrons might want to read it.
<p>Oh, and by the way, the library has placed a “stop” on my card.
<p>And what is the title of this great work of literature that I am accused of holding hostage?
<p>“Japanese Decorative Art.”
<p>Now I have nothing against the Japanese.
<p>And I have nothing against art.
<p>And I have nothing against decorations — as long as nobody is asking me to put some up.
<p>But present me with a book that combines all three of these elements and you will see a yawn that is wide enough to easily accommodate the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
<p>And I have a hard time believing that other patrons are clamoring to get their mitts on this opus.
<p>But I need to make it clear to the library that I don’t have it. More important, I need to get the “stop” removed from my card in case I might someday want to borrow a book that is not called “Japanese Decorative Art.”
<p>As I head to the downtown library, I suspect I know what happened.
<p>In those days, whenever I took out a book, a clerk would open it and run a penlike device over a little code — the forerunner of what we now know as the ubiquitous Universal Product Code. I can’t help thinking that someone ahead of me in line borrowed “Japanese Decorative Art” and somehow it wound up on my card because the clerk screwed up. (Not to be uncharitable, but on previous visits to the library I have had the impression that when it comes to brightness, some of the clerks aren’t exactly operating at the highest wattage.)
<p>But the woman in charge of the desk today obviously has no problems when it comes to brightness — or that pesky little thing called humility. When I tell her that I don’t have and never have had the book, she checks the stacks and says they still don’t have it. And when I tell her my theory about what really happened, she tries to humor me by saying that it could have happened, but it’s extremely unlikely. A computer making mistakes? Now really.
<p>But she deigns to do me the great favor of taking the “stop” off my card anyway. “And if you happen to remember that you lent the book to your Aunt Minnie, you can return it then!”
<p>Hmm. Here I thought I was supposed to be patronizing the library, not the other way around.
<p>Some weeks later I present my theory to a longtime friend, a veteran librarian who works at the Albany Law School. She says that yes, the scenario I put forward is quite possible.
<p>On later visits to the library, I never happen to see the woman who was at the desk that day.
<p>Perhaps Aunt Minnie is holding her hostage.
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-60912080510888916452023-03-26T11:25:00.001-04:002023-03-26T11:25:59.202-04:00A Portrait of the Blogger as a Young Wiseass<p>You never forget your first time.
<p>I remember mine as if it were yesterday.
<p>I was a sophomore in college, reading the local alternative weekly, when I saw it: a paragraph stating that the paper was looking for TV critics. It said those interested should write a review and submit it. At that time I knew a lot about network TV; I was the one in the family who, at the end of a show, would often say “Don’t turn yet — I want to see the credits!”
<p>So I reviewed a new variety show hosted by Bill Cosby. I wish I could say that I wrote that there was something I didn’t like about the guy, that someday we’d all find out that there was something evil behind his mellow Jell-O vibe, but instead I concentrated on the behind-the-scenes personnel. I said the show’s director had previously directed “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” and that the Cosby show, while not as fast-paced as “Laugh-In,” did look as if it had spent a fair amount of time in the editing room as opposed to looking like a continuous performance, like Carol Burnett’s show. (Did I sound like an insider, or what?)
<p>My “first time” came a couple of Saturdays later: an envelope from the paper containing a handwritten note from the editor, inviting me to write more, and, more important, A CHECK!
<p>I doubt any writer anywhere would deny that the first time someone tells you that something you wrote is worth paying money for is a moment you never forget, no matter the size of the check.
<p>Which, in my case, was $5.
<p>As I continued to write for the paper, the checks grew to a whopping $15. I figured this was because the paper had just launched two other, short-lived editions in two other cities. Three editions times $5 equaled $15. Let the good times roll.
<p>But this bonanza ended when the paper stopped printing my stuff. No one ever told me why, and I was too naive to call and ask, but I noticed that the paper’s “news hole” — the space reserved for editorial content — had been significantly reduced, apparently because of a shortage of newsprint, and I’ve always figured that this was why I was dropped.
<p>But it was fun while it lasted — and more important, I now had what every budding journalist back then craved: clips that I could show to any potential employer.
<p>And as a bonus, the paper gave me one of the best writing lessons I’ve ever received.
<p>I had reviewed a syndicated sitcom called “Ozzie’s Girls.” It starred Ozzie and Harriet Nelson in a continuation of their long-running network show. The premise: Sons David and Ricky (now calling himself “Rick”) have moved out of the house, and Ozzie and Harriet decide to rent the boys’ rooms to two female college students.
<p>It was an awful show. And as a young smartass, I relished the chance to disembowel it. I began with two or three paragraphs that I was sure were so clever that I almost stopped in the middle of typing them so I could shake hands with myself.
<p>When the next issue came out, I eagerly turned to the review to see what the copy editor — the paper had a good one — had done with it.
<p>When I found the review, my jaw went into free fall: Those golden grafs were gone — it was as if someone had lopped off my head.
<p>And I realized that I deserved it — those paragraphs were merely me goofing around in print.
<p>I believe that copy editor is still around. If I ever meet him, I’ll thank him and ask him to dinner. I’ll foot the bill, of course.
<p>Even if it’s more than $15.Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-47990101292848011182023-03-06T21:31:00.000-05:002023-03-06T21:31:42.258-05:00Newsroom Memories: Another Sunday night<p>It’s near the end of another Sunday night in the newsroom, more than 30 years ago.
<p>Once the first edition is done, Sunday shifts are usually dull; my job at this point mainly involves sticking around in case something breaks, especially something that needs to go on Page One. Aside from the Sports folks, the staff at this point consists of me; a guy named Woolsey, who is night city editor; and a reporter named Grogan, who’s covering the late-cops beat.
<p>About a half-hour after midnight, I see Grogan, notebook in hand, hurrying out of the newsroom.
<p>Something’s up.
<p>I ask Woolsey what it is.
<p>“Stabbing at the Clinton Street News!”
<p>The Clinton Street News, a few blocks away, sells newspapers and magazines. Behind a curtain behind the counter, it sells a lot more: an assortment of toys that consenting adults can use to amuse themselves at home after they’ve finished reading the newspapers and magazines, assuming they bought any newspapers or magazines after they visited the back room.
<p>I’ve visited the Clinton Street News only once, but without going into the back room. I may be the only person who has ever bought a copy of The Washington Monthly at the Clinton Street News. I bought it just to be nice because I happened to be visiting the guy behind the counter — my older brother, Michael.
