Being the unbelievably generous father figure that I am, I took my family for a sumptuous lunch at a well-known fast food chain. It turned out to be not fast, but eventual, food, of which its arrival was not guaranteed.

Here’s how it went.

Wife (ordering for herself and son): 3 burgers, milk, small drink, 3 cookies

Me:  For me, chicken combo with nothing on the chicken.

Fast food clerk roughly the same age as a zygote: Uh, like a chicken and just like, the meat?

Me: Not JUST like the meat. The actual Meat!

Fast food clerk in-a-trance takes my money and disappears.

Several more customers surrender their orders to the Stepford Clerk and we all anxiously await our food while cooling our heels to the sound of crunching ice falling into  a paper vessel that will contain sugar or cancer-causing artificially sweetened soft drinks.

Five, six, seven minutes go by and the crowd of waiting customers is growing. Finally one guy steps up and asks for his money back because his starvation has now been replaced by apoplexy.

Our infant clerk turns around and says, “oh here’s your order. I forgot. Giggle giggle.”

“You can’t forget!” shouts the hungry man. “That’s not acceptable! You can’t just forget!” But he gamely takes his now ice cold burger and leaves.

Next guy is told his order is ready and it’s delivered on a tray.

“I told you it was to go!” the beaten down bearded burger orderer whimpers.

“Oh, yeah,” Kid Clerk says in her breathy Millennial voice.

“Well you have to listen!” urges the customer. “Who’s your manager? Oh, never mind. Never mind,” he mutters as he also trudges to his car.

It’s finally my turn, a full 10 minutes after my demanding “just the meat” order. Another clerk, this time a little boy who was even too young for zits just held up the tray and made eye contact with me.

“Yes, that’s mine” I assured him, but believing he’d give it to any schlub who put his hands out to take it off his. My wife’s milk was missing so I had to return to the counter to tell the original package of youthful protoplasm and she just glared at me with vacant eyes while reaching into the fridge for the little container.

As I’m getting some napkins another starving customer just smiled at me and said, “you should go to their other location. It’s really slow.” 

Let’s get the mea culpas out of the way. Two hours before the start of the CNN 35th Reunion, my wife and I made a recon run to check out the ballroom to see what kind of atmosphere we’d be walking into, but most importantly, to spy on the food setup to hopefully decipher what the organizers meant by “heavy appetizers.” That would make the difference between sneaking in a quick meal or taking our chances on the spread. There were enough chafing dishes and serving pieces to gamble on the quality and quantity of what they’d offer.

Feeling confident about the location and the expected comestibles we put on our party duds and returned ready to reunion-ize, or reunite, or drink some Reunite on Ice, so nice.

Before we could smudge the wet marker ink on our name tags I heard the call of “Ed!” I always joked to my mother that anyone with gas could yell my name. She always preferred the less acidic “Edward.” 
So began almost five memorable hours of answering to the call of my gaseous moniker, hugging talented and beautiful women, and shaking hands and hugging several “in touch with themselves” men with whom I’d been privileged to work at CNN over the course of 20 years.

I really never cared to attend reunions for several reasons. For one, I’m secretly quite shy but work hard to hide it. I was never “one of the guys” who kissed ass and slapped the boss on the back partially because of that affliction and partly, mostly, because I always thought those people were assholes covering up for their lack of talent or skills. 

But this was different. I gave it a lot of thought and decided if I’m going to attend a reunion, this would be it.

The word “family” has always been part of the CNN internal lexicon and this night was no different. My time at CNN was up and down and up and up and down and out.  But as anyone who worked there for any appreciable amount of time will tell you, while we were reporting on history we knew we were making it with the world’s first 24 hour television news network. Not a day went by you didn’t tell yourself you’re one lucky sonofabitch, even when you were frustrated about one decision or another.

With each “Ed!”. With each handshake or hug, the family connection we built over time was instantly renewed. Despite not having communicated with some former co-workers for 15-20 years, conversation flowed as naturally warmth in a blanket. The connection is that natural.

