The Average Man Speaks Out

By Dave Morris

In The Average Man Speaks Out, life is discussed not by Charles Krauthamer or Tom Brokow, or even Andy Rooney but by the average man. The average man believes that we are all stories and that people need stories to live. Through his collection of stories he gives the average mans perspective on the world we live in, its people, history, politics, entertainment and miscellaneous topics.
Whether youre average or not, youll be entertained, informed, and maybe even a bit surprised as the average man tells about heroes, villains, and opines on, well, everything.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781503566477

Dave Morris

Dave Morris has been in the people development business for over 30 years. He teaches individuals to give themselves a second chance to achieve their own vision of success and wellness. He helps them overcome fear of failure, career missteps, and other obstacles to achieving success within their current occupations or in entrepreneurial endeavors. With an MBA from Brigham Young University's Marriott School of Business, Dave has spent 20 years in the private sector and 17 years with a global religious non-profit organization. For over ten years he developed training programs and directed global creative messaging efforts for faith-based educational materials and events across multiple cultural and linguistic boundaries. This was accomplished while teaching best practices and performance improvement to hundreds of employees, volunteers, and contractors in 30 different countries. Dave has spoken to youth and religious groups, business conferences and to international television and satellite audiences. He is available to teach individuals or groups how to adopt a "Mulligans Mindset" to achieve success and wellness in their personal and business lives.

Book preview

The Average Man

Speaks Out

Dave Morris

(He’s as Average as It Gets)

Copyright © 2016 by Dave Morris.

Library of Congress Control Number:            2015906739

ISBN:                  Hardcover                                   978-1-5035-6646-0

                           Softcover                                     978-1-5035-6648-4

                           eBook                                           978-1-5035-6647-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/17/2018

Xlibris

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Contents

1. Dedication

2. Foreword

3. Tell Me a Story

4. Real People

1. A Prettier World

2. Christopher Schwier Is a Survivor

3. Hasta La Vista

4. A Bit of Sunshine

5. Take Me By My Little Hand…

6. Where Have You Gone, Calypso Gene?

7. Topsy

8. Good Riddance

9. Paul Sympson, a Prison Man

10. Yesterday’s Mistakes

11. Edwin Binney

12. Print the Legend

13. Print the Legend, Part II

14. Ed Crow

15. One Tough Cop

16. Victor Drugs’ Wonderful Life

17. The Incredible Dr. Wicomb

18. Horse Sense

19. Martyred

20. A Big Hand For the Little Lady

21. You Never Can Tell

22. Ulysses S. Grant

23. Frankie

24. Sowell for the Soul

25. The History of Black History Month

26. Jeremy Bentham

27. Just Wild About Harry

28. Born Leader

29. History Repeats Itself

30. A Shy Guy Who Changed the World

31. Another Goodbye

32. Hiroshima & 9/11/2001

33. Better Late Than Never?

5. Personal

34. The Average Guy

35. Untitled

36. Something for Gwendy

37. 25 Years Plus 20!

38. T Is For the Tears

39. Grant

40. Neal

41. Un-kindred Siblings

42. Pop

43. Death of a Child

44. A Name on a Wall

45. The Commercial

46. A Hitchcock Scene

47. All Shook Up

48. Evaluations

49. December Child

50. A Remover of Stains

51. Mothers-in-Law

52. The Bicycle and Me

53. Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot? Bitter—Who Me?

