Tag: Walter Cronkite

I Have No Words

How many times have you repeated the expression, I have no words?

I seem to find myself using it more and more in so many situations. Far more than ever before.

It’s really a very versatile expression when you think of how much it covers.

It can be a compliment. After you’ve expressed every adjective in the book to describe how fabulous your grandchildren are, I have no words would cover whatever you’ve left out.

It can be used when one is surprised. “Oh you’re kidding. They ran away together. I never even thought they liked one another.”  I have no words is the perfect follow up to express your shock.

Let us not forget how perfect I have no words becomes when you are disgusted and frustrated by politicians or some outrageous act by a government official.

Sadly, it also serves to cover your sorrow when a loved one or friend is suffering.

And this is my point. I seem to have run out of words lately. I suppose at my age that might be an age-related situation, but I can’t seem to find the right language anymore to cover how I feel about all the craziness I witness each day.

I wonder, is it me, or has the world seriously gone crazy and I’m left without the proper vocabulary to define this new insanity.

If that is the case, I imagine I can’t be blamed for a lack of language to describe the indescribable.

I’d like to believe my memory is as efficient as ever, although I know that may be a bit of wishful thinking on my part, but I do find myself at a loss for words more often.

Where once when a teen I looked forward each night at six o clock to hear Goodnight Chet, Goodnight David after the Huntley-Brinkley report on NBC News, now I recoil with fear at news reports.

There is no one to take their glasses off like Cronkite anymore. His way of letting me know he is about to tell me something I don’t want to hear.

I no longer want to hear any of it. But when Cronkite said it, at least I knew it to be true.

Knowing I wanted to be a reporter at a very early age, I became a news junkie before most of my generation. When I got home from school there was very little programming to watch so I watched the McCarthy Hearings or HUAC the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Now I’m not implying that at eight years old I fully understood what was happening or what a red scare was, but I sensed the importance of what I was watching. The seriousness of the tone, the accusatory nature, the senators leaning over and whispering led me to believe there was definitely something consequential going on there.

I imagine that’s when I began to find journalism so intriguing. Reporters were in the room, they were commenting afterward on the proceedings, they had a voice. I wanted that voice.

So now that I have a voice, I can no longer find the words. They elude me at a time when it’s most important I am able to use them.

Use them to say how frightening this world has become.

How sad I am for my children and grandchildren.

How guilty I feel for my generation not doing a better job creating a better world to leave behind.

How horrified I am by the atrocities evil performs against the innocent.

How clueless and immoral politicians are while the country burns and they seek only their own selfish agendas.

How upside down life has turned until it’s almost impossible to discern right from wrong or good from evil any longer.

How truth has been relegated to someone’s own point of view, whether it’s right or wrong.

Where do I find the words to speak the horror I feel because there are no words to cover today’s world.

It would be so easy to say it’s unspeakable, but for someone who has valued language their whole life, isn’t that a cop out?

Isn’t it too easy to simply throw one’s hands up in the air and in defeat say, I have no words?

Yet in truth I have to admit words can no longer express what we are living, feeling or seeking to escape.

If we could find the words or invent new ones, would that even change the state of affairs we are distraught about now?

What can you say to someone who has twisted and turned truth into a pretzel of wickedness?

How do you communicate with someone who can’t discern good from evil?

How do you speak intelligently to the stupid?

How can you have a conversation with a zombie mind that has been brainwashed and indoctrinated to absorb insane, intolerant and hateful ideas?

This is what words have come to…a useless flow of language out of one’s mouth without meaning or substance.

A futile effort to relate to others who have been brainwashed in malevolence.

Where have the words of kindness and tolerance been buried?

How have words of compassion and love for another human being been erased?

How will the twisted brains taught by the immoral be undone?

With my voice I can now only ask questions. Questions for which I have no answers.

I still believe the world should be made up of balance.

Question, answer, that is how it’s been done up to now. What can rational good people do to get the balance back?

Has language been so corrupted and twisted good people will ultimately find it impossible to undo the perversion?

Is the planet to continue spinning out of control on an axis of hatred and wickedness?

Would that I could find the language to solve these problems. To restore hope and optimism into a beleaguered world.

Tragically, I have no words.

What is Heaven and Am I Going?

What is Heaven and Am I Going?

So, there is a commercial on television now with some guy asking me if I’m going to heaven. How do you answer that question?

I guess I’d have an easier time if I knew for sure there actually is a heaven. Or what heaven is if it does exist.

How do I know if I want to go there if I don’t know what I’m signing up for? Didn’t your mother teach you to read everything before signing?

Cause now that we are watching this insane world you have to wonder; what is everyone’s version of heaven and whose do you want to go to?

I mean I have certain criteria here for how I’d like to spend the afterlife. I don’t mean to be snobby about this, but if I’m going to be in a place for all eternity, I’m not spending my days listening to politicians. 

I definitely don’t want to have to watch award programs and listen to hosts doing unfunny monologues and see Robert De Niro’s pissed off looks when Robert Downey Jr. wins instead of him.

Can you imagine having to spend eternity  listening to Oprah talk about her weight loss issues, car salesmen saying let me check with my manager and see if I can make that deal or watching Nancy Pelosi getting more Botox injections?

I want to go someplace where refrigerators are always fully stocked with unhealthy foods, your stomach is always empty and fat cells don’t exist.

Can someone promise me I won’t have to make a bed, wash a floor or clean a toilet?

A place where there is no traffic, the only newscasters are Huntley and Brinkley and Walter Cronkite and John Kennedy will actually tell me how many bullets really did kill him.

Where all the property is on the water, there are no UV rays and you can walk halfway across the ocean and find a sandbar to sunbathe on. Oh, and the fish are all no longer than 10 inches and in neon colors.

Where pina coladas flow all day and no one gets drunk, where children can play outside anywhere, anytime and no one would ever hurt them and you can pull apart monkey bread without getting your hands sticky.

A place where everything for sale that you want is always equal to the amount of money you’re carrying, chocolate chip cookies are always warm and coming out of the oven next to fresh cold milk, and you can have Thanksgiving any or every day you want with only the relatives you can stand.

Where Santa delivers 24/7 and the temperature is always a perfect 72 degrees with no rain or snow in sight. And the chocolate fountains on every corner are always flowing.

Where your cell phone never runs out of juice, and old Mickey Mouse Club shows and Bugs Bunny, Road Runner and Tweety and Sylvester cartoons are always playing, and Clarabell can talk.

A place where no one says anything nasty or mean to anyone else, where people say thank you and excuse me, and Harry and Meagan are not allowed to write books about how terrible life is in the palace.

A place where babies never cry because their needs are instantly met, where no one is judged by their skin color or religion and anyone who threatens to take over the world has to go back down and live in it again. 

There must be a sign at the gates of my heaven that reads, no politicians or members of Congress, assholes, or haters allowed and there is a no tolerance policy for those who mistreat others.

If a heaven exists with those features, I might be enticed to buy a ticket. 

However, since everyone has their own idea of what heaven or hell entails, I don’t want to get on the wrong train and wind up in the hell where Hamas gets its 72 virgins. 

I imagine my heaven train would be in a special station like the one to Hogwarts, where you have to go to a certain wall and push your stuff through or oops, no entrance for you.

So, in answer to the question, are you going to heaven, I’d have to say I’m not rushing to sign up like it’s a time share opportunity in Cabo.

When I’m sure what I’m in for, I’ll sign on the dotted line. Until then I’m still down here on earth, hell or whatever the name for this place is now. 
Maybe the question this guy on TV should be asking is; “Are you ready to turn earth into heaven by living like you’re already there?”

Now that’s a question I could easily answer?