More than once I heard someone say our time at CNN, its heyday, was “lightning in a bottle.” But it was also thunder that rocked the status quo and changed the news business forever, with the promise to viewers they didn’t have to wait for third party accounts of major events, through live coverage, whenever it happened, they could be witnesses as well and judge things for themselves. 

No remarks hit home more than those of the great CNN anchor Bernard Shaw who challenged current employees that if they worked hard enough with enough dedication and skill, they could fill the shoes of those assembled at this reunion. Don’t take that as arrogance or ego. Take that as a blunt and accurate assessment of how far the standards have fallen.

My time at CNN ended on January 23, 2001. Wasn’t my choice. I was a victim, along with hundreds of others, of that awesome merger between AOL and Time Warner. I was told there was no longer a “role” for me. Perhaps. I went on to several wonderful and rewarding jobs since then. But I can tell you, the CNN brand on my resume’ helped open those doors. Why wouldn’t you want to reunite with that, and the peerless people who built the brand’s reputation. My active role in CNN ended in 2001, but CNN will always have a role in my life.

I will say, in closing, the bacon-wrapped scallops were sublime.

I’m reading the David Baldacci novel “Memory Man.” The main character has a condition, caused by a football injury to his brain, where he remembers everything that ever happened to him, everyone he met, every situation.

That’s a lot of crap to store in your cranium, but our brains seem to come with a pretty big grey matter drive on which to store things.

I don’t have that condition but I do have an inordinate ability to remember arcane details, yet I can’t remember someone’s name 20 seconds after meeting them.

For instance, I can remember routes and roads and directions in towns I’ve barely passed through. My CNN Detroit crew once named me “Rand” for mapmakers Rand-McNally.  The most extreme case was while we were passing through Findlay, Ohio. Chester, our videographer said he was hungry. “Oh, make a left at the next light. There’s an Arbys.”

Instead of thanking me for the tip, Chester’s face became all contorted as he semi-angrily says, “why! why the fuck would you know that? why would you know there’s an Arby’s in Findlay, fucking Ohio?”

“Oh,” I calmly replied. “we did a story there 10 years ago.”

“No!” yelled Chester. “No one remembers that stuff! That’s not normal! But I am in the mood for a roast beef, curly fries and a Jamocha shake.”

But this was actually normal for me and I used to joke that it would be great if our brains were equipped with spit valves, like trumpets. When you used a useless piece of information you’d been storing for too long, you pulled the valve and it left your brain and made room for new information. In fact, Chester and I didn’t even have to say it. When I spouted forth with such content, we both just looked at each other, reached behind our noggins and made a pulling gesture, as if we were activating our brains’ spit valves.

Oh, to this day, I’ll remember little incidents, colors, songs, phrases, situations that really never needed to be withdrawn from my memory bank. I can’t do it on demand. Something has to trigger it. Sometimes those recollections surprise and delight. Often times, however, the unwilling victim of my uncanny recall will roll their eyes and just say “spit valve.”

But to not have that mental spit valve, as someone with the condition described in “Memory Man” wouldn’t really bother me. Who knows. You never know when you’ll be in Findlay, Ohio again…and hungry.

When I was in the Boy Scouts, we also took part in the neighborhood Memorial Day parade. The parade was a mile long and included the Boy Scouts, Cub Scout, Girls Scouts, Brownies, Sea Scouts, police and VFW members, and of course, the school marching bands. We marched for 5 miles on our main drag in eastern Queens, Union Turnpike down to Hillside Avenue next to the Cross Island Parkway, to the VFW hall. We were about 1.5 miles from Belmont Raceway. Almost all of our fathers and grandfathers, and some moms and grandmothers, served in either WWII or WWI and we pounded the pavement just for them. It was hot and uncomfortable in those uniforms and several times we were tempted to doff our constricting neckerchiefs, but you don’t do that in a parade, especially one honoring our war vets. After all, being a little hot under the collar can’t compare to the sacrifice these brave souls made. By the time we trudged those last steps to the VFW hall some of the scoutmasters would tease us by saying, “OK boys, time to walk back home!” before they loaded us in the cars. But not before they went inside for a couple of cold ones…and we were stuck with soda. It was a great day.

