2021 Life Logs, Day 123: Thanksgiving and a Tribute to NPR
Date: Monday, May 3, 2021
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High 65, Low, 49 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Thanksgiving is 204 days away, but I am already looking forward to it. Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco will be flying in from Puerto Rico on November 23. It is a long time to wait, but at least there is a plan for having my whole family together again. We will certainly be giving thanks!
I spent today dealing with the little problems in life. Somehow, I did not make an appointment to have Shadow groomed in May and now there is a back log of a couple of months. So, I gave him a bath today and will continue brushing out his coat over the next couple of days. And I will attempt to trim his nails when I can get Heather or Sam to help me hold him. This was cheaper by far, but at some point he will need a haircut and I don’t think I can do that. That was one little problem. I had a mid-day annual doctor appointment and then stopped by Heather and Jed’s to install the new parts to the irrigation timer. The water pressure regulator I bought last evening at Lowe’s worked! But there were a few little leaks that need to be dealt with. I set the system to run for an hour and came home for lunch. When I returned after picking Ollie up at the end of the school day, there was a new irrigation problem. The water ran straight through the upright wall planters and came out at the bottom forming a river of water on the deck. The potting soil in the planter seemed to simply shed the water without soaking the soil. So, this is the next problem to be tackled. The upright wall planters come with the drip irrigation tubing already installed. So, either we have the wrong kind of soil or I set the timer to water for too long. We’ll continue to work out that little problem over the next few days.
Happy birthday to National Public Radio! The first NPR broadcast was on May 3, 1971. Hurray for 50 years of NPR! Mark and I met in 1973 at a public television conference. Mark was working at PBS in Washington, DC when Heather was born in 1975. But shortly thereafter, we changed our allegiance from public television to public radio. By the time Heather was two and Justin was born, we had removed the TV from our home. Heather and Justin heard only NPR. In the late 70’s and 80’s we were just listeners, but by 1984 Mark was putting a public radio station on the air in Salisbury, Maryland. Heather actually helped Mark get his job at Salisbury State College. When we drove from West Virginia to the Eastern Shore of Maryland for the job interview, we had to drive across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. All Things Considered with host Susan Stamberg was on the radio at that moment . . . something Heather had heard everyday of her life since she was two. Halfway across the bridge, All Things Considered went silent. Heather asked, “What happened to Susan Stamberg?” As we drove on to Salisbury, there was no public radio at all. WAMU out of Washington, DC did not transmit across the Chesapeake Bay. Mark was interviewing for a teaching position in the Communications Department at the college the next day. When the college president interviewed him, he asked Mark what he would do to better the community of Salisbury if he were hired. Mark immediately thought of Heather’s words, “What happened to Susan Stamberg?” He answered by saying he would put a public radio station on the air. He was hired to do just that and spent the rest of his career in public radio. By the time we left to sail around the world, he was President and CEO of New Hampshire Public Radio and Chair of the Board of NPR. Mark put his heart and soul into “creating a more informed public—one challenged and invigorated by a deeper understanding and appreciation of events, ideas, and cultures.” That is the current day mission statement of National Public Radio. Mark believed in that mission statement and was proud to be a leader in the continuing development of the stations in the NPR family for a little more than twenty years of his life. Then our daughter Heather entered the public radio world. In December 2019 she wrote, “I walked into WCAI fifteen years ago with a newly minted Ph.D., and no radio or journalism experience to speak of. Could I learn to be a science reporter, I asked? The answer – yes – literally changed my life.” It took her a few years to leave the research world and join the public radio world, but she never regretted it. Heather wrote this as she left public radio to take the position to lead communications at the Woodwell Climate Research Center (formally the Woods Hole Research Center), a top-ranked climate change think tank. Her passion is climate change, so she now is now putting her passion to work full-time. I am sure a part of her heart will always be with public radio. NPR—my family loves you. Happy 50th!
I was tipped off to NPR’s 50th by my friend Lynne Kirwin in New Zealand. She sent a WhatsApp message last night saying she had just listened to an NPR podcast about the start of NPR 50 years ago. Then today when I was listening to the local NPR station, WCAI, I heard a great interview with Maria Hinojosa talking about her years with NPR as their first Hispanic news person. It was then that I Googled NPR and found that today was the first broadcast in 1971. But how interesting that I learned of this from someone halfway around the world. NPR has certainly carved a place for itself in the world. I talked with Lynne tonight and was jealous as usual. She lives where she can pick up avocados that have fallen on the ground while walking a dog. But winter is coming there as summer approaches here. Soon I’ll be able to make her jealous when I am picking fresh veggies from the garden. Love you, Lynne!
