The People Puzzle

I suppose I've been a communicator all my life. As a child I talked a lot. As an adult I put it to good use for seventeen years in sales and marketing. My friends always said I could probably sell refrigerators to Eskimos, which might explain the period of global cooling they are predicting. They also said that where I really belonged was on the radio. Now I know why.

At the tender age of thirty-eight I embarked on a new career and broke into broadcasting, both because it was a long standing secret desire and because everyone encouraged me so enthusiastically. As a good friend put it after I was on the air for a few years, "All this time we've been trying to figure out how to shut you up and now, with a simple ten-cent knob -- CLICK!"

Twenty more years, several radio gigs [mostly New York and Philly] and my own commercial production business have catapulted by since that observation and they've all been successful, so I guess somebody wanted to listen. Today I find myself happily living in the Southeastern U.S. with an incredible bride, a Goldendoodle who thinks he's a kid, a small spotted mixed breed, and a chatty parrot that seems to repeat everything except what you try to teach her.

Four children are a different story. A while back they joined forces to turn me into the world's youngest grandpa' and with eight grandchildren, I'm running out of knees to bounce them on. I still wonder who the heck that is looking out at me from the mirror ... and just realized I've reduced my entire life to a mere four paragraphs.

The kid living within, the stranger in the looking glass, and the blur of changes that have marked the march of time tell me that you and I may be experiencing many of the same feelings. That's why I'm grateful for this opportunity to share some thoughts with you that might help us both remember, to quote Maya Angelou, "Life should not be measured by the number of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away."

Life is good. Looking back, I wouldn't trade any of it for the world -- of course, no one has offered it yet.

FreD Masey