A friend commented recently that some of what I’ve been sharing lately is depressing. Which leads me to point out he knows what I do for a living. There isn’t much escape from the daily headlines for a good portion of my week. How can anyone believe they’ll be better off 24 months from now than they are today? Depends, I suppose, on the size of your supply of gold.

A better description of my recent “mood” is that I’m not terribly hopeful about my country and culture but gee whillikers I’m elated with some aspects of my personal life. Or more precisely with one aspect of my personal life even if she did drag me to Salisbury to go shopping on Sunday. Well, not Salisbury proper. Nobody would go there if they needn’t. It’s like a Spanish speaking Utica. Instead we went to some shopping plazas near Salisbury. A doggie store, a hair care store and Sam’s Club fulfilled the mission. Then we went to some place called the China Buffet. This was a first for me and I grazed mainly on salad, rice and seafood. No dessert. I probably gained 3 pounds just looking at the cakes. The redhead had some seafood, some chicken, some pirogi, spinach slathered in melted cheese, cake and two bowls of ice cream. She walked into the restaurant weighing 105 pounds. Today she’ll weigh 105 pounds. Tomorrow she’ll weigh 105 pounds (and when we finally got back to my house to unload groceries she postponed the work and twirled for a while on the tire swing, while I went inside and took a nap). I should also mention that while I was at the restaurant I used the men’s room and some other fellow turned out the lights as he left. This caused me to paw along the walls until I found the switch. Guess I’m glad Larry Craig wasn’t there.

Driving home made the day. The temperature was in the middle 60s and the sky was almost cloudless. We took some back roads with the sunroof open and windows down. The only hills along Maryland’s Lower Shore are the drumlins where people are buried. Keeps the remains dry, I reckon. You don’t really need hills when you’re driving along winding roads cutting through forest. It’s like looking at a painting and is almost pristine in some spots. I’m sure it’s good for the blood pressure, the psyche and the soul, however. You must remember the state is governed by a socialist named O’Malley and very few folks can afford living there. From there we entered Delaware and passed through Gumboro. It’s very much like my mom’s hometown of Black Creek, New York but for the lack of hills. Like Black Creek you could probably sleep in the middle of the highway on a Sunday afternoon. It also reminds you in places such as Gumboro and Black Creek the people aren’t really fixated on an economic meltdown. They’ve got what so many of the tycoons lack, an ability to survive most storms without a government hand down. Call it self-sufficiency. Trust me, do a survey in these small communities and you’ll find there are a lot more optimists than in our bigger cities. Last week I received a letter from an old college friend. He lives in New Mexico, where he farms and lives “off the grid”. Wall Street may as well be Neptune as far as he’s concerned. This gets me back to my most recent writings of the past. There are some people who’ve made the right choices even if I’m still at times groping in the dark. Should I also mention the guy in New Mexico claims he can summon rain?

The announcement Tuesday. Just after 3:00 P.M. news.  The future of Delaware politics is at stake.  Hear it live Tuesday.

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A guy offered me a job working for his freight shipping company. Nineteen years ago about this time of year. His name, I think, was Jim Duffy. In 1989 I’d taken a job at WSYR Radio in Syracuse, which was then considered one of the best radio stations in the United States. It was part time work and then I got offered a full time job, which I took with a promise of a pay cut of 1,000 dollars a year from my previous station. I agreed to work for less because the previous job was a dead end. A roll of the dice if you will with hopes of greater career advancement. A friend of mine got hired, with my advice, to take the old job and to pare expenses we rented a two bedroom duplex. Then I got some bad news, WSYR couldn’t elevate me to full time until April, 1990. Then it got worse. Bill went out for a walk to get coffee and dropped dead in a snow bank. So I had the house and a part time job and a lot of expenses.