<p>Who is probably there tonight. And my blood pressure spikes as I realize that he may have been at the wrong end of that knife.
<p>I tell Woolsey this.
<p>“Great! Call him!” says Woolsey, who, had he been born earlier, might well have auditioned to play Perry White on the “Superman” TV show or Walter Burns in any of the incarnations of “The Front Page.”
<p>I look up the number and dial it. To my relief, Michael answers, which he probably wouldn’t do if he were bleeding to death. He confirms that someone was stabbed outside the store. I try to get him to give me details, but the investigating cops are almost surgically removing him from the phone, so he has to hang up. I don’t mind; at least I know he’s safe.
<p>Turns out the victim isn’t seriously injured, so the story won’t go on Page One; more likely, Woolsey will make it a brief in the Local section.
<p>As I type this I feel as if I am describing something from the Stone Age. The newsroom is no longer a newsroom but is part of an ad agency that took over the space after the newspaper company sold the building. (Not long ago the agency advertised for a proofreader. I was tempted to apply, just to see if I could get a look at what the place is like now, but I was afraid they’d hire me and I’d wind up spending another few decades there.)
<p>Grogan is now an editor. Woolsey has since gone to that big City Desk in the sky.
<p>At some point the Clinton Street News closed, leaving my brother unemployed. He eventually died of COPD.
<p>And I don’t know whether any local store sells The Washington Monthly these days — with or without a dildo to go.
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-64812152711614367152022-10-24T20:00:00.007-04:002022-10-24T20:01:44.102-04:00Newsroom Memories: Dan Carey</p>I last saw Dan Carey 45 years ago and I knew him for only a year, but I remember him more vividly than I remember many people whom I worked with longer.
</p>If you were new to the newsroom it was hard not to notice Dan as he walked down the hall. Below the waist he looked pretty much like any other guy, but the upper part of his body was smaller and always bent to one side as he walked.
</p>Dan had polio. Only one of his lungs worked. What to you and me would be a simple cold — a pain in the ass, but you’d get through it — could be a disaster for him.
</p>I’m sure he knew how unusual he looked to the new hires, especially the younger ones. I’m told that sometimes, to put them at ease, he’d ask them where they went to school, then say something like this:
</p>“After I got out of college I applied for a job as a piano mover. They rejected me. I sued them for discrimination. I said they were biased against me because I was Catholic.”
</p>I can hear him saying this in his usual, rapid-fire delivery, out of the side of his mouth. His voice was soft and you sometimes had to strain to hear him, but it was worth the effort because he was funnier out of the side of his mouth than any loudmouth comic with a full set of functioning lungs.
</p>One Sunday afternoon at work, he told me he’d been to Mass that morning. That day’s Gospel, printed in the missalette, was the one about the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus says: “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” This was followed by the sermon, which included a pitch for money.
</p>In response, “I tore the page out of the missalette and put it in the collection basket.”
</p>I’ve also heard about the time Dan’s alma mater called him at home to hit him up for money, inspiring Dan to pose as his own father.
</p>“My son is dead. He died of syphilis. He caught it at your school.”
</p>A pause.
</p>“Well, sir, would you like to make a memorial donation?”
</p>After I’d been at the paper for almost a year, Dan taught me the basics of newspaper layout; our boss wanted me to be able to fill in for Dan when he went on vacation. He was a calm, patient teacher, and I’ve always been grateful for his lessons.
</p>A few weeks after he taught me, Dan got sick and I had to fill in for him. He was back the next day, but a few days later he was out again.
</p>On a Saturday morning soon after, I received word that he had died.
</p>Dan was from Alexandria Bay, and his mother still lived there, so a few days later some of us got up early and went up there for his funeral.
</p>The priest had known Dan, so I was grateful that Dan didn’t get one of those one-size-fits-all eulogies. I don’t remember many details, but I think the priest captured Dan well, the way I have always remembered him, as someone who met the huge challenges of his life with courage and an invincible sense of humor.
</p>I do remember what the priest said at the end.
</p>One day, he told us, Dan would walk straight.
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-87645447709890996902022-08-09T09:39:00.002-04:002022-08-09T09:54:18.126-04:00I must have been clueless to do this</p>I’m sitting at a table in a hallway at a hotel in Baltimore. Bouchercon, the annual gathering of mystery writers and fans, is underway. This isn’t my first Bouchercon, but this time I’ve volunteered for a stint at the registration table, just to be a good guy and maybe meet some people. I and a few other volunteers are supposed to greet new arrivals, sign them in and tell them what they need to know.
</p>Next to me is a woman I have been paired with. We make pleasant conversation and greet newcomers until a friend of hers stops by and she decides to take off with her and blow off the rest of the shift, arguing that things don’t seem that busy. I could try to find a rope and tie her to her chair, but I figure the hell with it.
</p>At one point a writer whom I’ll call Floyd comes by to register. I’m thrilled to meet him — I’ve read a lot of his work, including one book that became a movie — and he reacts to my gushing with a warm smile.
</p>I also notice that Laura Lippman is talking to another registration volunteer a few feet away, and I’m hoping she’ll come my way and introduce herself — she’s an ex-reporter and now a major writer. Her husband, also an ex-reporter, created “The Wire.”
</p>But things get busier. A continuous tide of people, heading this way or that, keeps the hallway full. One of them, a young man, detaches himself from this maelstrom to report that he has lost his iPod. We tell him we’ll let him know if anyone finds it.
</p>At some point Floyd returns. He wants to know if he can leave his luggage behind my table. I hesitate, not sure that this is a good idea, and his smile is replaced by a dark scowl; I have morphed from adoring fan to disobedient lackey. Intimidated, I say OK.
</p>Another figure emerges from the crowd: Someone has found the iPod. We thank him and hold the device for safekeeping.
</p>Across the hallway, outside one of the meeting rooms, a woman is beckoning to me. I cross the stream of people and walk over to her. She points to one of the lights in the room. It’s flickering. I say I’ll mention it to someone, but this doesn’t seem to satisfy her. I don’t know why she’s so bothered about it; I don’t think she’s a presenter, and besides, I barely know a circuit breaker from a salami. And now, as I glance at the passing parade, I see the guy who lost the iPod.
</p>Excusing myself, I run over and grab him, and the man and his music are reunited.
</p>Judy, the woman who is in charge of the volunteers, stops by to see how things are going. I tell her about Floyd’s luggage, and she seems OK with it. I also tell her about the lady who’s upset about the light.
