Sunday Thought Brunch

(Today's menu comes fresh from Morningwood Farms, my imaginary farm in Farm Town.  Sadly, I can't grow coffee, which is essential, so I'm having to outsource that, but everything else comes from my farm.)

• Freshly squeezed orange juice: R.I.P. Walter Cronkite.  I remember watching Walter Cronkite when I was a kid, and I always liked him.  When Dan Rather replaced him, my loyalty to the evening network news was forever untethered.  Cronkite was smart, hard-working, and fair.  He was scrupulous, even removing himself from campaign coverage when his presence sometimes overshadowed the candidates' presence.  Can you imagine a TV "journalist" doing that today? Nor can I.  The greatest tribute I've found to Uncle Walter was that Swedish and Dutch both have as their word for anchorman a variation of his name: Cronkeiter or Kronkeiter.  What better tribute is there than having your name turned into a regular noun?
• Strawberries and cream: The seminal moment in Walter Cronkite's career has to be his announcement that John F Kennedy had died in Dallas.  I wasn't alive then, but I can only imagine that when Walter took off his heavy black-framed glasses, choked back a sob, and wiped his eyes, the country absolutely fell apart grieving.  The great thing was, he didn't opinionize then.  He was only reporting the facts.  The facts were horrific, and he was upset.  For a few seconds he paused, then collected himself, and soldiered on.  This was a guy who waded ashore at D-Day, just to cover the story.  He was the one you'd want to tell you something horrible, just because he gave that vibe that it would ultimately be okay.
• Giganto Omelettes with your choice of pork product and cheese, and a mandatory side of bacon:  Easily the most mind-blowing, horrifying national crisis I can remember was 9/11.  I was horrified as I sat and watched CNN's coverage.  I couldn't turn away–literally, because my radio station was simulcasting CNN, and if I changed channel, we'd lose the feed.  I was scared, of course, and confused, and the talking heads were all rattled and hyperverbose.  Then, around 10pm, Garrick Utley came on.  Here was an old-school newsman, somebody I knew wouldn't let things fall apart on his watch.  He explained things, and I felt a little better.  I still went home, drank a fifth of bourbon, and wrote a really bad e-mail screed, but just having this guy I knew and trusted made a huge difference to me.
• Fresh cornbread or a selection of signature breads:  Not only do I lack linear thought in my blogposts, I kind of wander around when I'm perusing the Interwebs.  I watched some Walter Cronkite clips, and ended up watching two different JFK documentaries.  The thought hit me: Americans HATE Occam's Razor.  The simplified version of Occam's Razor is, "The simplest explanation that accounts for all the evidence is usually the best." The Warren Report was Occam's Razor.  Most Americans don't want Occam's Razor, but all of Occam's shaving kit, plus everything else in his carry-on bag.  For some reason, nobody wants to believe that one loon shot and killed the president, even though we can see video of John Hinckley nearly taking-out Ronald Reagan 18 years later.  It's no small irony that Uncle Walter interrupted "As the World Turns" to report JFK's death, since some of the proffered theories make soap opera plots look straightforward.
• Hash brown potato casserole, with cheese, diced ham, and onions:  (Okay, I brought in some imaginary onions too, since I don't technically grow them on my imaginary farm)  I'm not saying that Oswald shot JFK while acting 100% on his own, either.  I don't know for sure.  Nobody does.  I believe he shot JFK.  Why? He was a loon, complete with a rifle and opportunity.  Did he act alone? I don't know that either.  "JFK" is one of my favorite films, even though it's at least 50% complete fiction.  Damn, it's awesome fiction to watch, though.  It's Occam's Razor, though: the simplest theory is the best: Oswald was a loon, who had a perfect place from which to shoot.  He bought a gun.  He used it.  Done.  It's a pity, too, because Donald Sutherland was freakin' awesome as X, the character who was only an amalgamation of various people, with a generous dollop of pure fiction. 
• Fresh coconut cream, banana cream, or lemon meringue pie, or strawberry shortcake:    I've been watching "Dead Like Me" on hulu.com this week, and it got me wondering why I like this show so much.  I think it's because I like to the idea of living in "the real world," but also working in another world.  I felt like that when I was still in radio.  I won't bore you with ratings or anything, but I did consistently well in my target audience, even winning a handful of times.  Even though I could see data showing how many people listened, I could walk through the grocery store or 7-Eleven and nobody knew who I was.  It was sweet, sort of like being a ghost. 
• Choice of Morningwood Lemonade or a Bloody Mary, made with home-made, triple-distilled vodka, and fresh lemons and tomatoes, respectively:  Yeah, that came crashing down one night.  I'd gone out for a long drive, just to escape the city.  I stopped at a gas station maybe 60 miles from here, and was making small-talk with the proprietor.  He said my voice sounded familiar.  "You sound like that Tom guy on the jazz station." I smiled politely and agreed it was me.  He was all excited, so much so that he gave me my Diet Mountain Dew free.  It freaked me out a little, but that was okay.  It was a gorgeous night, and I had a free cold refreshing beverage.  Life could be much worse, even if I wasn't as invisible as I'd thought.
• Coffee from Dunkin Donuts:  It's hard to be invisible anymore.  I have friends here in real life, and I'm glad to have them.  Over the past nearly two years I've been Voxing, I realize that we can affect people all over the world, regardless of our location.  When terrorists bombed parts of Mumbai last fall, I read about it online, but I empathized with it through reading my Indian friends' blogs.  When Australia had rampant wildfires, it was one thing to see the story on a news site, but it struck home more when a friend posted snapshots of the smoke.  Sometimes, I'll try and remember how I first met a Gunderson Bee or Brown Suga or Lauri(e), and I find I can't.  But I remember their stories, the snippets of their lives, triumphs, tragedies, and–happily–the occasional kitty picture or fart joke.  It's a very different world than the one Walter Cronkite first covered.  We're simultaneously more anonymous and more exposed.  We're given more data, but I wonder if we really have any more facts.  Despite having learned some interesting life lessons along the way, I think I'm essentially still as clueless as I was when Uncle Walter signed-off in 1981.  The difference is that through this strange, miraculous technology, I'm able to share my cluelessness with people all over the planet.  And that's the way it is. 

Happy Sunday from Morningwood Farms.

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