I've read "Travels with Charley" four times at different points in my life, the last time this year. Now former Pittsburgh reporter Bill Steigerwald has published an investigative look at the supposed Steinbeck journey. Steinbeck's wife Elaine met him to stay in posh hotels 45 of the days he was supposedly camping in his truck Rocinante with his poodle Charley. The chances of him meeting the characters he had supposedly encountered like the Shakespearian actor in North Dakota were unlikely. How could Elaine have stood by and let this happen? Forget the Weiner scandal. He's a lost, egotistical cause and not worth another Twitter post. This is a real shame. How many millions of people did old John rope in with his tale of wandering America? I only know one thing. If I live to be 70 or 80 there will be no FIFTH reading of "Travels with Charley." You let us down, Mr. Steinbeck.

Add a Comment

Old neighbor Big Dave stopped by with his son Ethan yesterday for a brief powwow like old times. I showed him my vandalism problem. He agreed that the casino has brought in some tough customers. "You know what else the casino has brought? Divorce," he said, ticking off a list of friends and acquaintances who have divorced or separated after taking jobs at the casino.

Photo of Big Dave and his kids

Add a Comment

Well, I got myself into it by betting my old friend Jim Brown that I could slim down more than he could. We both had been jabbering about getting into our old clothes, and being that we are both competitive, a bet to motivate us seemed the right thing to do. He and I already lifted weights 4-5 times a week, but weightlifting wasn't enough to slim us down, in fact. That Ben Franklin bio I'm reading talks about moderation, but I've heard that word so often it doesn't really have the clout I need. Besides, it's abstract, and writers rely upon concrete words their readers can identify with. Anyhow, a couple weeks into the bet, here is "moderation" for me. I actually have to thank an old baseball player named Dave Dravecky who sat down for dinner with photographer Dennis Cripe, student Chase Howell and me--and went into detail about his diet, which I adapted for myself. Soda pop--gone, history. Cider--I bought cider-flavored tea instead and love it in the evening. Portions--one-third to one-half smaller than my old portions. Exercise--any combo of dog walking, weightlifting, kickboxing, stationery bike (I haven't gone back to real riding yet, but next week for sure), treadmill, running track, yard work for 500 calories a day. (Minor setback now with an infected spider bite on my foot, but it's healing fast with antibiotics and anti-staph cream). Big challenge will be eating in restaurants next few days--Dave said "no sauces, fish or shellfish mainly," and I'll keep that in mind. Dave allowed wine, but I don't--and that cuts maybe 125-250 calories right there; beer so far not allowed at all, and I never drink hard alcohol anyway. Big change has been breakfast and breads--no more meats, even my beloved chorizo; bread maybe twice a week and no buttered, jellied toast. Oh, and no snacks in the car as I drive, but slivered almonds, blueberries and strawberries on hand anytime in house within limits. Speaking of limits, no easing off on diet one or two meals a week--just counterproductive. Two quarts of water a day. Only supplement is creatine. I put Dogzilla on a healthy diet as well, and I think his butt looks smaller, though he's too big at 100 for me to lift on my scale. He's due for his shots soon, and he'll get a weigh-in then. Any other diet secrets out there? Photo--Dave Dravecky and myself (Credit Renee Kean). Me (far right) at 193 pounds talking to a Montreal Expos minor-league pitching coach(Photo by Max Aguilera Hellweg)

Add a Comment

This isn't a scientific study, but when the new casino went up off I-74 nearby, the local renters in Waldron licked their lips. But judging from the vandalism and the screaming kids congregating aimlessly at night on the steps of the Methodist Church, I'd love the casino to just go away. I've only been there once. Indianapolis Monthly wanted a story on Makers Mark's Lounge. I sure won't waste even a nickel on a slot machine there. And I was going to retire to this house. Now, not a chance. We're a town of 804, and no constable. The kids know the sheriff patrol from Shelby County isn't all that visible here. Not when the sheriff's department can pick up intoxicated drivers by the cellful coming out of the casino any night of the week. It's too bad. I love my yard and its fantastic array of trees and flowers. Four pop cans were thrown in it today alone from the Methodist Church loiterers.

Add a Comment

Casey has his worried look on. When I bring out a leash, he ratatats his tail against the porch, knowing he has a walk coming. When I take my keys out of my pocket and jangle them, he runs straight to the back of my pickup, knowing he has a ride coming. Today he is on the back porch, and I've hauled out my yellow travel carryall, and he knows his buddy has a trip somewhere planned, and he doesn't especially like it. Yep, it's the Top Dog kennel tomorrow for ya, Buddy. Sorry.

But I am excited to be speaking in Louisville at the Brown Derby for the NACA conference on hazing prevention methods for other than fraternal organizations. After the talk, I'll preside over the panel discussion, and I know I'll learn a lot.

