Category Archives: Personal History

Miss America uses Google

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No big surprise, really. Almost everybody uses Google. But I was pleased to learn that even Miss America uses the same search engine I do. Katie Harman –Miss America 2002– was in town today promoting breast cancer awareness. I was on hand to record a public service announcement for one of our network advertisers. Miss America thought she was scheduled to record a TV PSA and seemed relieved to learn it was “just radio.” I mean, hell, she could have come down in her jammies with no make-up to do a radio spot. But she was as charming as you would expect Miss America to be.

According to the official Web site (“The World’s Leading Provider of Scholarships for Women”), 75 women have worn the Miss America crown in the Organization’s 82-year history (they explain the disparity). And it’s a tough gig. Katie told us she logs 20,000 miles a month, changing location every 18-36 hours. I asked if she takes a notebook computer with her on the road and she does. And she says she spends a lot of time online (she likes WebMD a lot).

Miss Harmon is 21 years old and hopes to “obtain an M.A. in Bioethics and ultimately work in health care management.” We did a little media thing and she answered some questions put by local reporters. All pretty serious, cancer-related stuff… so I kept quiet, except for the Google question. Here are the questions I really wanted to ask:

* During the Miss America Contest, did you call each other by your first names or by state?
* Do you keep in touch with the losers?
* How many squat-jumps can you do?
* Do you know where your senior ring is?
* When you go home for the holidays, do you get a lot of shit from your family? “Hey, Miss America! Get up here and clean up your room!” “Yo, Miss America! Bring me a ham sandwich.”

But I got caught up in the protocol of the thing. I mean, Jesus, she just voiced a PSA on breast cancer. I did suggest it would be funny if, at her next news conference, she waited until all the photogs got their cameras set up and then said, “Guys, I really don’t like having my picture taken.”

Do you know where your high school senior ring is?

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I have no idea where mine is but I do remember the last time I saw it. It was the summer of 1967 and I was playing the part of Og the Leprechaun in a community theater production of Finian’s Rainbow (Francis Ford Coppola directed a film version starring Fred Astair and Petula Clark the following year). I had a little thing for Shannon Murphy –who played the part of Susan the Silent– and my long-time girl friend caught us rehearsing lines during a break.

The confrontation was short but intense and punctuated by my (now ex-) girl friend throwing my senior ring back to (at?) me. The light outside the theater was poor and the ring struck me in the forehead, just above the eyes. Through the pain, I recall the sound of the ring ricocheting off into the night. I didn’t bother to look for it. Ten or twelve years later, I received a call from someone at my old high school, informing me that someone in New Orleans had found the ring and called the school in an attempt to locate the owner. I never followed up to retrieve the ring (I still had the scar), but I always wondered what happened to it between the time it bounced off my head and showed up in The Big Easy. I’ve often thought it might make a decent plot device.

This was my best and only senior ring story for many years and I think I tell it with some humor. But I recently heard a better one. Like mine, it starts in Kennett, Missouri, which is the home of Ford’s Hot Tamales. Kennett alums of a certain age will remember street venders selling Ford’s Hot Tamales from a steaming pot on the corner across from the Palace Theater. The tamales –and related products– were prepared from scratch at the family business there in Kennett. Family member and chili chef, Kenneth Ford, lost his KHS senior ring while whipping up a batch of Ford’s Chili. Like mine, his showed up years later… in a block of frozen chili (in Texas?).

Okay, so it’s not a great story. But there must be hundreds of stories like these. Wouldn’t this make a decent website? If such site exists, I haven’t found it yet. If you have, please let me know.

The Biology of Typing

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I didn’t take biology in high school. My mom called the school and told them she didn’t think I needed to take the course. Turns out she was right. But she insisted I take typing. We used real typewriters. Manuals. There were a few electic typewriters in the back of the room but they seemed too exotic and high-tech to use. Every week or so we had these “timed typing” tests to see how many words-per-minute we could type. There some kind of formula…total words minus number of errors, something like that. I quickly figured out that my best shot was to go wide open, with no regard to errors. I frequently had the best score for a document nobody could read. This was 1964 and computers and word processors were years in the future.

Twenty years later I started working with a guy named Bob Priddy. Bob was (is) a broadcast journalist, author and –in 1984– power typist. His “office” was a cramped, dusty corner of an attic in Jefferson City, Missouri. The digital newsroom was still a few years off and Bob hammered out his news stories on a battered old Royal typewriter. The floor and walls shook when Bob was on deadline. No IBM Selectric for Bob, he was a manual guy all the way. Bob “keyboards” these days. And if he doesn’t pound the keys as he did back then, it’s only because they couldn’t take the punishment.

I recently came across an article by Roger Ebert (In Cyberspace, Writing Is A Performance) that reminded me of Bob and his battered Royal.

“A few moments ago I took the L.C. Smith down from the shelf and tried to type on it, and found that I could not. It’s just so klutzy. My fingers have to travel so far and work so hard to depress a key. You have to manually return the carriage at the end of every line. You have to hit the Tab key to indent. My fingers are no longer trained to hold down the Shift key.”

I love email. I’m trying to get comfortable with Instant Messaging but it’s a struggle. Knowing the other person is sitting there (“Mays is typing you a message”), waiting for me to respond. I find myself drifting back to typing class (“Fuck the typos, I’m going for speed!”).

I don’t think they make manual typewriters any more. Seems like I read that some place. I’m tempted to add, “too bad” but I can’t say why. Sort of like me and biology.