Dan Valentine – Back to Nashville

May 20, 2010

By Dan Valentine

Back to Nashville and my first night homeless. I’ve got four hours to kill until the doors of Operation Stand Down open.

Lots of time on my hands. What to do? I pace up and down. I stomp my feet. It’s cold. I mean, COLD! My clothes are sopping wet from the sleet and the cop-escorted stroll. The wind is blowing. I watch an empty beer can chase a skittering Big Mac wrapper across the empty parking lot. A lone bird flies by in the night. The cop car cruises by, oh, so slowly ever so often. Just checking. I pace up and down. I stomp my feet. I curse under my breath. Sheeeesch! Fcccccccck! Criss’almighty! I’m chilled to the bone.

I think about my beloved bestest friend in the entire universe.

She’d been homeless!! In New York. Rode the subway nights. When I met her, in D.C., she was staying with a friend from Florida. They’d attended the University of Florida together. She had no hair! Shaved bald as a billiard ball, as they say. Punk as they get. Tough cookie! But beautiful!

In New York, she got by working “shit jobs”. Her words. One was dressing up as a clown and handing out brochures for some coming attraction. A soon-to-be circus in town. Can’t remember.

At one job, at closing, the manager, a male, said he’d give her a ride home. He drove to an isolated, abandoned strip mall, ill-lit, parked the car. Scary stuff. She took out a knife and started slashing the interior. Overhead, seats, door paneling. He fumbled his way out of the car and ran for his life. Very lucky guy! She’s a tough cookie. A patrol car finally came along and the officer gave her a ride home.

We hit it off from the beginning. I made her laugh. She made me smile.

She moved in with me. I had just bought a condominium in Alexandria, VA. One bedroom. I was working for Hatch. Over time, her hair grew. My dad would have loved her. She resembled Marilyn Monroe. Everyone thought so. Friends called her Norma Jean. In D.C., there’s a tall brick building with a huge mural of Marilyn painted on. We caught a cab once. The driver passed by it and pointed it out to her. “Look. Look. That’s you. That’s you.”

My mom met her a few years later at a Thai Restaurant. My friend ordered for us. My mom and I didn’t touch a bite. We had never had Thai food before. Now, I can’t live without it.

After meeting her, I asked my mom what she thought of her. She said, “She’s perfect!”

I said, “She’s the most beautiful woman in D.C.” And she was.

My mom agreed. “I studied her every feature,” but added, “She’s more than beautiful. She’s nice.”

And that she is. She gave me my moral compass. I didn’t have one before I met her. She opened my eyes. She gave me my love for dogs. I’m a vegetarian now (when I’m not desperately hungry). She gave me my present political and religious views. She believes if this is it–life, that is (and that could very well be!)–we have to help each other get through it.

She spends much of her time saving bugs from drowning in our pool.

We’ve seen much of the world together. After D.C., we moved to Tribeca in lower Manhattan. (The Twin Towers were only a stone’s throw away.) We’ve traveled together to Amsterdam (many times), Paris, Nice (where she sunbathed topless), Cologne, Monte Carlo.

Here in the U.S.: New Orleans, Minneapolis, Des Moines, the list goes on and on.

Once, we drove from Iowa City to Oxford, Ms., to New Orleans to Biloxi to Mobile to Tampa. In between, in the middle of the night, semi-lost and famished, we stopped at a little backwoods market, at the end of a dark swamp road in northern Florida. The place was run by two very old women. Scary-looking, a tooth or two missing. The walls were plastered with photos, magazine covers, newspaper clippings, and movie posters of Johnny Depp. We picked up a couple of sodas and sandwiches, something for the dogs (we had three then), and went to the register and one or the other said, very slowly: “Do. You. Like. Johnny. Depp?”

Both of us looked at each and we were both thinking the same thought: Gawd, are we in trouble! Wrong answer and we could end up at the bottom of the swamp. What to reply? We were thinking of the dogs. We didn’t want them to end up sandwich meat.

We told the truth. “We love Johnny Depp.” She smiled, pleased, and we went on our way.

We’ve separated from time to time, to do what one or the other has to do. She went back to school in Florida. Got her masters in philosophy. Got accepted to a top-ten university in the mid-west. Got her Ph.d. (Her thesis was picked up by a publisher and has since been translated into German.) She speaks Latin. She’s a member of Mensa. She wants to swim the English Channel. She swims daily four hours day, without stopping.