54. Chuck and Corey

55. Lights Out!

56. The Perfect Tomato

57. Stemming the Tide of Ignorance

58. Fitting In

59. It’s Who You Know That Matters

60. Self Reproach

61. Inside the Confused Brain of a War Protestor

62. IQ Tests

63. AKA Floyd Nelson

6. Philosophical

Philosophical: Criminal Justice

64. Reprogramming Faulty Human Machines

65. Our Brothers’ Keepers

66. Crime Statistics & Political Interpretation

67. Prison Guard Retires After 48 Years

68. Dukakis, Furloughs, and Michael Fair

69. Sometimes You Feel Like A Referee

70. Con Wise

71. Conned Courts

72. Education and Crime

73. Radio Flashback

74. Taking a Bite Out of Crime

75. Rising Inmate Population Is Good News for All of Us

76. There Is Nothing Unjust About the Death Penalty

77. Sound Reasons Should Override Emotional Appeals

78. Capital Punishment as Just Desserts

79. There’s No Way to Make Sense of Senselessness

80. Separate Some Prisoners So Others Have a Chance

81. Incorrigible

82. Prisons and Workers Are Targeted, Again

83. Accomplices

84. Little Ernie’s Case

84. Little Ernie, Part II

86. Children as Sex Objects

87. The I-57 Killer

Philosophical: Political

88. Men in Black

89. Politics 101

90. Dismal Choices

91. Recession?

92. Repetitious History

93. Do the Right Thing

94. Bread and Circuses

95. Gone Boom!

96. Forgotten Lesson

97. Stupid Is As Stupid Does

98. Who Does Congress Work For?

99. Blagojevich and McGwire

100. Of the People, By the People, For the People?

101. How Should We Vote?

102. Obama’s Voters

103. Unanticipated Consequences

104. The Water’s Edge

105. The New Slavery

106. Shameless

107. They Don’t Make Politicians Like They Used To

Philosophical: The World Today

108. Cultural Diversity

109. Belief

110. Original Sin

111. Newspeak

112. Words

113. Casting A Skeptical Eye On Public Opinion

114. Not Doubting Thomas

7. The Written Word

The Written Word: Writing

115. Wonder Vision

116. The Write Stuff

117. Writing Like a Pro

118. Filling Space

The Written Word: Journalism

119. The Media

120. Epilogue for David

121. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Newspapers (Well Almost)

122. It’s News to Me

123. Returning Past

124. Seeing Both Sides

125. Master Editor

The Written Word: Words

126. Terminology

127. Sticks and Stones

128. Our Ever-Expanding Language

129. Propaganda

130. Dumbly Speaking

131. Honesty & Political Correctness

Miscellaneous

132. The Great American Column

133. The Name Game

134. Heat Wave

135. Get a Life

136. No Man Is an Island

137. Fools at Play

138. Armstrong Anecdotes

139. Connections

140. In My Opinion

141. Killers

142. Rambling

143. Adam’s Curse

144. Times Like These

145. Reincarnation

146. One of These Days

147. Wampum

148. Words to Live By—Or Not

149. To Tell the Truth

150. Better Safe Than Sorry

151. Good Stuff

152. Statistics

153. Fathers Beware

154. Point of View

155. The Mathematical Bias

156. Lost Our Marbles

157. Specious Species

158. Jill & Di & Princesses

159. Gold Rush

160. Spanking and Child Abuse

161. Smoking

Sports

162. Rich Wolfe

163. Unrequited Love

164. Citius, Altius, Fortius

165. Cardinals Restructure Their Nest

166. Whatever Happened to the National Pastime?

167. Every Boy Wants to Be a Ballplayer

168. Super Super Bowl

169. Utility Infielders

170. Another of Yesteryear’s Voices Goes Silent

171. Cultural Elitism Run Amok

10. Entertainment

172. TV Nostalgia

173. The End of an Era

174. It’s A Wonderful Life

11. Snippets & Poetry

12. Holidays

175. Another Opening

176. 2008-2009

177. Our Oldest Holiday

178. Heart of Mine

179. Renewal

180. A Public Service Announcement

181. When’s Easter?

182. Cinco de Mayo

183. Mothers Day

184. War—What Is It Good For?

185. Independence Day

186. Thanksgiving

187. White Christmas

188. John the Porter

189. Eight Strong Women

190. There’s Something Special About Christmas

191. The Living Nativity

13. Closing the Notebook

192. Dreamland

14. Acknowledgements

Dedication

I have great appreciation for the wonderful people of Southern Illinois and especially those of Randolph County, for their friendship, encouragement, and acceptance of my stories. They were a great audience and remain in my memories. This book is dedicated, too, to these, my first readers.

And, it is dedicated to everyone who ever toiled for a small town newspaper or radio station. They are invariably the most knowledgable and interesting people in town. They are the storytellers, indispensable to their communities,who have provided that most important sustenance required of mankind—the need to know what happened, how it happened, when it happened, where it happened, and why it happened.

Foreword

"What is a story? the strange being from another planet wanted to know. He came to Earth, the planet most-noted for stories, and looked for an answer.

That’s the opening paragraph of the first newspaper column, I ever wrote.

I have been fortunate enough to have written literally thousands of news stories, sports stories, interviews, editorials, opinions, and factual articles that have been published in newspapers and magazines. Most of it is quite forgettable. I am, however, quite proud of some of my published work.

