CATALYST'S AGES

After posting those pictures of my career meet-ups the other day I thought it might be interesting to get a closer look at how I've aged through the years.

So brace yourselves . .  here we go.

Awww, what a cute kid!

Starting out with my dad.

That happy smile has turned into The Smirk.

But who dresses this kid, huh?

Ah, high school graduation and just a flicker of mischief there.

Then the serious radio and television journalist.

Looks like a lot of Brylcreem up top but I know, you were stopped by that natty seersucker sport jacket.

Speaking of natty, a few years later in Miami to cover a Republican National Convention while sporting a Nehru jacket?

What must those Republicans have thought, eh.

Oh the good old days of dope craziness.

(Just kidding. It was actually a posed picture taking a whiff from a bottle of rubber cement.  Just ignore the eyes.)

Some years later, with the gorgeous SWMBO at a Scottsdale Arts Fair.

This may or may not have been taken the same day though I know it's the same turtleneck.

I loved that chair but I don't think we bought it.

And yes those are muttonchops.

The 1970's, and I still hadn't learned about the dangers of smoking.

Then the 80's and lending my IMMENSE wisdom as a producer to reporter Ron Talley in Washington at Sandra Day O'Connor's hearing to become a Supreme Court Justice.

Later on, after my first retirement and four-plus happy years living in Mexico, Judy and I are heading back to the U.S. of A.

Our friends threw a party for us.

(Did you notice the first hint of gray in my beard?)

A few years ago, not only the beard but the hair have turned gray and I'm seeing wrinkles I didn't have before!

Which brings us to this morning and an older and . . . well, let's just leave it at older, shall we?

Nearly 85 and a half but still kickin'.

As a friend used to say about old age, it beats the alternative.

P.S. The BAD contacted me and told me to replace the last picture to something brighter. So I did.  I hope you're (BAD) all satisfied!

NEW BAKING

Good day, Wednesday.

Good grief, Wednesday already?

What happened to Sunday, Monday and Tuesday?

Well, I've been busy in the kitchen, that's what.

So here's a brief summary of my efforts.

First, yesterday I baked a new recipe for me, a Blueberry Buckle.

Yes, there are blueberries under there (a few of them are peeping through).

But most of them are in the cake underneath that crunchy sweet topping.

They show up in this kind of a messy picture of the interior after some apparently starving people around here got after it.

Then this morning I slipped a Chocolate Walnut Banana Bread into the oven by 8 a.m.

I topped it with a few chocolate chips, just for the heck of it.

My photography skills are "lacking" but I suppose I could try to blame that on only having a camera in my phone to use.

Or maybe the tremors of old age have a part in it too.

Anyway, that's the sum of my baking this week.

So far.

FAME

When you've spent your working life as a broadcast journalist, as I did, you run into a lot of famous, or at least well-known people.

But my first brush with the famous started when I was a wee lad and was photographed with that mighty lumberjack of the north woods, Paul Bunyan.

I'm in the lower left of this photograph.

It was at a theme park in some part of northern Minnesota.

That brief meeting with a storybook hero may have led me on.

Later on, as a rock and roll disc jockey I conducted my first interview with a famous piano player and singer, Fats Domino.

Unfortunately the interview was done over the telephone and I didn't get a picture with him.

But I did get a photo of me greeting one of my personal heroes, the late NBC newscaster, Chet Huntley.

Later on, I met his broadcast partner, David Brinkley, but again no photo.

Barry Goldwater brought his presidential campaign to North Dakota in 1964 and I was nearby, peering over someone's shoulder.

The gentleman standing with Goldwater is Tom Kleppe, at the time a congressman from North Dakota who later served as administrator of the Small Business Administration and then Secretary of the Interior.

A couple of years later, the Democrats were descending on the state.

I was a news director welcoming Vice-President Hubert Humphrey into my t.v. station for an exclusive interview.

 And around that same time, I caught up with Senator Eugene McCarthy when he came to town.

In Phoenix, I would see Senator Goldwater fairly frequently, along with many other politicians.

But I also interviewed a local celebrity who made it big, Vincent Furnier.

You might not recognize him without his stage makeup, where he's more commonly known as Alice Cooper.

I also ran into another famous rock and roll singer when he was on tour in Seattle.

Well, Elvis Presley was long gone by then but this statue of him was in some shops in the Pike's Place Marketplace.

Speaking of "statuesque", John Wayne dropped by one of my homes for a visit one day.

Okay, to be honest, that's just a cardboard cutout but I actually did meet the real "Duke" on the patio of his home in Newport Beach, California some years before.

The subject matter we discussed was his plan to take a few Vietnamese refugees and give them a home on one of his Arizona ranches.

This was the same week I met a Vietnamese refugee, the former Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky and his lovely wife.

Speaking of Prime Ministers, while I never met him, I did pay a visit to a statue of my 15th cousin in the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill.

Back in the U.S. of A., retirement took me to my acting career.

As an un-credited extra.

In a movie called "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", I was briefly seen carrying a bag of groceries to the parking lot of a store behind the nearly unknown actor at the time: Johnny Depp.

Leonardo DiCaprio was also in that movie and received his first Academy Award nomination for his role.

Another extra role had me on screen for about a quarter of a second but the film "A Perfect World" got me a handshake from the director, Clint Eastwood, when my brief scene was over.

Ah, yes, it's been an interesting life.

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

It has been one of those trying weeks here that reminds me that no matter how dark the clouds are, it pays to keep one's sense of humor.

Which says a lot about my cooking!

But I digress

to excess.

So now I express

my wish for success,

and hope to impress 

with more or with less,

these jokes I profess.

Let's hope the process

will curl your tress

and lacking finesse

will perhaps make you guess.

Behold!

So that's my treasure trove of humor for this week.

Take it as it is but have a remarkable weekend.

And always remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

( . . . oh, man. Technology! . . . )

BEGINNINGS

The state of Minnesota is popularly known as "The Land of 10,000 Lakes".

You can't go anywhere without finding another fishing spot.

One of them is a small lake in the northern part of the state known as Lake Itasca.

That's easier to remember than the Ojibwe name for it, which is Omashkoozoo-zaaga'igan.

What's notable about this lake is it is said to be the primary source of the Mississippi River, which then flows 2,340 miles (3,770 kilometers) before it empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

Now here's what Wikipedia says: 

The channel of the Mississippi as it emerges from the lake was bulldozed in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, to create a more "pleasant experience" for visitors. The project included the draining of the surrounding swamp, the digging of a new channel, and the installation of a man-made rock rapids. The rocks are used by tourists for walking across the Mississippi River.

And sometime in the 1940's that's exactly what I did, helped along by my big brother. 

I must say that I looked a bit nonplussed by the whole experience.

But at least I can say that once upon a time I walked across the Mississippi River.

And not on no blamed bridge either.

WHOA!

40 years ago.

In Salzburg, Austria.

What was it I said?

DO YOU SEE THE LIGHT?

 

Actually, I do.