I could go on and on.

Looking back, the only truly good thing I did when I had lots of money was help her to get her degree, and then only a tiny bit.

Standing at the entrance way of Operation Stand Down, freezing, lonely as hell, scared half to death, shaking, I thought of my friend. And I wrote. Words to a tune in my head. A song.

Most or all lyrics by themselves without music read flat. But here goes anyway:

WARM ALONE
(c) 2009 by Daniel Valentine

When clouds, amassing, grumble and groan
And drench, in passing, the cobblestone–
Dripping head to toe,
And with blocks to go,
Thoughts of you as buckets fall
Warm body, heart, mind, soul, and all
With what I call
A WARM ALONE.

When winds, mos’ bitter, whistle and moan
And leaves and litter are tossed and blown–
Looking up to see
Birds on wire flee,
Thoughts of you as gales brawl
Warm body, heart, mind, soul, and all
With what I call
A WARM ALONE.

Whenever the weather is stormy,
Thoughts of you seem to warm me.

Tho’ it has been a while or so
Since I saw you last,
Thoughts of you bring a smile, a glow;
And the spell you cast–
Call it whatever you will–
Warms me as if it is still July
And you are here close nearby.

When lines are down, both power and phone,
With folk and town both chilled to the bone–
Huddled by a door
Of a vacant store,
Thoughts of you–snow, sleet, or squall–
Warm body, heart, mind, soul, and all
With what I call
A WARM ALONE.

A little before seven in the morning, veterans began appearing. An older gent in a wheelchair. Another with a limp. Young, old, and in between. All in great need of help. A counselor with a key opened the door. We all walked inside. Coffee!

Editor’s note:  I’m running behind in getting Dan’s stuff moved from comments to posts.  I’ll catch up soon.  Read ’em where you find ’em.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Dan Valentine – My Dad’s dream

May 17, 2010

By Dan Valentine

My dad’s dream was to be a reporter. His dad was one, for the Detroit Free Press. He adored his dad. His mom? That’s another story. He loved her, but, well, she was a Roaring Twenties flapper. But I’ll leave that tale for another time.

After the war, my worked for AP/UPI or both in a couple of mid-western towns.

Lincoln, Neb., was one. Got room and board at a minister’s home. Wasn’t much to do in Lincoln back then. After work, he’d buy a pint of bourbon and polish it off alone in his room at night. One problem: What to do with the empties? Couldn’t put ‘em in the garbage. It was a minister’s home, for Christ’s sake! So he hid ‘em under the bed, in chest of drawers, etc.

God knows what the minister thought or did with ‘em after my dad left.

He got a job at the Rapid City Journal in South Dakota–my dad, not the minister. Met my mom. Married. I was born.

My mom’s dad was so taken with my dad’s writing that he offered to support him while he wrote the Great American Novel. But, oh no, my dad wanted to be a newspaperman like his “ol’ man.” He applied for a job at the Denver Post and The Salt Lake Tribune. Got offers from both. Took the Tribune job. Who knows why? He had spent a couple of days in Salt Lake after the war and had gone on his way, unimpressed.

The year was 1949, the month June. I was going on two.

He loved his job, so much so that on the side without pay he began writing a weekly humor column called “Nothing Serious.”

It was so popular he began writing it daily, for free, all the while reporting full-time.

All this time, Jack Paar is writing him letter after letter telling him to come to New York. He’s got an idea for a late-night show.

But, oh no, my dad had a love affair with the newspaper profession.

Cut to: flipping calendar pages. November, December, 1950, 1951 …

An older, experienced reporter, Chinese-American, forget his name, took my dad under his wing. Taught him the business. Once the two were at the Utah State Prison. Some function. Lunch was served. My dad would dip his fork to take a bit and my dad’s mentor would kick him under the table. My dad dipped his fork again. Another kick. He finally got the message. Later, his mentor said, “You don’t know what inmates have put in the food.”

Another time they were covering a story at the Hotel Utah. Governor J. Bracken Lee was there, other VIPs. A luncheon. A waitress came around with a pot of coffee and my dad picked up his cup, which was turned down on the table, to have some. His mentor kicked him under the table again. My dad put the cup back, upside down.

