I Met a Man Named John (Newsletter published January 1999)

I have been going through boxes and stored items so that I can get rid of things that I've saved over the years that I will never need. One of the benefits of doing this is that I am also finding things that I've saved because I wanted to keep them, like old Newsletter publications in which I wrote articles about things other than industry topics and our company's services. 

Several of the articles had to do with my life as a single, custodial father of two daughters. This particular article got more positive comments when I wrote it than any other article I wrote for the Newsletter. With that introduction, here is "I Met a Man Named John," which is most likely slightly edited because I don't have to make it fit and also because I'm anal like that. 

(The thing that seems most funny in rewriting this article is that I am now about the age of the "elderly, well-dressed Black man." As I look back on things, I seem to have learned a lesson from my encounter with the man who had the riches that money cannot buy.)

Three Songs About Richard Nixon

Many people regard Nixon as nothing but evil. I don't go along with that belief. I think he was only eighty-five to ninety percent evil. However, when it comes to music, I cannot think of any popular song that praised him. The best I can come up with are the rather neutral comments in Lynard Skynard's song Sweet Home Alabama: "Watergate does not bother me. Does your conscience bother you?" Those don't really address Nixon so much as the Nixon era.