</p>Turns out the lady has been bugging Judy about it too.
</p>I’m then assigned to spend the rest of my shift standing guard in a room that is filled with bags of free books; each attendee gets one bag.
</p>It’s much calmer here, and it occurs to me that I hadn’t worked so hard since I left my newspaper job, where I had to meet five deadlines a day.
</p>I never do get to meet Laura Lippman. As for Floyd, I haven’t read any of his new books because he doesn’t seem to have written any. Maybe he has writer’s block.
</p>Gee, wouldn’t that be too bad?
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-65527778678773398322022-07-30T10:00:00.000-04:002022-07-30T10:00:34.039-04:00One burrito, please -- and hold the erudition</p>I’ve just asked for a Burrito Supreme (with soft taco) at the food court, and the Taco Bell guy wants a name that he can place on the order.
</p>After I tell him my name, he decides to edify me.
</p>He tells me there is a movie called “Interstellar” that includes a character named Murphy, who he says was named for Murphy’s Law, which he says is “Whatever can happen will happen.”
</p>I have no idea why he’s telling me this. Perhaps he is a film school grad who is biding his time slinging quesadillas while Mr. Spielberg reads his screenplay.
</p>I’m tempted to tell him that a) I was named for my father and b) Murphy’s Law actually is “If anything can go wrong, it will.” (At least that’s how I understand it, and my name, after all, is Murphy.) But I don’t want to spark an argument; there might be several hills that I would be willing to die on, but a taco stand is not one of them.
</p>At my table in the food court I notice that the bag containing the elements of my repast has a seal that bears this message: “Worth the Wake.”
Hmm. I know that the Triple-A ball club in my town has a promotion in which an opposing player is dubbed the “K-Man,” and if this player strikes out, all the fans have 48 hours to exchange their tickets for a Taco Bell taco.
</p>This, combined with the message on the seal, makes me wonder whether funeral directors now have a similar promotion to boost attendance at calling hours.
</p>But I now see that underneath “Worth the Wake” is another message: Taco Bell is now serving breakfast until 11 a.m. So I suppose the slogan should be “Worth the Awakening.” (It had never occurred to me that anyone would eat breakfast at a Taco Bell. I myself am not inordinately proud to be eating my lunch there now.)
</p>And I’m wondering whether the putative Oscar-winning scribe behind the counter would be interested in an idea my friend Dan once had. It’s based on the old movie “D.O.A.,” in which a poor schlub played by Edmond O’Brien is poisoned because of a document he notarized. There’s no antidote, and he spends the rest of the picture trying to nail his killer before going to that big civil service office in the sky. (Come to think of it, my old man had what we would now call a side hustle as a notary public. Who knew that he was taking both his stamp and his life in his hands whenever he walked across the street to notarize a loan application for a neighbor?)
</p>Dan has proposed a remake in which O’Brien’s character is at a local ballgame when the K-Man strikes out, but he then faces all sorts of sinister obstacles when he tries to get his free taco before the 48 hours run out. (“Whaddya mean this is a Chick-fil-A? It was a Taco Bell just yesterday!”)
</p>Think of it — the taco as a Hitchcockian maguffin! I can just see Sir Alfred drooling. (And it’s far from a pretty sight.)
</p>The title of our opus? Obviously it would be “Taco on Arrival” — “T.O.A.”
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-72133559242038023962022-04-30T14:17:00.004-04:002022-04-30T14:31:36.859-04:00How blue was my recycling bin<p>On a recent Thursday afternoon I’m watching a movie on TCM — “The Drowning Pool,” starring Paul Newman — when I hear a big truck outside.
<p>Without getting up I know from experience that it’s the folks from the recycling crew. They’re two days late. The city blames this on a lack of trucks, which it in turn blames on a problem with the supply chain. I accept this explanation, but I can’t help thinking that before long this will become a catchall excuse. (“Jimmy, your report card says you flunked math!” “Not my fault, Mom — supply chain problems!”)
<p>I’ve seen “The Drowning Pool” a number of times; it’s a sequel to Newman’s film “Harper,” both films based on books by one of my favorites, Ross Macdonald. “Drowning Pool” isn’t as good as “Harper,” but it’s not bad, and as the truck passes I decide I’ll finish watching the movie before I retrieve my blue bin.
<p>After Paul Newman nails the killer, I go outside and am faced with a mystery of my own: My recyclables are gone, but so is my blue bin.
<p>I call the city, and a polite woman listens to my problem; after I mention that one side of the bin was cracked but the bin was still serviceable, she theorizes that the crew took it, believing I meant to throw it away — even though I’ve been using it for five years.
<p>Oh well.
<p>The woman takes my address and tells me I can get a new bin at City Hall within the next week.
<p>A few days later I report to City Hall and am greeted with a metal detector and a clerk behind a desk who tells me to empty my pockets of metals and place them in the usual plastic container. As I surrender my keys and change I explain why I’m there.
<p>“Oh,” the clerk says, “you don’t have to go through the detector!” Which I had suspected after spotting the stack of blue bins by the desk. (It would have helped if the clerk had asked me the purpose of my visit first.)
<p>“Oh, and you didn’t need to remove your change!” (It would have helped if … oh, never mind.)
<p>After checking my address against a list, the clerk hands me a new bin.
<p>Mission accomplished!
<p>But not quite.
<p>As I exit the building a man in a truck across the street is calling out to me. I walk over to him to see what he wants while managing to duck an oncoming vehicle on the narrow street.
<p>“What number do I call to get a blue bin?”
<p>Once again I have been cast in the role of Someone Whose Obligations in Life Include Answering Strangers’ Questions on Demand. How should I know what number to call? I don’t work for the city, let alone have all the city phone numbers engraved on my brain at a time in my life when I’m lucky to remember where I left my keys.
<p>I politely explain this to the guy. He seems to understand, and I go home with my new treasure.
<p>The next day is Trash Day, and I get a pleasant surprise: The recycling crew comes on the right day, and comes early too.
<p>As I carry my emptied bin back to the porch, I notice some printing on its side:
<p>“Need a blue bin?" And it's followed, of course, by the number to call.
<p>Oh well.
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-39104668601885011572022-04-11T20:03:00.001-04:002022-04-11T20:58:08.378-04:00No thanks for this memory<p>The free anti-virus software on my computer wants to get to know me better.
<p>To be more precise, it wants to get to know my wallet better.