It is scattered about in shredding old publications going back to 1983. My endeavor here is to consolidate the best of my work in one book for my family and friends, former readers, and any other interested readers.

This book will be my version of Facebook, not so much what I’m up to as what I did, where I was, who I was, and—mostly—what I thought. Most of the content of the book consists of columns and parts of columns I wrote a long time ago. That column was called, Dave’s Notebook.

I once edited a weekly newspaper, the Randolph County Herald Tribune, a great experience in itself, but after a while I started writing a regular column for the paper. Over the years, I wrote a lot of columns. I never did anything that I was actually paid for that was more fun than writing those columns. Or, more challenging, either.

Sometimes, the column wound up being rather personal, with me revealing more of myself than I was comfortable doing. As I was to note in one of my columns, writing is a lot like striptease, only you bare your soul instead of your body. If you do it long enough, you get over the shame. You even come to view what you do as art.

Initially, the columns were written to entertain, to be fun, but gradually they became much more than that. They were meant to inform and to arouse emotion. I wore a number of hats, teacher, entertainer, philosopher, and avuncular storyteller.

The column was called Dave’s Notebook and it was different from most other newspaper columns. For one thing it was sometimes pure fiction, made up character sketches and little stories. It contained factoids, quotes, quizzes, jokes, and sometimes even poetry.

Over the years, the Notebook was read by thousands of people and I heard from many of them. Some complained, of course, but most claimed to enjoy it a lot. I’m not talking about family and friends, but many people I barely knew or didn’t know at all.

I’ve selected a number of these columns to include in this book. I guess they are my favorites. They are mostly as they first appeared in print, but some changes have been made, mostly correction of spelling and punctuation. But sometimes, a sentence has been added or modified for clarification. In other words, some of the the columns have been altered a bit and hopefully improved. I’ve changed several of the titles. Why? Because I can!

This is another difference between collections of columns by most writers and this one. Most writers tend to re-print their old work exactly as it was written. Either they got it perfect the first time or—more likely—they are too lazy or too busy to revise. But a truth well known to all writers is that good writing almost always comes from rewriting. Even Shakespeare’s works could be improved by a rewrite. Certainly mine can.

The first Dave’s Notebook, which appeared in the Randolph County Herald Tribune on October 5, 1989, follows:

What is a story? the strange being from another planet wanted to know. He came to Earth, the planet most noted for stories, and looked for an answer.

He discovered that a story is a sacred living thing made up of cells called words. Stories are born and they die and they return; so they are, in fact, immortal. All stories are completely true and absolutely untrue, for truth is an ever-changing thing. Stories are what link one Earthling with another. They would surely perish without them.

Earthlings require oxygen, food, water, and stories to live. Each of these elements is essential to their well-being.

All Earthlings are a story, and each is a maker of stories. They make their stories the way their bees make honey. They must do it. An elite few specialize in it and serve as an inspiration to others.

Stories give meaning to life.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited, while imagination embraces the entire world.

—Albert Einstein

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Have you ever helped your child prepare for a spelling test? Personally, I’d just as soon be tied to a tree and left to die. Those poor simple minds agonizing over words till they can no longer remember how to spell their own names. They grapple with carefully prepared lists of words deliberately chosen to confuse and befuddle.

On the seventeenth try you cross your fingers and pray that this time he’ll get it right, as you say, initiative.

I-n, he begins promisingly; i, he adds reluctantly, as your heart begins to flutter; s-h, he says logically; and your nerves snap.

Your temperature soars, your breathing becomes rapid, your eyes are closed so tightly you see tiny points of colored light, and a headline jumps out at you: FATHER GOES BERSERK, STRANGLES SON, BEATS TEACHER TO DEATH WITH SPELLING BOOK!

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Red Skelton tells that his wife’s cooking is so bad she broke the dog of begging at the table.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The Ten Commandments was on television a while back. I first saw The Ten Commandments way back in 1956 on the gigantic screen at the old Skyview Theater, a Belleville drive-in.

My kids sat watching it on a portable TV in the family room, the parting of the Red Sea drastically reduced in wonderment.

One of the kids picked up the remote control gizmo and performed a modern miracle, rifling through the various channels. On one a rerun of The Dukes of Hazard was playing. Incredible car chases, leggy Daisy Duke, Boss Hogg … Moses on the mountaintop just didn’t compare.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

At the conclusion of the American Revolutionary War the British surrendered to (a) Washington, (b) Lafayette, or (c) Lincoln?

