Well, today, I feel my 61 years!
Monday I felt brand new, like a 19 year-old college freshman taking on a behemoth 4-year higher educational program with the vim and vigor and innocent optimism of a David against Goliath.
Boy! The giant did its number on me, though, and am I ever so glad it’s Friday! Well, Friday morning at least! In the survival mode now, I’m staring down noon before I can make the coveted weekend R&R!
Being a history major and a journalism minor sort of guy I’ve learned one valuable lesson – whereas Dr. Lamb, and Profs. Getschow and Parisot, plus a host of other journalism advocates think the association is great, on the flip side of things the history gnomes seem to project a rather cooler demeanor toward the idea.
Journalism in history? Neigh, humbug! It’s too, what-do-they say, irreverent, academically unrefined, and stuffed with ruggedly independent free-spirits! Yes! That’s a redundancy of profound proportions!
And it’s true! But, hey! It’s fun and interesting! Something going on all the time! It takes a free-spirited buckaroo to mount the untamed mustangs of current events or history in the making. Monday morning, “arm-chair quarterbacking” (delineating history as some historians lovingly call it) has its place no doubt! But, not in the present tense, that’s for sure!
On the other hand, “arm-chairing” journalism sounds mighty good when you feel beat up and a tad old like I do today. That’s when the appeal for less action and more sedentary cerebral historical analysis from an “arm-chair” perspective becomes most tempting for us more seasoned gents. In other words, a weekend chilling out with one’s nose poked in a book about some enigmatic war back in the distant and dark ages of whenever as oppose to chasing that elusive Goliath of a marauding mustang news story.
Chilling ain’t all that bad, really! Especially if you use the time to prepare your play book for the next play-action encounter with reality in the rodeo of life.
Journalism and history, history and journalism – it makes no difference the order, I reckon. We need them both! Especially this guy, when the aches and pains of age become a bit too real to be ignored comfortably. Scrutinizing history from atop the corral fence moves the action to the brain and gives the old body a bit of a reprieve.
But, hey! The weekend’s upon us. A few days of rest does wonders for my perspective! Come Monday morning this old buckaroo will be ready to mount Goliath again for another bucking round!
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