I came across two stories this morning about uncommon longevity. There’s Jeralean Talley, a Michigan woman who is celebrating her 116th birthday this weekend, making her the oldest person in the world. Then there’s Mark Behrends, of Nebraska, a relative youngster at 110, certified as the oldest guy in the Cornhusker State.
These stories are always uplifting and you can’t help but feel great for these so-called Super Centenarians. The aspect that always fascinates me, however, is the section on why they think they’ve lived so long, aside from the obvious reasons of not standing in the path of an angry elephant, wandering blindfolded into a shooting range, or yelling Sean Hannity’s name in a crowd.
In Ms. Talley’s case, she cites the fact that she fishes once a year, bowled till she was 104, is happy and leads a pretty calm life.
On the other hand, Mr. Behrends is thrilled to claim he owes his longevity to his routine of quaffing a beer every day.
It got me wondering exactly what the secret to long life is because there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it, aside from the pragmatic theory, and probably the right one, that genetics has a lot of say in the matter.
In the past I’ve read stories of centenarians who brag they either smoked every day of their adult lives, had lots of sexual partners, did whatever the hell they wanted with no regard to how long they’d get to do it before their life’s curtain fell.
The textbook case of “it doesn’t matter” is that of the late Jim Fixx. His book “The Joy of Running” was credited with starting the jogging craze. Indeed, at age 52, while jogging, Fixx died of heart attack. Guess jogging’s not the answer.
Certainly there are things you probably shouldn’t do if you hope to lead a long life. The person mentioned earlier notwithstanding, smoking will kill ya. So will overusing any sort of drug or alcohol and allowing yourself too much stress, since that put a real strain on your heart and circulatory system.
It seems the common denominator here is simply feeling good about your life, doing what makes you happy, having loving people around you, and not falling victim to second thoughts.
For some that’s a pretty tall order, since many of us take great joy in being miserable, at least part of the time.
I really don’t know what the secret is but I’m not one to disregard results. So starting tomorrow I’m going fishing and bringing along some beer.

I would have given anything to sit behind the desk. Just once. Maybe I’d be good at it and they’d pay me to do it again. Or I would emulate Pat Sajak or Chevy Chase. I’d been a morning drive time radio announcer and thought I was funny. I wasn’t. My radio career was as successful as the electric fork. Even when I doubled the rating at my station in Tucson, Arizona, the jealous program director busted me back to afternoon drive time. I worked that shift for two weeks before jumping to television where I stayed for another 22 years.

It was at that first television job at KGUN, Tucson, where my talk show fantasy was exposed. I’d watched Steve and Jack and Johnny and even Joey…Joey Bishop. I love words. They each knew how to instantly choose the right ones. Not just the right ones to get laughs, but the right words and phrases as part of otherwise tedious repartee’ with starlets and harlots and egotistical actors and athletes. They were savants of the  extemporaneous enunciation.  Then there were the comedians who made their bones on those, and the Ed Sullivan shows. Woody Allen, Mort Sahl, George Carlin, Myron Cohen. Words. Perfectly lined up.

So it was the spring of 1980 when I found a guy named Franco Damonico. He worked at local car dealership and had broken the Guinness World Record for number of jobs held by one person. It was something like 367. That was a viable feature by itself. But Franco was more than a serial employee, he was a character He had bushy, salt and pepper hair and a personality that sucked you in so you couldn’t say “no.” To show you how well a car he was trying to sell you was taken care of, he’d flamboyantly pop its hood, remove the radiator cap and take a dropper from a bottle marked “Vitamin E” and drop some of the liquid, probably just water into the radiator.  “See!,” he’d announce with his devastating smile. “We treat it with the love vitamin so you know it’ll love you back!”

Whatever. He was entertaining and made a good subject. So much so, for my grad school magazine writing class I decided to conduct a much more in-depth interview with him.

So we sat around for a couple of hours in his tiny office in a trailer at the dealership on Tucson’s busy Speedway Blvd. In the course of the interview we traded fantasies. His fantasy was to make as many people happy in the world as he could. That’s why he changed jobs so often–to meet people and make them happy with his always completely-full outlook on life. I mentioned I’d give anything to be the guest host just for one night on the Tonight show. Then we moved on with the interview and I never gave it another though. It was just two guys bullshitting.