<p>Every once in a while it puts a pop-up on my screen, telling me of a problem it has supposedly found, a problem it can “resolve” if I allow it to do so. Of course I know that if I press “resolve” it will ask me for money.
<p>I usually ignore such messages, but the other day it sent a pop-up that has me thinking about a problem that the software, as good as it may be, can’t resolve, no matter how many credit cards I max out. <p>The pop-up said my computer is cluttered with all sorts of files that I don’t need and which are clogging up the works. The software wants to get rid of them.
<p>Considering that I could probably fit the entire contents of “Moby-Dick” several times over on my hard drive, I didn’t pay much attention to this message.
<p>But I thought about it recently as I was waiting for a bus.
<p>You know how it is when you’re killing time waiting for something to happen: Your mind wanders hither and yon (does anything ever wander yon and hither?) and your brain cells carom off the sides of your cerebellum. (Or maybe they carom somewhere else, if they carom at all.)
<p>One thought led to another, then another, ad almost infinitum, and suddenly I found myself, God knows why, remembering something I hadn’t thought of in years:
<p>The theme music for “The Galloping Gourmet.”
<p>Remember that show? It starred a guy named Graham Kerr, and on every episode (I can even remember when it aired and what station aired it, God help me) he would spend a half-hour preparing a recipe while kidding around with the audience and brandishing a glass of wine. He seemed to want us to think he was sozzled, though I’ve read that he didn’t really drink much; apparently he was stealing a page from the Dean Martin Cookbook.
<p>A few of the jokers at school made a meal out of Kerr’s mannerisms, although I suspect a lot of female viewers who watched the handsome young chef wouldn’t have minded a few extra helpings.
<p>Graham Kerr spoke softly and carried a big shtick, but even the biggest of shticks eventually bows and breaks under the winds of public taste, and one day the show served its last course.
<p>I was surprised to find that Kerr is still around — he’s 88 now — and in the years after “The Galloping Gourmet” he became a born-again Christian, repenting both his sins and the high-fat feasts he conjured up for his viewers.
<p>Which is probably more than you want to know about Graham Kerr. I know it’s more than I want to know.
<p>And I can’t help wondering why, at a bus stop on a cold April day, my brain couldn’t come up with a better memory: me sitting on my grandmother’s lap, playing with her bracelet that had the names of all six of us kids; or me sitting in a second-grade classroom and watching a pretty blonde — was her name Jean? — as she came in from the rain, wearing the kind of shiny yellow coat that all of us kids wore in such weather, the kind of coat that always had a distinctive plastic smell; or me sitting on a floor in my sister’s house, trying to amuse my infant niece with Playskool props as she graciously pretended that I really was amusing. (Thirty years later, she’s still gracious — and engaged to be married next year. I’m tempted to ask where all the time goes, but I’m not sure I want to know the answer.)
<p>Memo to The App Store: If you ever come up with a program that can defrag my brain, my Visa card and I will be first in queue.Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-50667546977022008342022-03-01T20:34:00.000-05:002022-03-01T20:34:19.854-05:00Once upon a time in seventh grade....<p>This is a tale of two nuns.
<p>Sister Robert was my seventh-grade homeroom teacher.
<p>Sister Clara taught eighth grade.
<p>Sister Robert was fairly young, short and chubby, and generally good-humored. If the word had existed in 1967, you might well have also described her as “ditzy.”
<p>Sister Clara was middle-aged, tall and thin, and definitely not ditzy.
<p>Sister Robert taught most of our seventh-grade classes, and Sister Clara taught us English. Every morning at an appointed time she’d come into our classroom, and Sister Robert would leave and teach another class elsewhere. (Apparently the principal didn’t want the hassle of moving students from room to room.)
<p>For maybe twenty minutes after lunch, Sister Robert would read to us. I don’t remember all the books she read — “The Yearling” was definitely one of them, and maybe “Bambi” — but her literary choices had one thing in common: They were maybe a bit too young for us seventh-graders. Sister Robert’s classroom also had a small bookcase against one of the walls, below the windows.
<p>While Sister Robert was usually in a good mood, you never knew what you were going to get with Sister Clara. When she came into our classroom I could instantly tell, just from the look on her face, what kind of session we were going to have.
<p>If her face was pleasant, placid and even borderline smiling, I knew things would go well — or at least not badly. I might even learn something.
<p>But if she came in with a scowl — the Reverend Mother of scowls, the kind of scowl you could see from the Sea of Tranquility — I knew we were in for trouble.
<p>(Fortunately I myself was seemingly exempt — it helped to have two aunts who were members of the same order.)
<p>One day as she entered, Sister Clara was almost frothing at the mouth. She had assigned us all to choose a book, read it and then write a report on it, and now she had read the reports and for the most part was almost violently not pleased. What really set her off was that one of us had chosen to report on “Homer Price,” a humorous opus about a boy who, among other things, has a misadventure with a doughnut-making machine.
<p>She must have blown a gasket and a half as she told us what a stupid, asinine and infantile choice “Homer Price” was for students as old as we were. She spent so much time, energy and pure rage telling us how incompetent we were that after she finally stormed out of the room at the end of class you could almost smell ozone in the air.
<p>A few hours later — I can almost swear it was that same day — we seventh-graders returned from lunch, and as we began to settle in, one of us, whose name was Nick, was examining the contents of the bookshelf below the windows.
<p>“Hey, Nick,” Sister Robert said, her voice bright and innocent, “why don’t you try that book about Homer Price and the doughnut machine? It’s really funny!”
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-23144673945200170632022-01-12T15:35:00.003-05:002022-01-12T15:58:37.069-05:0050 years ago this week...<p>It’s Wednesday morning, and my brother Martin and I are walking in a parking lot, toward the spot where a friend and his father are going to pick us up and take us across town to school. The weather isn’t bad, but there’s some leftover “black ice,” which can the treacherous if, instead of wearing real boots with decent treads, you are, like me, sporting a pair of flimsy overshoes that have slightly more traction than a fresh roll of wax paper.
<p>One moment I’m walking along, perfectly fine; the next, I’m on the ground, spouting words that my brother will later swear he had never before heard me utter.
<p>Our ride comes. In the car I notice that my left ankle is swelling. Just a sprain, I think, but the look on my friend’s face (he’s on the basketball team) tells me he’s not so sure.
<p>At school I’m stupid enough to climb two flights of stairs and walk all the way down a hall to my homeroom, where the nun, who unlike me is no fool, immediately notices my limp. My mother is called, and eventually I wind up at home, my ankle in a cast.
