Today I was at Agway buying birdseed, when I walked in on a conversation between the cashier and her customer. "The news was so bad this morning," she was saying, "I don't know why I bother to put on the Today Show." He agreed and added, "It's only going to get worse with the unrest in the Mid East, terrorism you know," nodding like he knew we were going into RED ALERT at any moment now. The thing is that I was thinking these exact thoughts this morning. Why am I starting the day off with all this terrible news? Today's morning show was filled with graphic pictures of the victims of the earthquake, bloody, writhing in pain, and I thought back to 40 years ago when I would get up and have a cup of coffeee, not with the tv, but with the radio.

I had a little black portable radio, battery driven that picked up an AM station in Kingston, WGHQ. The radio sat on the kitchen counter, close by, while I made the kids' breakfast and packed their lunch bags. Bill Skilling was the show's host and he gave the news, the weather, and played music. The music was always the same..."Breaking Up Is Hard To Do", was played every morning - I don't know if that was a reflection of someone on the show, or the only record they had at the studio. The best part of the show came on 5 minutes before the hour. Bill would read the school lunch menus, making appropriate voices and sounds to go along with the food. For example, hamburger on a toasted roll would be said in a Jackie Gleason voice. Desserts were always good for a laugh, especially fruit cup, which he would pronounce, and then put his thumb in his cheek and make a ccccuuuupppp noise. That was the way to start the day, laughing with the radio, no visuals, nothing more dramatic than thinking of canned fruit mix being served to the poor kids as dessert.

I should have known back then that the newspaper and tv weren't for me. The songwriters were telling me so. Simon and Garfunkle said, "I get all the news I need on the weather report."
And really, that is all that I am interested in. Don McLean said it also, "Bad news on the doorstep, I couldn't take one more step." Timmy is always telling me I need a "News Fast", go a week or two without the news and see what happens...like a fruit juice fast or that cayenne pepper lemonade fast that people use. Maybe I'll try that, or see if I can find a radio stations that reads the kids' menus today.