tues 5 pm: time for a new blog entry

I've just read that Ohio State fired their basketball coach and there is speculation that OSU might be looking to replace him with Mister Bob Knight who is an Ohio State alum. I'm not much of a college basketball fan but it would make the Ohio State - Indiana series interesting. Also I have a special karmic connection to Bob Knight as we both are from Orrville, Ohio. I left when I was 18 months old, actually I lived in nearby Dalton at the time but Orrville had the nearest hospital. Mr Bob Knight actually spent his entire pre-adult life so that makes him more of a native than myself.

The news media is full of tributes to the late President Reagan. It's interesting seeing the old clips of his appearances back when he was president. Although I was 13 when he was elected and remember him being president I have few specific recollections of the man. I recall I found out that he was shot right before I had to go to my piano lesson and wasn't sure if I should go, I did up having the lesson. I went home that night and Dan Rather was on TV with a mannequin-like object and a doctor from Columbia - Presbyterian explaining where the President had been shot. At the time I did not realize how good a public speaker he was, I only had Carter to compare with him and I was even younger during his reign. The only Gerald R. Ford recollections I have are of a large awkward man and his klutzy moments that were captured for the evening news on a regular basis.

I think one of the other aspects of the Reagan shooting was that it was not covered by Walter Cronkite who had retired a few years before it happened. All through the late 70's and early 80's dinner was always at 5:30 in the Medley home as we had to be done by 6:30 in order to get in front of the TV for "Uncle Walter". As the 80's progressed, Mom went back to work, Rather and CBS slid in the ratings and dinner was pushed back to 6. Eventually Mom went back to school and dinner came in the crock-pot and was consumed in front of the TV while "PM Magazine" or "M*A*S*H" re-runs blared away.

Another recollection of the Reagan years was my friend who said to me after Yuri Andropov died that Reagan must have commented "Oh my, the youngster is dead." I found this quite funny at the time and could not stop laughing. Also after the Robert Bork controversy he told me that he imagined a headline in the paper reading "Reagan Gorks!, nominates Bork to court."

The weirdest thing about all the Reagan history retrospective is that I was around for it. Unlike the endless JFK assassination anniversary coverage from last November, the LBJ tapes or old newsreel footage of FDR on a train somewhere, I lived the Reagan years.

In future blog entries I will try to tap the memory mines and tell tales of my days in the fast food industry in Columbus, Ohio in the mid 1980's. I think the time period can be compared with working on the railroad in the 1900s or being in silcon Valley in the late 1990s's.