<p>Thing is, the following Saturday I’m supposed to appear on a TV quiz show with two classmates. I’m incompetent with crutches, but the cast has a rubber heel that I hope I can get used to.
<p>On the morning of the taping my folks take me to the TV station, which is part of a shopping center. I’m still wobbly on the rubber heel, but my mother has cut a hole for it in a ski hat and placed the hat over the cast, and my father helps me up a tall flight of stairs to the studio.
<p>Eventually I’m sitting on the set with my teammates, a guy and a young woman. Another classmate finds an empty pack of smokes on our desk and kids me about it.
<p>Before the show we tape a promo. When the host botches the name of one of the schools I hear a muttered “Shit!” behind the wall in back of us. So now we know where the control room is.
<p>The show includes several rounds of questions. The questions are long and involved, apparently in the hope of tricking you into answering quickly — and incorrectly.
<p>The final round is like “Jeopardy!” All nine students can press a button, attached to a light, to answer.
<p>Going into the final round, we’re in second place. At one point, the host says something like, “This movie, about a mode of transportation, stars Burt Lancaster — ”
<p>I press the button. “‘The Train’!”
<p>“No,” the host says in his best I’m-making-an-example-of-you voice, “if you’d listened to the entire question, you would have found the answer was ’Airport’!”
<p>So now I’ve put us in third place.
<p>But a little while later my big moment comes, my shining hour, the nerd’s equivalent of the last-second jump shot from halfway across the court that goes into the hoop and wins the game.
<p>“Celebrating her 80th birthday with her 80th book — ”
<p>I stab the button again. “Agatha Christie!”
<p>The host, astonished, confirms I’m right. (Ha! Make an example of me, eh, buster?)
<p>Someone in the audience gasps. A swooning cheerleader, I hope.
<p>We’re back in second place. Then my teammates correctly answer two questions, and when a buzzer signals the end of the game, we’re the come-from-behind winners.
<p>Some weeks later we return for the semifinals, but we’re blown out of the water by an aggressive team from another city who apparently spent the previous night finishing a new translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls while munching on steroids.
<p>Maybe if I’d broken my other ankle that week….
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-52349236080652715742021-09-13T20:20:00.002-04:002021-09-13T20:23:19.157-04:00Reunion<p>As I carry my tray to the table where my Aunt Dorothy and my sister Mary have begun to eat lunch, a woman who has stopped by to chat with my aunt looks at me.
<p>When I get to the table she tells me we’ve never met and introduces herself.
<p>And I wonder whether I will be guilty of a mortal sin if I contradict a nun.
<p>We are in the dining room of St. Joseph’s Provincial House, near Albany, about 15 years ago. Aunt Dorothy lives there with other retired sisters. My great-aunt, also a nun, also lived there. Some younger sisters, like this woman, work there. Mary lives in Albany, and when I visit her we often visit Aunt Dorothy.
<p>I am not offended that the younger woman doesn’t remember me — it’s a nice change. I have visited the Provincial House many times since childhood, and years ago it was not unusual for some really old nun to come up and tell me she remembered me as a baby. One nun told me that once, when she visited my family’s house with one of my aunts, my mother was giving me a bath in the kitchen sink. “Oh,” I think I said, as if I could have politely said anything else.
<p>I tell the younger woman that she and I have indeed met, and that there was a time in her life when she saw me every day.
<p>This puzzles her until I provide her with the time and place: 1969 at St. Vincent de Paul High School. I wonder whether she has suppressed the memory; I suspect it was her first assignment, and it was a badly run school that would close after my sophomore year because a newer public school was siphoning off so many students. I think there were maybe 25 kids in my class, and the young sister served as our homeroom teacher in addition to teaching biology.
<p>Or, rather, trying to teach biology.
<p>Her teaching style wasn’t exactly polished, and she wasn’t much of a disciplinarian. The kids in the class weren’t nasty, but a fair number of them liked to joke around most of the time, with one exception: During the sex-education part of the curriculum you could have heard a zygote drop.
<p>“I didn’t know what I was doing,” she tells me in the dining room, her tone indicating that she now has a sense of humor about it — or is trying to pretend that she has one. But I can still remember one afternoon when it was my turn to stay after school — along with Louie Morelli, Class Cut-Up No. 1 — and clean the chalkboard erasers. He and I got silly about something, and while I was chuckling I noticed that she was quietly crying. I didn’t know why, and we never found out; she told us to go home.
<p>After my final exam at St. Vincent’s I left without getting to say goodbye to her, and over the years I sometimes wondered how she was doing; was she still a nun, or did we drive her out?
<p>After the internet came along I looked her up and was happy to find that she was still a nun but not a teacher. She became a pastoral life minister for a rural church where a priest wasn’t always available, leading communal prayers and other services when necessary. Good for her.
<p>Yesterday, after writing most of this, I looked her up again and found out some other things:
<p>Her ministry included service in parishes in rural Tennessee.
<p>She was also a hospital chaplain.
<p>She died almost two months ago.
<p>Yes, it does startle me to learn that her passing just about coincided with my decision to write about her. Is that a coincidence, or Something Else?
<p>I’ll leave that question to more theologically qualified minds. In the meantime, if you’ll excuse me, I have a memorial check to write.
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-1689891108902419422021-07-14T09:22:00.002-04:002021-07-14T09:22:46.689-04:00Dog Days</p>I’m walking to church on a Saturday afternoon about 30 years ago.
</p>I’m only a couple of blocks from the church when I hear a dog barking across the street. The dog soon runs across the street, toward me, still barking.
</p>There was a time when I would have run away, with the dog in pursuit. But I have learned that in this kind of situation it’s best to ignore the animal and just keep walking until it goes away. And this is exactly what happens here.
</p>I’ve learned a lot about dogs because of my older brother, Michael. He himself was terrified of them when he was a kid. But this changed after he grew up and married a woman who had a German shepherd named Sheepdog.
</p>Eventually Michael would even work at a pet store. One night, at the newspaper where I worked, I was going over the first edition, looking for errors, when I turned the page and saw Michael looking up at me, holding a huge snake, in a photo accompanying a feature story. I can’t remember exactly what the story was about. I can remember thinking that for once it was a good thing my mother, no fan of reptiles, wasn’t alive to see the photo.
</p>After they got married, Michael and his wife, Judy, would bring Sheepdog to my family’s house. He was exceptionally friendly and would put his paws on my shoulders — after he had jumped on the couch, much to my mother’s dismay. He helped me get over my fear of dogs.