That’s right, Lincoln … General Lincoln, one of George Washington’s aides.

__________________________________________________

Well, that’s it. I include this column not because it’s one of my favorites and certainly not because it’s special, but because it was the first. Frankly, I believe most of the columns which followed were better; there’s a saying about practice making perfect, you know. And, while Dave’s Notebook never attained perfection, it did, I believe, become good reading.

One will notice, though, that the purpose of the column is revealed in this first effort: Stories give meaning to life. Thus, stories are important; also stressed was the need for imagination. To prove this point, I quoted one of the most brilliant mortal minds in history, one of the greatest minds—dare I say it?—imaginable. That, of course, was Albert Einstein. Speaking of Einstein, I think his best quote, possibly as brilliant as his Theory of Relativity, is this: Only two things are finite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.

Dave’s Notebook always made judicious use of great quotes. The Einstein quote about finite things was used in the February 28, 1991column.

In the beginning the columns contained a lot of snippets. Why? In the column for January 18, 1990, I answered that question:

The Sin of Prolixity

Today’s lesson is on the importance of writing short.

I have been asked once or twice why I write these snippets instead of writing an in-depth column? I write them because I want you to read them. Furthermore, they are in-depth essays. In my depth, at any rate.

The truth is I write short pieces because I want to avoid the sin of prolixity. Too many columns and too much of everything written are full of prolixity. In-depth doesn’t mean long. More isn’t necessarily better.

In show business they have a saying that writers should heed: Always leave them wanting more.

Long epic works are almost never well-written. But they seem to have required a lot of work. The fact, though, is that writing long isn’t easier than writing short. That’s why the most difficult writing tests have limits such as 25 words or less.

The best communication in the English language are traffic signs: Stop, Pass With Care, Detour Ahead.

You’ve probably taken essay tests. And, you’ve probably padded them. If you wrote a long enough, vague enough answer—without answering the question—you usually got some credit for the effort.

Many of us loved essay questions. We said we could B.S. them.

Hopefully you’re wanting more right now, because this is where today’s lesson ends.

__________________________________________________

For this book, I have edited some columns, using the best part and omitting the lesser material. Eventually, though, the columns began to be, more often than not, longer essays on a single topic. I suppose I gave in to the sin of prolixity.

In creating an anthology, one is confronted with two problems. The obvious one is selection, what to include, what to leave out. But, there’s a second dilemma as well—arrangement. How to present the selected material. I could take the easy route and place the columns in chronological order, but that has its drawbacks. Probably the best alternative is an arrangement of columns by related topics. That’s what better authors than I have done.

This approach, too has drawbacks. Many items, for instance, can be included in more than one category. How to decide where to catalogue an item? Eeny, meeny, miney, moe…

Besides Dave’s Notebook columns, I wrote a number of op-ed pieces for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and I have included some of those in this anthology, as well. I’m including, too, some articles that were published in Indiana’s Finest, the official magazine of the Indiana State Police, as well as lectures I used in classes I taught while a member of the Criminal Justice and Criminology faculty at Ball State University and the Administration of Justice Department at Southwestern Illinois College. Additionally, I have included some feature stories that I wrote for the Herald Tribune. I especially enjoyed researching and writing all these items.

I hope what you read entertains you. If it doesn’t, well, mum’s the word. You can always put a cheap price on it and sell it in a yard sale. I’m used to my work being sold cheaply; it was published in newspapers. I’m also used to having my work discarded. What do you do with a newspaper after you’ve read it?

Ah, but if you do like it, please recommend it to your friends. Heck, recommend it to your enemies for that matter; you never can tell, it just might turn them into friends, too.

Now read and enjoy.

Dave Morris

Tell Me a Story

I think that some of the most pleasant times are those when people gather together and swap stories. Everyone’s life is a collection of stories, some of them marvelous stories. Many of these stories are similar and yet all are different. And these stories should be shared.

It is not bread but storytelling that is the staff of life. Remember as a child uttering those wonderful words, tell me a story. It was how we learned, how we found answers to the imponderableness of life, how we made sense of the world. And we never truly outgrow that basic need.

My granddaughters love stories and love to have their parents and grandparents read to them. I guess most kids are like that. It is a real shame that there are kids who aren’t read to and told stories. I suspect they have a difficult time later on in their lives.