Add a Comment

I am rereading a biography of Benjamin Franklin. I love how he tried consciously to pick up virtue.

I am tackling one of the hardest missions I have ever attempted. I am trying to reverse the old-age inevitability of becoming a grumpy old man like the characters played by Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in the movie.

I am getting lots of practice. For some time now my house and vehicles have been the target of harassers. This morning at 3 a.m. I heard them trying to break into my locked truck, a truck I only now lock because they've broken into it before. They got away with a video camera and tripod. They, or their ilk, broke my windshield with a rock, coated my Mazda in mustard and mustard-scrawled cuss words, took the collar off my Lab in the night, and now slam their fists into my door all hours of the night. They did this again at 3 a.m.

Yesterday, I took a close look at my phone bill. AT & T promised to close a line back in October, but the company still charged me $60 a month. The company said it was up to me to find the paperwork, because it had no record. I found the paperwork. By magic they located the error as soon as I showed them the paperwork. They were looking in the wrong phone number file. I'm getting a check for almost $600, and I held my temper.

It's a start.

Add a Comment

First published on the HazingPrevention.org Blog. Reprinted here.
Anthrax Suspect Bruce Ivins: “The Mirage Man”–a commentary on the new book by David Willman
Commentary by Hank Nuwer
A new book by David Willman called “The Mirage Man: Bruce Ivins, the Anthrax Attacks, and America’s Rush to War” (Bantam, $27) is one of those books people tend to talk about around the water cooler. Five people, including postal workers, died from the effects of deadly powdery anthrax sent by mail, and at least 17 persons were infected. Tom Brokaw was the most high-profile journalist sent a tainted letter.
Author David Willman did not contact me for the book, but he did contact and visit a hazing activist that anthrax researcher Bruce Ivins had written at least five times.
An FBI researcher/investigator some years ago talked to me about an excerpt from a letter to the editor in Virginia that I quoted in my book “Broken Pledges.”
A Frederick (VA) newspaper letter purportedly written by Kappa Kappa Gamma alumnus Nancy Haigwood in defense of hazing was written actually under Haigwood’s name by Ivins. That was an ethical breach by Ivins if true he signed her name to the letter, and it now appears to be so, according to Willman and others.
Willman’s book cites sources who concluded that Bruce Ivins had sent the anthrax-powdered letters to multiple victims. The Ivins connection was first announced by the FBI in 2008. You also can fetch all the anthrax FBI documents here.
I once tried to find Ms. Haigwood for an interview for her pro-hazing views (rather what Ivins falsely portrayed as her pro-hazing views) but failed. Other hazing scholars have quoted from the same letter to the editor written in Haigwood’s name by Ivins.
In the late 1980s, Kappa Kappa Gamma spokespersons I contacted said they could not for privacy reasons give me Haigwood’s last-known address from their national sorority alumnae membership roster so I could question her, but they stressed the organization’s antihazing stance and that Haigwood did not speak for the organization.
Ivins also wrote the Jimmy Flathead materal on KKG for Wikipedia, according to the FBI.
My first and only interview with the FBI (set up by my attorney friend Ben) made it clear to me as a writer that Ivins was not my source in any way, and I had no obligation to withhold any correspondence from him to a hazing activist provided to me by that hazing activist for my 1990 book “Broken Pledges” (Longstreet Press).
I now omit the name of the activist here because she retired from public life long ago and wants no media intrusion, and her name isn’t so important here.
If he had been a source I would have contacted the Poynter Institute ethics gurus for advice on that sticky issue about providing material from a source to the FBI.
The single photocopied letter to the activist dated 5/29/83 I did find in a file cabinet of mine was printed in Ivins’s odd printed script and contained the letter to the editor he had forged as an attachment.
Yes, as you can read yourself in my photo of the letter, he did write there that he was working at Fort Detrick on an anthrax project.
The FBI interviewer showed me email addresses that she said Ivins might have used to contact me in the 1990s, but none rang a bell. Was he one of a small group of email writers sending baiting, encouraging or snide letters in the 90s after “Broken Pledges” hit print? If he ever did write it was inconsequential. B ut after reading the FBI report tonight I wonder if Ivins joined a hazing listserv fom Indiana University run by my IUPUI department chair and I, although I was the prime mover here. If Ivins did join, and there may be records somewhere to corroborate, he was never a prime topic responder.
I provided the FBI via mail my thin file of Ivins material he had written to the hazing activist. To me it was interesting how an FBI researcher is so much like a news reporter. She was prepared, professional, thorough and wast

Add a Comment

Hello: here is an old column I did for my students at Franklin College. It is a tiny sliver of history about a photographer who became a part of that history. Its primary purpose is to inspire any would-be photographers aout there. Mr. Boris Yaro was an outstanding photographer for the Los Angeles Times.