I was buying boxed instant macaroni and cheese, 4 for a dollar. This was my dinner just about every night. I managed to also buy an occasional onion and sometimes would slice it into the powdered cheese for an alternative taste. Then my car broke down. I started bussing to work. I found a smaller efficiency apartment in a building I’m not sure I’d wish for anyone else to live in. I moved my furniture on a cold snowy night. On my own, lugging couches and box springs a block on my back. Later I would go back, slide the car into neutral and push it to the new apartment. And a night came when I could no longer seem to shoulder life cooped up in a two room flat and I took what little cash I had and walked to The Ground Round.

One night a week the restaurant had a fish special and you could get 3 small pieces of breaded fish with tartar sauce and I just wanted a taste of something other than macaroni and cheese and onions. I ordered in the lounge and pulled up a chair at the bar. The bartender, Sally, and her husband were my friends. Sally poured me a beer and when she came back from the register she gave me my money back. Then a man walked in and ordered dinner and pulled up a chair next to me and settled in to watch the ballgame. It was Mr. Duffy. We got talking and did introductions. He knew me from the radio and he said I was one of the brightest guys he’d met in quite some time. So he asked me what radio paid. It’s a sore subject but I was honest. “You’re being used”, he blurted out. Then he got up to go and handed me a business card. “Call me. I’ve got a job for you”, he said.

I never called. After struggling so long to get a toe-hold as a broadcaster I just didn’t want to walk away and later ask myself what could have been. Twenty years later I now ask what would have been had I gone to work with Mr. Duffy? He wasn’t the first to come along with an offer but there have been few outside broadcasting since that meeting two decades ago. Then came this decade and two prolonged stretches of unemployment and my peak earnings years have foundered.

When I was 27 and single it didn’t matter much but now with responsibilities beyond myself I’m not always pleased when I glance in the mirror. M parents are both dead and I struggled with my thoughts a very long time because I was unable to give them much in return. People also ask me if I like my job and I’ve got to admit there is fun even if it isn’t always challenging. Sure it beats unloading trucks at a postal sorting plant and it probably saved my life but there are days when I sometimes wonder if I’m seriously making any contributions. Talk radio offers a catharsis for a great many people. Does it then allow them to take no other actions? Additionally some folks also tell me I could do this job in a much larger market, however. I read the trade magazines. Some great hosts are out of work. Business decisions often trump quality and I can’t complain because it isn’t my dime.

Wednesday a coworker, John Baker, asked me how life was treating me. I told him I felt like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. No Sonny and Cher when the alarm rings but I pretty much know the drill. The show starts and I talk about the economy and then the familiar names calling to sound off. Not that I don’t like these people, I even smile when a caller named “Betty from Millsboro” telephones and is exasperated with me. She likes our new President. God bless the misguided. Then my day ends and it’s apparent we haven’t cured cancer, social ills or the sagging economy.

My coworker John is a fascinating guy. He lived the high life in the 70s and 80s, working in radio in Baltimore and selling cars in that area. Now he’s happily working in our small town environment. By happenstance the two of us both met beautiful women this past year. He’s getting married. The lovely woman I know is from John’s hometown in Maryland. She’s the most special woman I’ve ever come across in my life. She’s very kind. She’s very smart. And did I mention she’s pretty? And I would like to do so many things for her beyond what my current station in life allows me. Now 50 people will tell me there is more to life than a big home, an extended tropical vacation and freedom from want. Thank you. It’s my experience the people telling me these things have already seen Europe, can afford to keep their homes heated above 58 degrees on cold winter nights would’ve heeded Jim Duffy’s offer.

It isn’t just that I want to take her to Europe but I also want to see the golden roofs of Antwerp, the Scottish Highlands and the relics of ancient Greece. Seriously, don’t you? And I want to see these things with her. I want to take her to the highest peaks and for once in life take a broad view of creation and share the awe. It doesn’t mean much when you’re alone and I’ve been there with the macaroni and lugging furniture and taking the bus to work. Some days I think if I had been a better career steward 20 years ago I could spend these last year’s with her on a Cypriot beach. God forgive me.