</p>Eventually Michael and Judy adopted a white runt named Little Ripper (Michael had something of a flair — for want of a better word — for names). During his first visit Little Ripper distinguished himself by getting stuck behind my family’s refrigerator.
</p>Then there was the time my mother gave Michael and Judy some baked ziti to take home. When they got home they looked at the back seat at Sheepdog and Little Ripper, who had been exceptionally quiet. Sure enough, their faces — and the sauce stains on them — provided ample evidence of what they had been up to. They probably never understood why Michael and Judy were so mad at them.
</p>By the time of my Saturday encounter with the barking dog, Michael and Judy have accumulated even more dogs. A few Saturdays later, my sister and I pay them all a visit.
</p>The dogs don’t always get along — Michael and Judy have to bring them out two at a time to meet and sniff us.
</p>The menage now includes Frank, who is quite large; a black dog named Nora; and Michael’s pride and joy, Simon, which he describes as a “Staffordshire Terrier,” but to me he’s a pit bull, the one breed of dog that even today still scares me. Michael delights in separating Simon’s jaws and placing his head between them, like a lion tamer.
</p>Last but never least, there is Sheepdog. He’s very old, but when I get on the floor with him he seems to remember me and once again places his paws on my shoulders, which Judy says isn’t easy at his age. This is the last time I see him.
</p>Later that day I walk to church again. When I’m a couple of blocks away from the church I once again hear barking.
</p>It’s the same dog, still trying to show me who’s boss. He once again runs across the street toward me, still barking.
</p>Then he sniffs me — and apparently realizes that I have had visitors.
</p>No longer barking, he scurries back across the street and never bothers me again.
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-39705176514440678002021-04-27T16:49:00.007-04:002021-04-27T17:03:51.027-04:00Straight from the patient's mouth<p>My dental appointment is almost over, and as I wait for the hygienist to bring me my usual “goodie bag” of toothpaste, a new toothbrush and floss, I can gaze out the window and look at the State Tower Building, the tallest building in town, and indulge in some remembrances of appointments past….
<p>I’m about 15 years old as my mother and I get off the eighth floor for my first appointment with a guy I’ll call Dr. G.
<p>I need an orthodontist. My parents can’t afford one, but they have heard that Dr. G, a regular dentist, dabbles in orthodontics and isn’t that expensive, so here we are.
<p>We check in with the receptionist, who is young and quite cute. The office’s music system is playing “The Fool on the Hill” by the Beatles.
<p>Dr. G is a pleasant man who favors Hawaiian shirts. He also resembles Robert Benchley, whom I like and who once wrote a funny essay about his own dental woes. The room where Dr. G works is dominated by teeth — sets of choppers (maybe a couple of hundred?) line the walls. They’re molds taken from the mouths of his other young patients.
<p>Dr. G says he is going to make a mold of my teeth and put it on one of the walls, and every time I come in he’ll have me try to pick it out on the wall. Dr. G doesn’t seem to realize that I’m not a little kid and that at this stage of my life I’m far more interested in the cute young receptionist.
<p>He makes the mold (the cement tastes a little like sherbet), and weeks later I begin wearing an “appliance” fastened to the top of my mouth with a loathsome substance called Fasteeth, which definitely doesn’t taste like sherbet. For a few years after I stop wearing the appliance I will sometimes dream that it is still in my mouth, Fasteeth and all. And whenever I hear “The Fool on the Hill” I will always think of Dr. G and that cute young receptionist, though never in that order….
<p>Years later I am taking another scary trip on the elevator that goes all the way up to the top floor of the city’s tallest building and the lair of Dr. X, who is a gum surgeon. Alas, I have developed gum problems. Who knew? When I was a kid the toothpaste commercials only talked about cavities, and I almost never had any, which ticked off my sister Mary, whose teeth would begin to rot if she looked at them sideways.
<p>Dr. X slightly resembles Lionel Atwill, an actor you’ve probably seen if you watch a lot of old movies. Atwill was the go-to guy if you wanted a mad scientist, and at least once he played Professor Moriarty (and a character actually named Dr. X). Dr. X has an assistant named Inga, and if that isn’t a mad scientist’s assistant’s name, I don’t know what is.
<p>Having performed gum surgery on me a while back (I’ll spare you those details), Dr. X is about to check my progress by “charting” my gums. This involves measuring the “pockets” of my gums (in millimeters, I think) with a small device that is not pleasant. As he charts the gums, he calls out each number (anything above three isn’t good) so Inga can write everything down.
<p>During this process, Dr. X, his tone sometimes accusatory, sounds as if he is running a bingo game in hell: “Two … three … two …. FOUR! … Three … two … three … FIVE!” And so on.
<p>After this performance, he turns on a machine and theatrically dictates a note to my dentist, telling him that despite a few FOURs and FIVEs I am on the whole doing OK and will not need any more gum surgery. For now.
<p>Whew! That’s a relief. But I still have to face the elevator ride all the long way down to the lobby. Yipes!
<p>I wonder whether Sir Isaac Newton looked like Lionel Atwill.
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-35493534601213875132021-03-16T16:46:00.002-04:002021-03-16T16:48:18.740-04:00Newsroom Memories: Ramona and the Taxi Driver<p>Her name was Ramona, and she liked to tell about how, when she was a little girl, an uncle told her a bedtime story about a magical land.
<p>The uncle’s name was L. Frank Baum, and the magical land was Oz.
<p>Ramona also said she once appeared in a movie with Mary Pickford. I have never been able to confirm this, but who knows? Maybe she did.
<p>Ramona was the newsroom’s religion reporter. This meant that on Sundays she and her tape recorder would go to one of the local churches, where she would sit in a pew and record the sermon. After the service Ramona would go to the newspaper, sit at a desk in a far corner of the newsroom and write her story on a manual typewriter. Someone would later retype it on an electric typewriter so it could be scanned into the computer system.
<p>Ramona had been an actress, and she was still a trouper. If an editor told her we were tight on space and she needed to hold her story to two pages, she would nod or say “OK.”
<p>Then she would widen her typewriter margins as far as they could go.
<p>On Sundays I ran the copy desk, which was near the other end of the room. The copy desk was actually a number of desks that were combined in the shape of a horseshoe. I sat on the inside of the horseshoe (called “the slot”) while the editors I supervised sat on the outside (called “the rim”).