About a month later an envelope show up in my mailbox. The return address was just a giant “Tonight.” Did someone send me tickets to the show? That would be cool.

Then I opened it to find the letter shown here. It was basically a very gentle rejection note thanking me for my interest in being making an “appearance” on the Tonight show and but after “consideration” I didn’t make the cut.  I couldn’t figure out what was going on until I remembered my conversation with Franco Damonico. So I called him.  “Yeah!” he laughed. “I told you. I like to make people happy and I wanted your fantasy to come true! Sorry it didn’t work out, you woulda killed!”

Well..I don’t know about that, but I would have taken that shot in a heartbeat. My first guest would have been Franco Damonico. Wonder what he’s doing. I hope it something that makes him happy.

There was a rather long story in today’s Detroit Free Press about the slow demise of bowling in this country. This makes me said for a few reasons. For one, where else can you rent an item of clothing that tells the whole world what big feet you have. Nothing like taunting Big Joey who stuffed his oversized dogs into a pair of size 13’s straining the laces to the point of stripping the aglets from the ends. We all knew he wore size 13’s because it said so on the back of his shoes.

The first place I ever bowled was a place on Long Island called New Hyde Park Lanes. It’s where my father played in a league and it was pretty hot stuff that he had his own ball and didn’t have to slum it by using one of those hundreds of anonymous scratched, black balls on the racks. New Hyde Park Lanes never bothered to modernize. The ball return was a track along the surface between lanes, not the standard underground return. Until we were big enough to handle a regular bowling ball we were banished to the arcade version in the corner near the bar that used smaller duckpin type balls that had no finger holes. It was a big day where dad declared us ready to throw gutter balls using a real bowling balls where you stuck in your fingers after glopping sticky stuff on your thumb so it didn’t slip out. I actually still have an old jar of that stuff. See photo.It’s long been petrified.

In our neighborhood of eastern Queens near the NYC/Nassau County line, the biggest bowling even was the opening of Sterling Bowl. It was completely underground–56 lanes and thorougly modern. The only thing above ground was a small entry building. To get down to the lanes was a cascading open staircase or an elevator. This place had it all. About a billion balls to choose from, shiny, laquered lanes and an awesome bar and bartender named Jimmy.  As we got older Jimmy and his bar became a more important aspect of our Sterling Bowl visits than the actual bowling alleys. Jimmy liked us and bought us free drinks for every two we paid for and he provided a constant supply of salami and crackers.  When I’d tell my mother the gang and I were going to Sterling she’d say, “Bowl well!” Except we never set foot on an alley or threw a frame. We did score with Jimmy, enjoying the free drinks and snacks we earned by tipping him well.

Here’ in Michigan, my son and I enjoy bowling a few times a  year at a fine establishment in Commerce Township called Wonderland Lanes. My son has autism and the owners of Wonderland are huge supporters of autism awareness and hold fundraisers there a few times a year. One time the late owner took such a liking to my son he let us bowl for free. This is the part of bowling I hate to lose.  Bowling centers, or alleys or lanes, or whatever you want to call them aren’t just places to participate in bowling, they’re community gathering spots, safe places to meet friends, make new ones, grab a beer and relax. No pressure. It’s nice to see some perceptive business owners incorporate bowling alleys into their restaurants and movie theaters, but the traditional neighborhood bowling barns are headed for their final frames, according to that story in the Free Press. Let’s hope not.

I still use the bowling ball and bag my late father bought from a store in Manhattan forced to close when they grabbed the land to build the World Trade Center. It has his initials embossed in the ball. I may not ever bowl 300, but every time I use it I love knowing my fingers were where his were.

But that’s bowling. A heavy ball you stick your fingers in, rolling down the alley, aimed at knocking down those 10 pins., getting high fives and maybe a kiss from your girl if you succeed.  A simple game that only required a ball, some friends, a beer close by and shoes that gave away your size…and a bartender in the lounge who may buy you back a few drinks and set up some free salami. We can’t lose that.