Tag: Grindrod

I wonder if we in the Lima area have appreciated the many media members who’ve so enriched our lives. Some, like Michael Reghi and Scott Clark, who both once upon a time worked at WLIO, went on to lager markets and achieved great success, the former as a play-by-play broadcaster both in college and the pros, and the latter as sports director and anchor at WABC in New York City.

It was a Tuesday’s end in early November, and I’d just left Troy heading back to Lima after doing some housekeeping inspections for my employer, Mid-American Cleaning Contractors. I figured I just might get home in time to enjoy an hour’s worth of light working of that autumnal ritual that would have mystified pioneering men of an earlier generation: chasing those leaves around and bagging them.

Last fall I happened to catch a Howard Stern interview with someone who certainly is in the conversation as his generation’s greatest troubadour, Bruce Springsteen. In the captivating two-hour interview that covered such a wide range of topics, one portion got me thinking about something more deeply that periodically has crossed my mind over the years.

While I hesitate to call the city that birthed me my hometown given the fact that I left when I was a week short of my seventh birthday when my father took a job transfer, for years, I had no problem reminding people that I was a Chicagoan in my earliest days.

As we head into the start of another year with which we are all blessed, there’s always some accounting to be done as to what we’ve gained and what we’ve lost in the year now in the history books.

There is so much to appreciate during the Christmas season. And, like many of you, I’m certain, much of that appreciation revolves around the memories of Christmas mornings. Each Christmas which I’m blessed to experience I always think back on one of my earliest Christmas mornings, the one when Santa was indeed in the house.

With the temperatures dropping along with fall’s curtain in just 48 hours, it’s time to put a wrap on my autumnal travel log. This week I’ll give you a few Alabaman snapshots.

On Lady Jane’s and my fall sojourn — leaving Little Rock behind after delving into the ignominious history of central High School and the Little Rock Nine — we headed for Hot Springs, a little over fifty miles away and a small city of around 38,000, but one as unique for its size you’re likely to find.

Memories of my annual fall trip always seem to help sustain me when the weather turns cold, and this year is no different. While ordinarily Lady Jane and I head east for our mid-October trip to admire the autumnal blaze that New England and Mid-Atlantic deciduous trees always provide, this year, we went a different route.

The contemporary music world and I parted ways quite some time ago. I suppose that’s true for a lot of folks who’ve been Medicare recipients for a while. We really do tend to hang on to so very much of the world as it once was. And, for me, the songs of the 1960s are the ones with which I still can sing along and maintain at least 80 percent lyrical accuracy.