His mentor whispered in my dad’s ear that if you left your cup upside down, it signaled to the waitress that you preferred whiskey–liquor being a major no-no back then). And, damned, if the waitress didn’t make a second trip, after serving those who wanted coffee, with a pitcher of bourbon for those with other tastes.

Cut to: the week of July 26, 1953. My dad calls some law enforcement agency to check a fact for some minor story. Gets put on hold. Gets put back on line and finds himself on a conference call with local police and the feds. At dawn, Arizona state police officers and others were going to raid Short Creek, a settlement of some 400 Mormon fundamentalists. He listens to all the details. Goes to the city editor. Tells him. The city editor goes to the managing editor. Tells him. And the managing editor assigns a reporter to cover the story. Not my dad. Some other reporter!

From Wikipedia: Short Creek. July 26, 1953. The largest mass arrest of polygamists in American history. 263 children were taken into custody. Big, big story, nationally, internationally

The result: My dad never wrote another news story for the Trib. To hell with ‘em! He concentrated on the column.

Where am I going with this? Victor Buono and my dad and their friendship and this website, believe it not.

To be continued …

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Dan Valentine – Salt Lake City

May 16, 2010

By Dan Valentine

No tale of trial and tribulation today.

These past many years, I’ve been writing lyrics, a trunk full, concentrating on what they call “money” songs–holiday songs, city songs. One hit Christmas song and you can retire for life, or so they say; same goes for a hit New York or San Francisco song.

There are only a handful of Salt Lake songs. John Lange, the father of Hope Lange, the actress, wrote one: “I Lost My Sugar in Salt Lake City.” Johnny Mercer recorded it and made it a hit for a time. The Beach Boys had a hit with “Salt Lake City.”  And that’s about it.

They say write what you know about. So, here goes. I wrote it pacing up and down Jamaica Beach, TX. I had the series “Big Love” in mind.

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH!
(c) 2010 by Daniel Valentine

Salt Lake City! SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH!
As nice a town as any ever you saw …
Lovers zig-zag down the slopes and embrace.
I put my bag down and said, “This is the place!”

Salt lake City! SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH!
I found the sweetest angel ever you saw.
When I walked by ‘er, she smiled and I swear
Hymns from a choir singin’ filled the town square.

Lost my last buck
Shootin’ craps in Las Vegas.
Thought I’d run plumb outta luck,
But I rolled a seven
When I hitched a ride
To a suburb of heaven.

Salt Lake City! SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH!
Of all the happy fellas ever you saw,
Sisters and brothers, I’m lovin’ my life,
Tho’ unlike others I’ve got only one wife.

Lost my last buck
Shootin’ craps in Las Vegas.
Thought I’d run plump outta luck,
But I rolled a seven
When I hitched a ride
To a suburb of heaven.

Salt Lake City! SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH!

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Dan Valentine – The Law

May 16, 2010

By Dan Valentine

Where was I? Oh yes, the law!

I came to Nashville with a trunk full of songs–just like in the movies–plus a screenplay, a short story or two, and some summer clothes. And my resume.

I was staying at the Music City Hostel. Free waffles and coffee. $600 a month! Not bad! Embassy Suites is some $150 a night, if you’re lucky. I know. I stayed there my first night in Austin. Free breakfast, free cocktails at night, well, y’know …

Back to Nashville.

A few days before running out of money, I read a story in the local paper about an organization called Operation Stand Down, a group that looks out for honorably discharged veterans in need–in particular, those homeless or about to be.

I looked up the address and walked to their headquarters, several miles away, and was greeted with open arms, as is every vet in need.

Earlier in the day, I had asked the owner of the hostel if he could store my suitcase for me for a time. He said sure, but only for three months. That was nine months ago. I’m afraid to inquire about it.

Back to Operation Stand Down.

I told a counselor my story: onetime daily humor columnist, former special assistant to a US Senator, onetime member of the BMI Musical Theatre workship in New York, etc.

We hit it off and he offered me a bed in his home until his wife returned. She was out of town visiting relatives or friends. I stayed three nights. In a bed in a room of my own! It had been awhile. (At the hostel I was sleeping in a bunk bed–the top berth is murder to get into when you’re over 60–in a room with several others.) Then his wife called, said she was returning early. She was just a few hundred miles away, in fact.