<p>There was nothing really wrong with Ramona’s religion stories, but when quoting a minister she’d sometimes omit the second set of quotation marks, and I often couldn’t tell where the quote ended because Ramona wrote a lot like the people she wrote about. So I’d insert the missing marks where they seemed to make the most sense, figuring that God probably wasn’t going to call the paper the next day and bitch.
<p>Ramona sometimes worked on a weekday, writing other stories. On one such day I was once again in the slot while two guys on the rim, Dan and Paul, were talking about the movie “Taxi Driver,” which had come out not that long ago. Our boss, George, sat to my right.
<p>At one point Paul did an imitation of Travis Bickle, the psychotic title character played by Robert DeNiro, who in a famous scene looks in a mirror: “Hey … you talkin’ to me? You talkin' to me? Cuz if you’re not talkin’ to me, who are you talkin’ to?”
<p>So of course Dan had to do his version of the speech. Dueling DeNiros.
<p>During all this, Ramona, who I’m sure was oblivious to it, kept on working, far away from us.
<p>Fun is fun, but stories were piling up and I had to get the operation back on track. So I did the speech in French: “Eh — vous parlez à moi? Vous parlez à moi? Parce que si vous ne parlez pas à moi, à qui parlez-vous?”
<p>That broke them up and, more important, successfully signaled that it was time to get back to work.
<p>Maybe a half-hour later Ramona got up from her desk and slowly made her way across the room.
<p>At one point she shuffled past the copy desk, and our boss, George, who’d known her for many years, called out to her.
<p>“Ramona! How the hell are ya?”
<p>She turned and looked at him.
<p>“You talkin’ to me?”
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-17498408281150013912021-02-24T19:08:00.001-05:002021-06-29T11:57:33.191-04:00Newsroom Memories: Telephone Fun<p>For most of my newspaper career I was in departments where the phone didn’t ring unless it was someone’s spouse or kid or whatever, or unless the switchboard operator didn’t know how to route the call and took a wild — and usually wrong — guess.
<p>The features department was different.
<p>One day I took a call from an angry woman who sounded as if she could have been a grandmother. She was complaining about a picture on the cover of that day’s section.
<p>The main story — with picture — was about back-to-school fashions.
<p>"No, that’s not it!” she said. “That’s OK! I mean the other picture, lower on the page!”
<p>There wasn’t much to see there, aside from a two-by-three-inch picture accompanying a brief about an upcoming play.
<p>“That’s the one! How dare you run that in the paper where children can see it!”
<p>The picture showed two men and a woman in 1920s-style clothing. One man sat in the foreground as the other man approached him from behind, holding out a rope with the apparent intention of strangling him. The woman, dressed like a flapper, looked on with exaggerated horror. Matter of fact, everything in the picture was silly and exaggerated. We’re not talking Quentin Tarantino here.
<p>I told the caller that I doubted that kids (assuming they ever looked at the paper) would see that tiny photo and immediately begin garroting each other.
<p>“DO YOU HAVE CHILDREN?”
<p>I would have liked to have said I had twelve little buggers at home, or a degree in child psychology, but lying is wrong and besides the bosses might find out if I fibbed. So I said no, and she said I had proved her point. (“Don’t take any logic classes any time soon,” I didn’t say as I went into default mode for such callers: Let them vent and run out of steam, then politely say “Thank you for calling” and hang up.)
<p>Then there was a call I didn’t take.
<p>In the wee small hours a security guard would often staff the switchboard. One night it was a middle-aged guy who always seemed a little screwy. He once told me he had been a dean at the local community college. Uh huh.
<p>Late one night while I was in the men’s room one of the sports guys came in to tell me that the guard was looking for me and that I had a phone call. Some woman calling me.
<p>A woman calling me at 1:30 a.m.? A woman calling me at all?
<p>I found the guard. “That’s right!” he said. “She was asking for you! Asking for Mark Murphy! But she hung up before I could find you!”
<p>Off and on over the next day or two I racked my brain trying to figure out who the woman was.
<p>At one point I thought of one possibility, a talkative former part-timer who used to call in stories to us in the days before laptops. I got along with her, but she could be an awful pest on deadline.
<p>I called her anyway. I almost didn’t recognize her voice because she was sober.
<p>No, she said, she hadn’t called me.
<p>Maybe a day or two later a friend and former colleague named Lou called me at home. He said he’d tried to call me earlier in the week at the paper.
<p>Yep, dear reader, that “woman” was Lou. (Oh well. He was a soft-spoken guy.)
<p>Eventually that security guard wasn’t around anymore. Maybe he got another job in academia. Or maybe not, but that could explain a lot of things.Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-63262205499869054362020-11-23T20:19:00.001-05:002020-11-23T20:19:49.042-05:00If winter comes, can brain farts be far behind?</p>A few weeks ago, when Mother Nature presented a brief preview of winter, I decided that I needed to put on my earmuffs before going to the store.
</p>So I looked in one of the pockets of my winter coat.
</p>Nothing.
</p>Then I looked in the other pocket.
</p>Nothing again.
</p>I had obviously put the earmuffs somewhere else. There’s a good chance that months ago I found what I thought was a great place to put them, secure in the misplaced confidence that when the time came, I would remember exactly where I left them.
</p>But I fooled myself, and not for the first time.
</p>And because I was in a hurry, I had to brave the elements without earmuffs.
</p>Not long after this, the weather improved.
</p>I still hadn’t found the earmuffs, but I knew a foolproof way to find them:
</p>Order some more earmuffs.
</p>So I went to Amazon and bought a couple of pairs. They came a couple of days later, and they fit well.
</p>I still haven’t found the lost earmuffs, but I know they’ll turn up at some point now that I’ve bought more earmuffs. And I’m sure that if Sir Isaac Newton had had more time, he would have turned this idea into his fourth law of motion. (Or maybe he did have the time, but that inertia thing got to him.)
</p>Before the new earmuffs arrived, I received an email from the manufacturer.
</p>The message was from someone named “Sawyer.” Sawyer was writing to inform me that the earmuffs had been shipped and would reach me “very soon.”
</p>That’s nice.
</p>But Sawyer, bless his or her heart, couldn’t let well enough alone.
</p>“Even though we’ve never met, I know you have impeccable taste.”
</p>Why, Sawyer! I didn’t know you cared. But you obviously haven’t seen my winter coat. Or the rest of my wardrobe. You’re taking a huge leap of faith — huge enough to potentially teach you a particularly unpleasant lesson regarding that gravity thingy that Sir Isaac also used to talk about. (Why do you think Wile E. Coyote pays so much for health insurance?)