Boris Yaro Interview: May 31, 2008
Conducted and edited by Hank Nuwer, Pulliam School of Journalism faculty member
Special to Franklin College and TheFranklinOnline.com

Nuwer: …Well, this will be for my students at Franklin College. That is basically the audience that you’re talking to. Could you tell me a little about how you got into photography…?
Yaro: …I grew up in Iowa…[In high school] I was a stringer for the yearbook and bought a movie camera, a Bolex H16 and began shooting film for {a] station ... in Des Moines, a CBS affiliate.
Then I moved to Los Angeles and couldn’t find a job….a lot of papers had folded and so I just started freelancing on the streets. It was very difficult to shoot—too many people [photographers] and not enough markets.
Nuwer: OK.
Yaro: Somehow I managed to survive. I started shooting a lot of stuff that was being picked up by the Los Angeles Times. Finally, they offered me a job and sent me out to the San Gabriel Valley which was where Jim [Wiggins] was the boss. While I was there we had several interesting events. I was a writer and a photographer…I never graduated from Iowa and I went back [to college] and started school at “SC” [University of Southern California]. I was working two to three jobs to support myself. That’s kind of the position I was in when I went out to the San Gabriel Valley.
Nuwer: Did you have a mentor as a photographer?
Yaro: No, not exactly. The primary really was a high school teacher named William Kacena, and he had worked on the atom bomb and was a science [and photography] teacher at Des Moines Tech [Technical] High School.
Link: Boris Yaro ‘s high school yearbook. http://www.e-yearbook.com/yearbooks/Des_Moines_Technical_High_School_Engineer_Yearbook/1955/Page_78.html
Nuwer: I see.
Yaro: I wouldn’t call him anal retentive but there is a time and a place for everything—that was his feeling. You do things right, and I learned my basics from him. So when I went into the service I really didn’t have a problem. I learned my photography in high school. When I went into the service a lot of photographers never saw a camera, A lot of people did have a problem but I didn’t have that problem. A photographer knows….
Nuwer: OK, with a lot of photographers, just like with poets [with verse], there is a kind of stamp or look to a photo. What is it you intended for a photo when time allowed and things were looking right?
Yaro: I actually made a diagram, if you will. triangular-shaped between light and dark. At the time it was all black and white—there was not much color available because
Yaro: I remember looking again for a feeling, I can’t explain it. It was like something I don’t want to say…Inbred, but the photographer knows, and I liken in fact that I learned my photography in High School.
Nuwer: Yes.
Yaro: It was part of a core area that I was enrolled in called commercial art. I think that probably played the biggest part of all.
Nuwer: Okay.
Yaro: Having an artistic feel as opposed to click and bang, and oh my and whatever. There’s some substance and there’s a photograph.
Nuwer: About the time meter, but you like to have natural light more than anything.
Yaro: That was the key, I sent an email out and it was kind of a … one of the people, to Bill Ephridge yesterday. He was one of the people who had terrific artwork.
Yaro: I really enjoyed a lot of the times life photographers, like Andre Cartier Prashon. There’s a book that he put out, and natural light is the key. One of the first editors he ever had sent him to Switzerland and told him to bring back snow that was like sugar. I

Add a Comment

I had very recently been interviewed by a Joplin reporter on a Missouri high school hazing case and was impressed by his perceptive questions and analysis. I turned to the Globe today to see how the reporters had fared in that horrific tornado. I read this column by Chicago newsie Jim Slusher and wanted to reprint it here. My hat is off to those brave reporters. And I hope all get their normal lives returned to them as soon as possible. And Jim Slusher--one terrific tribute you wrote. Thanks for it.

JOPLIN, Mo. — Publisher Michael Beatty probably wasn’t surprised. I know he is proud. And I don’t even know him. Or any of the reporters, editors and photographers, pressmen, artists and drivers he is proud of.

I can’t really imagine what they’ve lived through. Not beyond the stripped-naked trees, strewn bricks and wretched devastation shown on television, YouTube and in Beatty’s own paper, The Joplin Globe.

But I have a fair idea. I’ve seen newspaper people respond to tragedy. Here’s what Beatty saw:

“It was amazing,” he wrote in a prepared statement. “These people came in who had lost their homes completely, But they were just dedicated to their jobs, to getting the story out. ... Their focus was just to get the news out for the people, in print and online, so that they would have the information they needed about where to go and what to do.”

Beatty said nearly a quarter of the Globe’s 117 employees found their homes heavily damaged or lost them altogether. Of 91 carriers, 81 showed up to deliver the newspaper.

Minutes after the tornado hit Sunday night, staffers began just showing up at the office to see what they could do. The newsroom remade the Monday edition and got it to press only about an hour late, Beatty said.