He let me off in the parking lot of Operation Stand Down, giving me some survival pointers, one being: “Don’t go to the Mission.” (A refuge for homeless to sleep the night and get a meal.) “You’re not ready.”

I walked down to Vanderbilt University, spent the day in a bookstore reading a hefty Stephen King novel. I had the time.

That night, now homeless and penniless, I stayed up all night in the cafeteria of Vanderbilt Hospital, writing.

Second day, back to Stephen King.

Second night I returned to Vanderbilt Hospital and the cafeteria, writing, where a cop asked me why I was there. I told him my wife’s grandfather was in surgery.

Third day. The book store and Stephen King. Then back Vanderbilt Hospital. I hadn’t slept now going-on three days. I was exhausted. I went outside and found a fairly hidden place in the bushes, took my sport coat off, laid it on the ground, and tried to sleep. Impossible. The spot I had picked was right where the medical helos were landing and taking off. What a nightmare–soundtrack straight from a Vietnam flick.

I donned my coat and returned to Vanderbilt Hospital, roamed the halls, found the cancer ward. There were chairs and couches with some thirty people sleeping and waiting for the outcome of a loved one’s operation or something.

I found an empty chair, took my sport coat off for a blanket, and went fast to sleep.

Cut to close-up of boot nudging me awake. I opened my eyes to find three cops staring down at me, one in riot gear–helmet, billy club, gun in holster, etc. (in case of a terrorist attack, I guess.)

I sat up and said, “I’m-a-Vietnam-vet-I-have-two cents-to-my-name-I-haven’t-slept-in-two-days-I-haven’t-eaten-in-three.” (That last was a lie. I’d had more than my share of complimentary oranges at the downtown Marriott.)

What gave me away? I had forgotten to brush the leaves off the back of my coat, I was that tired, and someone doing his/her civic duty must have called the cops.

I was led downstairs and interrogated. One of them was the guy I had lied to the night before. A nice guy, he didn’t take offense. Finally, after an hour or so, they said they’d drive me to the Mission. I said, “I’m not going to the Mission. I was told not to go the Mission.”

It was three in the morning now. To make matters worse, it had started snowing. Cold as hell outside.

I mentioned Operation Stand Down and said I’d go there, and off I went into the night, in the freezing cold, snow coming down. A cop car followed closely behind, making sure I went to where I said I was going.

I stood in front of the entrance of Operation Stand Down for some four hours, in the freezing sleet and cold. I can’t remember being so cold. Every once in awhile the cop car would drive by, checking on me.

Welcome to Nashville. Welcome to the real world, as they say!

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Dan Valentine, just rambling

May 14, 2010

Ever so often my dad would write a column tagged “JUST RAMBLING”, bits and pieces of off-beat facts and observations and tidbits, a little this, a little that …

Hence, today, “JUST RAMBLING:

To save money, when I had a little, I had a routine in Nashville. I would walk downtown to the Marriott, pour myself a free cup of hospitality coffee, and put a free hospitality orange or two in my pocket.

One morning I’m standing on a corner by the Marriott, peeling an orange, in my own little world (my friend calls me The Man Who Isn’t There; inside my head I’m always writing), when it dons on me that the street is jam-packed with bystanders gathered around watching a bench being hosed down.

I asked a cop what was up, and he told me somebody had put a couple of bullets into the body of a homeless man sleeping there.

Whaaaat?!!

A few days later a homeless man sleeping in a dumpster was found burned alive. Someone or three had poured kerosene on him and lite a match.

I googled “homeless” “murders” a couple of months ago and found a website–can’t remember what it’s called–listing murder after murder, day after day, of homeless people all over the country. With pics! It doesn’t make the nightly news. Cable is all commentary now, little news. They don’t want to upset the viewing public, I guess …

When I was in Austin, there was a story in the local paper about the many people who would back up their pick-ups and dump their trash into Lake Lady Bird.

I don’t get it.

I stayed a month in Jamaica Beach, down the road from Galveston, by a canal. I’d be sitting on the porch and every so often someone in a pick-up would back up and–you guessed it–dump his/her trash into the canal.

I don’t get it.

In Nashville, this past September, when classes first started at Vanderbilt, I’m walking down the street and a young college kid with a beer in his hand, chugs the contents and tosses the empty on the sidewalk before walking into a bar. He was two feet from the door. He could have just as easily put it in the trash inside.

I don’t get it.

But bless their kind!