</p>But that’s ultimately your problem. I can do only so much.
</p>In the last paragraph of your message, you say that in buying the earmuffs, I “have selected a one of a kind piece that combines design and function.” No, Sawyer, I have merely bought a pair of earmuffs. And, God willing, someday you might learn about the design and function of hyphens, especially when applied to compound adjectives like “one-of-a-kind.”
</p>But it’s the last sentence that chills me, even with my new earmuffs on:
</p>“Thank you for choosing us and we hope to style you again soon.”
</p>Now your company wants to “style” me?
</p>I don’t know what it means to be “styled,” but given the general tenor of this message, I don’t even want to think about knowing what it means.
</p>But I am glad that I recently bought a new storm door for my front porch and that it has a lock.
</p>And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d better check the back-porch door.
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-89268882287003015662020-11-13T17:50:00.002-05:002022-08-24T07:56:58.439-04:00There's no place like it -- if you can get there</p>It’s a beautiful day in the summer of 2013, and my co-workers and I are enjoying the opening day of the state fair.
</p>Meanwhile, the feds have taken over my neighborhood.
</p>According to my brother Michael, who lives with me, they have been scouting the area for the last two weeks. He is home most of the time because of his COPD, and he often keeps an eye on the neighborhood. He says he has seen some unfamiliar vehicles, along with some aircraft.
</p>The feds have been scrutinizing our neighborhood because today President Obama is visiting the high school that is a block away from my home.
</p>I’m at the fairgrounds because the fair is a major client of the ad agency where I work. The agency has an annual tradition: On opening day, it closes around 3 p.m. and we go to the fairgrounds. Someone takes a group picture, and the boss buys us all a drink at one of the food tents.
</p>Now all of that has been done, and everyone has scattered. I’m eventually going to get a bus home, but I hope to time my departure so that the president — and his protectors — are gone by the time I get there. So I have something to eat and wander around, keeping an eye on the big TVs that are showing the president’s visit.
</p>At one point Obama seems to be wrapping things up, so I grab a bus downtown and transfer to one that will take me to James Street and Teall Avenue. From there I will walk to my home.
Or so I think.
</p>I walk a few blocks up Teall and encounter a pleasantly polite cop who tells me I have to stop because Obama is still around. But he tells me I can walk home through the side streets.
</p>I eventually reach the corner of the street where I live. My home is in the middle of the block.
</p>But another pleasantly polite cop is blocking my way.
</p>Then I hear a voice saying my name. I turn and see that my kid brother, Matthew, who also lives with me, is also at the corner. He finished his shift at St. Joe’s a little while ago, but because of the security his cab could get him only as far as the corner.
</p>So it’s me, Matt and the cop.
</p>And one very pissed-off woman.
</p>A few hours ago she and her mother came to the neighborhood in hopes of getting a look at the president. After they arrived the area was blocked off. For some reason, she left the blocked-off area, and now she is not being allowed back in. At one point she demands that the cop give him his supervisor’s phone number. He complies without an argument.
</p>The phone conversation (her side of it, anyway) goes something like this:
</p>“Yes, I can’t get back into this area, and I have to find my mother. She doesn’t know where I am, and this cop won’t let me in!” Her tone implies that the pleasantly polite cop is a Gestapo agent.
</p>“And there are two older gentlemen here who are trying to get home!”
</p>“Older gentlemen”? Matthew, who is 54, chuckles at that. So do I. Although I’m not even 60, I’m not pissed off, but I’m not thrilled that she is co-opting us.
</p>After she gets off the phone we wait a few minutes more before the cop makes one last phone call and we get the all-clear. Unlike the woman, Matthew and I make it a point to thank him as we head to our house; after all, he has only been doing his job.
</p>And like Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz,” I realize that there’s no place like home — especially when the feds aren’t around. And at least I didn’t have to try to steal anybody’s broomstick.
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8854624738223119407.post-42088369204684240752020-10-13T20:56:00.000-04:002020-10-13T20:56:09.376-04:00Three pre-COVID bus stories</p><b>1.</b> I’m on a city bus, heading downtown.
</p>An older lady in the seat in front of me turns and gives me a once-over.
</p>She asks if I am any relation to a priest she knows.
</p>I tell her I am not.
</p>“You do look a lot like him,” she says.
</p>“Uh huh.”
</p>She turns back in her seat.
</p>About thirty seconds later she turns around again.
</p>“Actually,” she says, “you’re a lot more masculine-looking than he is.”
</p>“Oh. OK.” I don’t know what else to say, but fortunately she turns back in her seat again and that’s the last I hear from her.
</p><b>2. </b>I’m on a bus in another city.
</p>A few seats away, another older lady is happily chatting with someone.
</p>At one point she talks about her dog.
</p>“He’s really smart,” she says. “He reads the paper every day.”
</p>Then, after a moment of silence:
</p>“Well, he doesn’t really read the paper — he just scans the headlines.”
</p><b>3. </b>I’m on a Greyhound bus on the New York State Thruway.
</p>I’m sitting near the front. A few seats behind me a young woman is talking to someone.
</p>And I get this odd feeling, a feeling I’m not sure I’ve ever had before — or since.
</p>I can’t help feeling that someone is looking at me — that someone’s eyes are on me.
</p>And I begin to get the idea that maybe the young woman’s eyes are on me, and my male vanity — such as it is — is piqued.
</p>On the other hand, I know this is silly — she’s not talking about me at all. And there’s no reason to believe that she or anyone else is looking at me. So I go back to reading my book.
</p>But every so often I wonder whether someone is indeed looking at me and if it’s indeed the young woman, even though she still hasn’t said a word about me. And I go back to reading my book.
</p>We finally get to our destination. I get off the bus and go into the station.
</p>After about a minute I hear a voice — someone’s calling out for help.
</p>It’s the young woman’s voice.
</p>I turn and see her. She’s tall and maybe in her thirties.
</p>And I see that this woman, who I thought might have been looking at me, is using a cane and is about to walk right into a wall filled with lockers.
</p>I intercept her just in time. I ask her where she needs to go, and she tells me.
</p>I lead her to the door where someone is apparently supposed to pick her up. I ask her if she needs anything else.
</p>“No,” she says. She’s polite, but it’s clear from her tone that I have served my purpose.
</p>Perhaps in the future I should ride in the back of the bus.
Mark Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07463881222804863326noreply@blogger.com0