The need for stories is why we read, why we watch TV, why we go to movies, listen to the radio, visit friends, and enjoy music and art. It’s why we eavesdrop, why we gossip, why we open the mail, why we attend weddings and funerals and baptisms and banquets and reunions. It’s why we enjoy sports. It’s why we vote, why we work, why we have hobbies, why we take trips, why we worship, why we fall in love, why we go to war, why we laugh, why we cry, why we live. And it’s also why you’re reading this.

Stories are what we are. They are what make us human. We cannot live without them. Stories are a way of sharing information, sometimes the information that provides our survival. We’ve been sharing this information since man’s first appearance. Our ancestors told stories by drawing figures on cave walls.

People are capable of doing incredible things. People wantonly maim and kill and inflict great suffering and sorrow on one another. But, people make tremendous sacrifices even to the point of giving up their own lives for others.

People are funny, said Art Linkletter. Indeed they are. People are, in fact, characters in stories, whether or not they are aware of it, whether or not they want to be.

People do difficult things, for life is a difficult thing. People who do difficult things well are the protagonists of important stories. They are the heroes we crave. They give meaning to our lives—to our own stories.

…Dave’s Notebook, Randolph County Herald Tribune, April 17, 2008

Real People

As a reporter, I wrote for real people and I wrote about real people. Sometimes, those real people had achieved a level of celebrity, but mostly I wrote about people unknown outside the circulation area of the newspaper for which I worked and sometimes unknown by all but their families and neighbors.

When writing my column, I wrote about people, places and things that I found interesting. Sometimes, I made up people to propel a story. It’s my contention that people need stories, both true and fictional. If I could tell a story better by having it happen to a fictional person, why shouldn’t I?

But this section deals only with real people, not people I made up to tell a story to entertain or inform or impact readers. No, the stories in this section are real stories about real people. Honest!

Songwriters Jule Styne and Bob Merrill wrote a popular song entitled People, and in it they said that people who need people are the luckiest people in the world. Of course, as the stories in this section point out, all people need other people.

A Prettier World

Do you remember the story of Rip Van Winkle, the man who slept for 20 years? Van Winkle fell asleep before the Revolutionary War and awakened after it to a world changed drastically. He got into trouble right away by swearing his loyalty to King George III. A truly remarkable work and part of a collection of short stories by American author Washington Irving, published in 1819, it has inspired numerous stories with similar plots.

The other day I read about a modern equivalent of Rip Van Winkle. An amazing story that proves truth is stranger than fiction, or at least as strange.

Jan Grzebska, a railroad worker in Poland, fell into a coma in 1988 after sustaining head injuries. For 19 years he didn’t move or speak. Gertruda, his wife said, she would fly into a rage every time someone would say that people like him should be euthanized so they don’t suffer.

Doctors said he would not live, but Gertruda never gave up hope. She tended him at their home.

Last October he contracted pneumonia and was hospitalized. While undergoing treatment he began to show signs of recovery and two months ago he came out of the coma. He began to move and tried to talk. Over time his slurred speech became clearer and continues to improve daily. A rehabilitation specialist, Wojciech Pstragowski, is working with him and predicts that his patient will walk again one day soon.

Poland had a communist government when Grzebska went into his coma. He remembers empty shelves in stores and the harshness of life under communist rule. But he awakened to a Poland that in 1989 became a democracy and developed a market economy. The world is prettier now, he told reporters.

Of course it is. Socialism doesn’t work. This is obvious, and yet the liberals among us want to deny it.

There is one major change to the original Washington Irving story. In the original, Rip Van Winkle is loved by all but his wife, a nagging shrew. In fact, he wandered off to get away from her before falling asleep. If you want to know the rest of the story, go to the library and check it out.

At any rate, Gertruda Grzebska is nothing like Van Winkle’s wife. Pstragowski, the rehabilitation specialist, said that without the dedication of his wife, the patient would not have reached us in the shape that he did.

A weeping Gertruda told the Associated Press that she always believed her husband would recover. This is my great reward.

I was impressed by this story more for Gertruda’s devotion than for Jan’s eventual recovery. And her rage at those who proposed euthanasia reminded me of the Terri Schiavo story.

Surely you remember the incident when doctors, over the objections of her family, removed a feeding tube that kept a severely brain damaged Florida woman alive for 15 years. Unlike Grzebska, Schiavo was awake. But, according to specialists she wasn’t aware of anything. An appeal to prevent the feeding tube removal was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court.