The first day I was homeless, I’m walking down the street in front of Embassy Suites when I happened to look down and see a discarded room key-card on the ground.

Thank you, thank you. Bless you, bless you.

From that moment on, I ate very well. Eggs and ham and bacon, hash browns, coffee and cream, orange and tomato juice, fresh fruit …

At night I would go to the free cocktail hour for a couple of V.O.’s-and-water. The first few days the bartender on duty would ask me if I was a guest and I’d show my key-card. But, after a week or two, the bartenders simply poured me drinks.

Funny. It’s a cognitive thing. The more they saw me, the more important and successful th thought I was. Only a big music exec with a large expense account could afford to stay at Embassy Suites that long.

I was dressed well. A blue sport coat, pressed shirt and slacks, polished shoes, neatly-trimmed hair.

Then reality sets in. The shoes start to show their wear and tear. Your shirt and pants begin to wrinkle. Your hair grows and starts to look unkept, and, well …

To be continued.

Tomorrow, the night I was awakened by the police, hands on holsters …

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Dan Valentine – Homelessness

May 11, 2010

By Dan Valentine

Everywhere in America now you’ll see homeless pushing shopping carts filled with their last remaining possessions.

Yesterday I saw a disheveled-looking older gentleman, straggly-hair and all, right out of one’s worst nightmare, pushing a wheel barrel down a very busy highway here in Ensenada, two large black plastic bags filled with his remaining stuff.

Very, very sad.

He would push it, rest for a moment, then push it some more, going somewhere/nowhere with it.

Humans! We’re collectors.

When my friend and I sold our home in Texas, and I went off to Austin to start anew, we had a garage sale. Paintings, furniture, knickknacks, etc.

On a table in the driveway, we laid out trinkets. I had a large bag of refrigerator magnets from almost every place I’ve ever been. Vietnam, Scotland, New York, Philadelphia, South Dakota, Denver, St. Louis, New Orleans, Paris, Rome, Barcelona, Capri, Berlin, D.C., Geneva, Amsterdam, London, Glasgow, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Japan, Guam, Micronesia, Belize, Cuba (twice), Charleston, Seattle, Las Vegas, etc. One time my friend and I were in Kansas City. I had her drive me across the border to get an Arkansas magnet. It really irked her. To this day I hear about it.

Well, anyway, an older woman purchased them all for $5 and came by the next day to say how much pleasure she had had that night. She had laid them all out on her living room carpet and simply looked at them, and it gave her great joy.

Where is this going? When I left for Austin, I had to put all my personal effects in storage. Some 60 boxes.

(When we bought the house in Friendswood, the movers came with my stuff–it had been in storage in Salt Lake–and my friend didn’t talk to me for three days.

In Nashville and Austin, I was paying $64 a month for storage. When I became broke, my friend picked up the tab for a while. Ron, at the Music City Hostel in Nashville, picked up one month for me, tho’ he looked at me bewildered as if to say: Why are you hanging on to it? You’re old, broke, homeless, your life is over.

Anyway, when my friend bought a place, and I returned to Houston, we got my stuff out of storage.

Two weeks ago–two days before I was to leave again–she said her I had to do something with my boxes or her parents, who were moving in, would.

What to do? Get a grocery cart? A wheel barrow?

The boxes were filled with files. My dad’s letters to me when I was in Vietnam, my mom’s letters to me, photos, all my by-lines, hundreds of thousands of words I had written and had been honing for decades. Plays, songs, screenplays, musicals, my dad’s unfinished shorts stories, poems, etc. Everything I treasured. Every piece of writing I had been working on and polishing for years. I went through each file in each box the first day, thinking to my self, “Well, I can’t throw that away. I can’t throw that away. I can’t throw that away.”

Next day, with no time remaining, I had to toss it all. Three car trips to the dumpster down the road.

Earlier that week I had to sell all my books. One signed by Richard Nixon, a hundred or so first edition books of musical plays. One I had paid $65 for. At Half-Price Books, I got $85 for ‘em all. There’s not a big market for bound musical plays in Texas!

After tossing everything, my friend said: Don’t you feel like a gigantic weight has been lifted off your shoulders?” Noooooo! But she knows how I feel. As I kid, she moved a lot and she was forced to give up everything through the years as a result. She has a few cherished photos from her childhood, and that’s it!

