Sunday, January 5, 2014

In the beginning



 In the beginning

Ken Jennings the all-time Jeopardy! Champion writes a semi-regular column for the Sunday Parade magazine called Kennections.  It features a series of questions which all have something in common.   
For example:
An adult male Kangaroo is called…
Nickname of original ESPN studio host Chris Berman…
Name of the Indiana Pacers anamorphic mascot…
Sooner fans of the University of Oklahoma…
The former Cincinnati Bengal quarterback and current CBS NFL Today panel member…

The answer; all are Boomers.

I too am a boomer…a member of the American generation born between 1946 and 1964. I am a Baby Boomer.  The aforementioned Berman and Esiason are “Boomers”…Jennings is not!  Arthur Alden who wrote the words to Boomer Sooner in 1905 was also not a Boomer…but he was the son of an original Sooner boomer who originally homesteaded the Oklahoma Territory.

Baby Boomers are the largest generation of Americans born in U.S. history.  We gave the world hippies, and free love.  Divorce rates exploded among our generation and we created the largest amount of personal wealth on record.  We are also the first generation to actually be friends with our children.

It is for that reason I embark on this journey into the blogosphere.   As a result of my own divorces I am not as close to my own children as I would like to be.  I guiltily wear the cloak of responsibility for this inattention to some of the most important people in my life.
From a Quixotic childhood to a 30 year career in broadcast journalism my life has been enriched by adventures and experiences seldom shared with family and friends.   In the words of Carole King (no relation)

My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue
An everlasting vision of the ever changing view
A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold
A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold.

 From a brief conversation with my grandfather days after his death to my boyhood idylls along the banks of the Millcreek to an adult fairy tale that took me to two Olympic Games and a pair of NBA championships I have truly lived a rich and full life. It is my intention in the upcoming days, weeks and years to use this space as a forum to share with anyone who wishes to look into this adventure I call my life.  But it is especially aimed at a particular target audience…my children. I want them to better know who I am so that when the time comes for me to leave this mortal existence I can leave the way I came in; with a boom.

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