There were mixed emotions after Terri Schiavo died of starvation. Some people felt it was a mistake and wondered what had happened to an America that revered the sanctity of life. Others felt that it was a blessing that the long ordeal for Terri Schiavo and her family was over and that America had come of age, valuing the right to die.

But one thing’s for sure; no one thought, the world is prettier now.

,,,Dave’s Notebook, Randolph County Herald Tribune, June 7, 2007

Editor’s Note: I found out about Jan and Gertruda Grzebska from a small news item that came across my desk at the Randolph County Herald Tribune office; it was more than likely from the Associated Press. At any rate I used the facts from the story and combined them with a reference to Rip Van Winkle and tied it, too, to the Terri Schiavo story for a good column. I loved the quote about it being a prettier world and just had to use it. I don’t know who wrote the original story but I am indebted to that writer for telling this couple’s remarkablestory. I hope I have done it justice.

Christopher Schwier Is a Survivor

When I told five year old Christopher Schwier that I had a granddaughter his age, he asked me if she had cancer. Many of the kids Christopher has known have had cancer. Many of them have died.

In 2003, when he was 23 months old, Christopher was diagnosed with neuroblastoma. It’s a cruel disease that strikes the sympathetic nervous system. It begins in very early childhood. It sometimes forms before birth.

A tumor was found on one of Christopher’s adrenal glands. The adrenals are found on top of the kidneys. The tumor had flattened out Christopher’s left kidney. He had to undergo chemotherapy to shrink the tumor before surgery could be undertaken. Then he had to undergo radiation after the surgery. His parents, Donnie and Lois, were told their son’s chances of survival were no better than 30 percent.

Christopher had a clinical trial procedure at the famed Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, receiving antibodies. He had four treatments every two weeks, followed by four treatments every eight weeks for two years. The treatments were excruciatingly painful, his mother said. His body rejected it.

Christopher was given medication which prevents him from remembering the ordeal. but he was aware of the pain at the time. It was very hard to watch, Lois Schwier said.

Today, he only remembers the good things, not the bad, she said.

But his parents remember it all. They remember the statistics, too. Forty percent don’t survive past the first year after diagnosis. Most die from the treatment, Lois Schwier said. Of those who do survive the first year, 70 percent relapse.

Christopher’s parents stayed at a Ronald McDonald House in New York City for a year. The National Children’s Cancer Society helped us a lot, Lois said. Another organization that did a lot was Corporate Angels, who provided things like flights and cab fare.

A smile lit up Christopher’s mother’s face when she spoke of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. They sent Christopher and his family to visit Disneyland and Universal Studios and a theme restaurant, Medieval Times, where they have jousting and princesses and a king, who met with Christopher.

Christopher was probably the only child to ever make the transportation a part of his wish and we got to return home on a train and sleep in sleeper cars, Lois said. The kids loved it.

Lois is grateful, too, to the community. So many people did important things to keep the other kids’ routines normal.

Lois is from California. She met Donnie, who is from Ava, while he was in the military. They have been married almost 18 years now. They live in Chester. Lois works for Kelly Services in, MO.

The couple have three other children, Amanda, 16, Aaron, 11, and Christopher’s fraternal twin brother Brandon. Aaron, who was only seven when Christopher was diagnosed, had some problems, according to Lois. The kids had just lost their grandfather to cancer and they thought the outcome was always death. Aaron thought the diagnosis applied to the whole family.

All the Schwiers have been changed by Christopher’s ordeal. You take things differently, Lois said. Little things don’t bother you.

She thinks the disease has made Christopher a better person. When his grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, he told her, It’s not so bad, Grandma. You only get ‘owies’ (Christopher’s word for injections) every once in a while.

The doctors don’t use the word remission, Lois said. They say Christopher is disease free. But most of the children with neuroblastoma do relapse. They can relapse up to 15 years after treatment.

Lois recalls visiting with another family of a boy with neuroblastoma they met during Christopher’s treatments.

Their boy relapsed and passed away. Most of the children we’ve met along the way have relapsed or died, she said.

We live on pins and needles every time he says he has a headache or anything hurts.

Lois remembers how after undergoing the treatments, Christopher wanted to get up and play. He didn’t know he was supposed to feel bad.