I’m slowly getting over my grief of losing everything, tho’ in the middle of the night, I’ll wake up and go, “Oh, no! I threw that away? Oh, my god, I tossed that?”

People lose everything all the time. In fires, earthquakes, in wars. You move on. I guess.

I have a small travel bag. I have my laptop. Hopefully, some of the printed stuff I tossed is on my computer. I’m afraid to look.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Dan Valentine, May 10, 2010

May 11, 2010

By Dan Valentine

What an enjoyable time I had yesterday. I hadn’t written off the top of my head–without rewriting and rewriting, polishing and polishing (taking all the life out of it)–and pushed “submit” in years, if ever.

It was so gratifying I asked Ed if he’d permit me to write a daily (or sporadic) piece on his website, about my adventures; how someone like me, or anyone, can become homeless; how you lose a million bucks; about my dad and mom and sister and brother; my years with Sen. Hatch; working for the Tribune; my years in New York, my travels; the times; my two marriages; my beloved friend in Houston; my love for dogs, etc. I have just enough–well, not quite–social security coming to travel from town to town, hostel to hostel, state to state …

And he said go ahead.

So here goes. No polishing, no rewriting, no editor (this could be a mistake). So forgive the grammar and spelling and typos. I reread yesterday’s comment and found the word “message” typed instead of “massage”.

Where to start?

My dad was a genius. IQ-wise. During World War II, he served in the infantry. Got malaria storming Guadalcanal. Sent to Suva to recuperate. Become editor of the South Pacific News. Wrote for Armed Forces Radio. Became good friends with two fellow soldiers. Together, the three had dreams of conquering Hollywood. One’s name was Jack Paar. Yeah, that Jack Paar. The other was Hy Averback, who produced “F Troop” and directed “MASH.” After the war, they got together in Hollywood, but my dad’s dream was to be a newspaperman. His father was one. So he left Hollywood to become one. My dad was born in Saginaw, Mich., and the state of Michigan gave a free car to every returning veteran or something like that. My dad drove to Las Vegas, decided to see if he could double his money. Lost the car, hitchhiked to Salt Lake. Looked around. Decided he didn’t want to stay there. Got a job in Nebraska with UPI or AP. Can’t remember which.

Back to the IQ-story. He got in an argument with an officer over something, words were exchanged. My dad said he was a stupid son-of-a-bitch or something like that and could prove it, spotting him 10 points on an IQ test. And the officer wrote him up for it. He was found innocent when an officer upon hearing the story said, “There’s no law against an enlisted man thinking he’s smarter than an officer.”

Which reminds me of another story. As I said, my dad was editor of the South Pacific News, and one night he got a call from another officer to deliver a paper to him, hot off the press. My dad said, “I stopped delivering papers when I was ten,” and hung up.

A few minutes later, an admiral showed up and said, “Who said?”

It was Admiral Halsey.

My dad meekly said, “I did, sir.”

And Halsey supposedly said, “That was a damn good answer, son.”

My point being? How does someone like me, with more than a million bucks at one time, become homeless? The answer is: My dad was a genius. His first-born son ain’t!!!

Tho’ my dad has been wrong about some things. He used to say, “I’ve never been rich and I’ve never been poor. I’ve had the best of both worlds.”

Joe E. Lewis used to say, “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. Rich is better.”

My dad was wrong. Joe E. Lewis was right.

Tho’ I would not trade this experience for anything in the world.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Found thoughts: Dan Valentine, Jr.

May 11, 2010

Some months ago I wondered about a guy who wrote a column for the Salt Lake Tribune, before we were colleagues on the Senate staff of Sen. Orrin Hatch.  (How many incredible things in that sentence?)  I had lost touch with Dan Valentine, Jr.

Dan surfaced, and surfed the highways, surfaced again — and started writing a daily dispatch.

His words interest me.  I hope you’ll find them interesting, too.  I’m going to give each dispatch a post of its own, to highlight them so each can have a chance to get some of the readership it deserves.

Newspaper columns are high art, and high civics.  Newspapers are dying?  We still have need of good essays, short humor pieces, and the humanity that flows freely from the writings of learned and experienced souls.    Please give Dan’s work a read.

You can subscribe to this blog, too, and get Dan’s stuff by e-mail (along with other material from the blog).  Use the RSS button in the upper right hand  corner.

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