On a summer day in 1986, Lauren Schroff walked up to the intersection of 56th and Broadway in midtown Manhattan. She was a single, 35-year-old marketing exec who was helping fuel USA Today’s meteoric rise to “the nation’s newspaper.” As she prepared to cross the street an 11-year-old black youth, a panhandler, asked, “Miss, do you have any loose change?”… Read more »
After 18 months of saturation news coverage of the pandemic, the televised images have become predictable. We see COVID patients lying in ICU beds. Exhausted nurses. Vials of vaccine rolling off pharmaceutical assembly lines. Running tallies of the sick and dying. Exasperated politicians. Protesters chanting at workplaces and school board meetings. Then there are the needles – seemingly endless… Read more »
It’s one of the strangest ways to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Every fall, members of Britain’s Royal Air Force ritualistically burn an upright wooden piano. “Piano fires” commemorate the RAF pilots (along with pilots who came from other Allied nations) who gave their lives to help win the Battle of Britain between July and October 1940. Nazi… Read more »
If you watched TV sports during the 1980s, you’ll probably remember the Rainbow Man. Rollen Stewart dreamed of becoming an actor. When his Hollywood career flatlined, he decided the ultimate act of self-promotion would be to show up on camera during major sporting events. Stewart donned a multi-colored wig and somehow managed to seat himself behind home plate, a goal… Read more »
Several years ago hundreds of physicians and researchers gathered for the convention of the American Heart Association in Atlanta. They were meeting to discuss, among other things, the importance of a low-fat diet for cardiac health. Observers pointed out, however, that their rate of consumption of fat-filled fast foods was almost identical to that of other conventions. One cardiologist in… Read more »
It’s hard to overstate the sorry condition of Continental Airlines in the early 1990s. The company had twice faced bankruptcy. A third financial disaster was looming. Employee morale was abysmal. The airline ranked last in every measurable performance category. Its stock had sunk to $2 a share. Continental’s advertising slogans during the previous two decades reflected marketing desperation: The Only Airline… Read more »
On the day Thomas Carlyle’s wife was buried it poured down rain. In April 1866, the Scottish writer and a group of mourners tramped through the mud to the cemetery where Jane was laid to rest. They had been married for 40 years. Then he returned to his home, feeling desperately alone. The Carlyles’ relationship had been shaped by his… Read more »
For hundreds of years, it’s been a kind of running joke: The moon is made of green cheese. “Green” in this context means not-yet-fully-aged, as opposed to spectacular fungal growth. It’s easy to understand how medieval observers, gazing at the brightest object in the night sky, were reminded of a wheel of cheese. Besides, no one would ever be able… Read more »
Most gifted speakers make use of a handful of signature stories – anecdotes they can pull out at a moment’s notice to drive home special points. John F. Kennedy used one of his favorite stories at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. He was present to dedicate the new School of Aerospace Medicine. It was the heyday of… Read more »
Generally speaking, it’s not a good idea to deliver a sermon with the express intention of sending a message to the President of the United States. Then again, most preachers don’t have the chief executive sitting in their sanctuary on a Sunday morning. On February 7, 1954, Rev. George MacPherson Docherty – the Scottish-born pastor of New York Avenue Presbyterian… Read more »