Today, Christopher has been left with a heart condition the doctors monitor, but he’s a normal five year old, according to his mom. he likes to fight with his brother and play with bugs. You wouldn’t know to look at him. . .

Lois Schwier didn’t finish the sentence. Instead she said she has found the names of survivors on the Internet. She expects Christopher to be one of those, an example, who doctors tell others parents about. I expect him to live a long and healthy life, she said and she smiled.

I had cancer, Christopher told me. I almost died, but the doctors made me better.

…Randolph County Herald Tribune, September 28, 2006

Hasta La Vista

If you’re at least fifty, maybe even a year or two younger, and grew up in the St. Louis TV viewing area, you’ll probably remember Harry Gibbs, who died Friday at the age of 91.

You’re probably wondering, Harry who? Right?

Maybe his real name doesn’t conjure up memories, but the name he used on his TV show will. He was Texas Bruce on the popular afternoon show, Wranglers Club. Gibbs was the head wrangler who talked into the camera to all of us wranglers in the viewing audience. He’d give us good advice and introduce segments of old Western movies from the 1930s and 1940s, starring Ken Maynard, Bob Steele, Hoot Gibson, Johnny Mack Brown, and other early cowboy stars.

Texas Bruce was almost like family to kids back when there were only a few channels on the TV dial. He made many personal appearances in the St. Louis area with his horse Trusty. His show ran Monday through Friday from 1950-1963.

He and his wife of 66 years, Jean, lived in Webster Groves, a St. Louis suburb. They had four sons and five grandchildren. He served as a Marine officer in the Pacific theater during World War II. After the Wranglers Club ended, Gibbs moved on to a career in advertising. He was also actively involved with the Red Cross.

There was a rumor that Texas Bruce lost his job after uttering a profanity addressed to his youthful audience, thinking the cameras were off. This urban legend has been said of any number of children’s show stars and is, of course, not true.

Gibbs was born in New Mexico and graduated with a degree in drama from Washington University. He worked in television and radio as a writer, director, and actor, following graduation. He went to work for Channel 5 as an announcer. TV was in its infancy then and stations were experimenting with the new technological phenomenon.

One thing the industry wanted to do was get an audience of children interested in the new medium. Reportedly, Gibbs’ Wranglers Club was a pioneering effort at children’s programming not just in St. Louis but across the nation.

Texas Bruce signed off each show saying, Hasta la vista, vaqueros. That was long before Arnold Schwarzenegger uttered what would become a classic movie line in Terminator 2: Judgment Day: Hasta la vista, baby, as he terminated a bad guy.

Literally, this Spanish phrase means until the seeing. Its popular meaning is something like our see you. A vaquero is a cowboy or wrangler. Gibbs said the saying meant, I’ll be seeing you, wranglers.

I’ll be seeing you was the title of one of the most popular and beloved songs of the World War II era. It was recorded by a singer with an incredibly sweet voice, who was immensely popular back in the 1940s and 1950s—Jo Stafford. She worked with the USO and gave countless performances to servicemen fighting overseas. She became so popular with service men they dubbed her GI Jo.

She, too, passed away last week. She died in California at the age of 90.

Gibbs and Stafford were members of what has been called The Greatest Generation, by Tom Brokaw. They are also examples of their generation’s greatness.

Perhaps, Harry Gibbs, listened to a recording of Jo Stafford on those far off islands in the Pacific and thought of his home in New Mexico and her I’ll Be Seeing You brought back memories of friends saying, Hasta la vista.

It may have just been his job at the time, but Harry Gibbs brought joy and entertainment to a lot of kids whose lives were enriched by his efforts.

…Dave’s Notebook, Randolph County Herald Tribune, July 24, 2008

A Bit of Sunshine

Some little girls are really special. They’re like sunshine. They brighten the day and warm the heart. Emily Marie Reiman was like that to those who knew her.

She died at Children’s Hospital in St. Louis Wednesday afternoon. She was twelve years old.

Emily was like sunshine, according to her teacher at Campbell Hill Elementary School, Cathy Roe. She always had a bright, sunny disposition.

Emily’s death was a surprise, she said. Emily had started the fourth grade but withdrew from classes due to illness. That was 26 months ago, so naturally there were concerns about her health, Roe said. Emily’s passing away was, very difficult for me personally.

Roe has taught for 26 years. Emily was a favorite, a sweet, loving child, she said. "It’s tough. It’s the first time I’ve lost a student. She’ll always