On Wednesday, Chris Wragge, co-anchor of CBS’ “Early Show,” interviewed Globe reporter Jeff Lehr, who described the 40 seconds of terror he spent crammed into a closet while the tornado destroyed his home around him.

“He came out and saw total devastation everywhere,” Wragge said in a CBS web story. “He was able to make his way to the street. There was no sign of anything. He walked for about two miles, found someone with a car and asked him, ‘Would you please take me to work? I have to start reporting on this story.’ That’s what he’s been doing ever since.”

Or, in Lehr’s words at the Globe’s website: “I have wandered eight or nine blocks and finally reach an edge of the tornado zone, where there are vehicles moving and houses with roofs still intact, even a few trees still upright in their yards. An older couple in a car pull up to their home. They are among the lucky. They ask if I’m OK. I tell them I’m one of the many who have lost their homes. I ask if they can take me to the newspaper. I have an awful job to do.”

The specifics of Lehr’s “awful job” may bear some reflection. The rock star reporters you see flying in from CNN, The New York Times and other big metropolitan organizations will sweep into town, get some dramatic footage and some compelling quotes, and then move on to the next crisis. But Lehr and his colleagues will remain, cataloging the destruction and helping their friends and neighbors find out where to get supplies and medical help, how to look for missing friends or family, how to apply for relief for their ruined business and how to prepare, God forbid, for more bad weather.

They’re chronicling the human drama of the disaster, of course, but they’re also steeped in the considerably less glamorous task of providing useful details about the practical needs of daily life. All while simultaneously trying to take care of their own battered families and property.

I know they’re not police, firefighters, doctors or nurses, all of whom no doubt are engaged in heroic efforts of their own for the people of Joplin, but I can’t help admiring the job and the dedication of the Globe’s employees

Add a Comment

I do not believe in coincidences. Yet coincidences occur. I recently failed to go dog sledding in Breckinridge, Colorado, because the dogsled instruction place blew up in a natural gas explosion. Today, my jump from the Greensburg, Indiana skydiving school was cancelled because a windstorm and hail (with possible twister) tore the flight school up. I'll get another chance to jump in six weeks. I am happy the pilots and crew were unhurt.

Add a Comment

Today I give the last final exam of the semester at Franklin College. It was a good semester and a sad semester. I had one of the most promising writers I've ever had in a class, and though she still needs to perfect her self-editing skills...she combines observations, details, wit and analysis with narrative as well as any writer I've taught (Note to self: must introduce Katie to longago student Hannah). I also had at least six students find their voice on paper. Numerous students already have journalism jobs--one (Aaron) is off to law school and Katie to IUPUI for grad school. One quit journalism altogether, and I support his choice. One drove me crazy with his inability to finish projects, but he's well-read and an alert thinker, and he'll find his way after he visits the Hemingway Home in Key West in a few days. (He says he's going to order a local drink that has gunpowder in it. I said it sounded dreadful, and he should beware of blowing his prostate into the Gulf--lol). Farewell, seniors and godspeed! Kudos to all the Franklin newspaper staff and all the great internships our "kids" garnered.

Grades for seniors due asap. I go skydiving in a few days. I have a Layla Lusty manuscript (it's terrific so far) and a David Carlson galleys to enjoy this weekend. Some time along the way I'll take my mutt Dogzilla for a river run and splashy romp.

But mainly I have dug in to do the final edit on my novel, and complete the nonfiction books on hazing and Kurt Vonnegut that were tough to finish during the school year. I am only teaching one course--media management--this summer, and I already have written those 10 lectures. I take one digital photography class at IUPUI one night a week. And as for social life, it's nada except for

attending my old Franklin College editor Lauren's wedding this Sunday (her parents are my friends). That marriage stuff is going around. My buddy Thelma gets hitched soon. Congrats to her, Patrick, daughter Becca and his kids! Here's a pic of Thelma in London; she now works with veterans and is a dedicated advocate for their health and well-being. You go, Bon!



News flash. I quit Facebook for now, maybe forever. Any other writers find it a delectable distraction...but a distraction all the same?

Oh, and why was it a sad semester? My mother is nearing the end as she closes in on her 92nd birthday. My friend and mentor Fraser Drew broke his hip and has slowed down his reading and writing as 98 approaches in a few days. I found that a wonderful lady with wonderful qualities and I were a bad fit overall, and I elected to return to the single life. Finally, my close friend and Shirk Hall colleague Dennis Cripe retired today. A talented photographer (see his Alaska shot of Mt McKinley from a prop plane) and a heluva teacher, he's left the Pulliam School of Journalism faculty to pursue photo dreams of his own.

Add a Comment

"Yeah, a hero always beats against the current. I guess I still want to be a hero." --Kate Lamont
         
         A Breakfast "Nice Conversation" with Singer Kate Lamont and Writer Hank Nuwer


Born in England while her father studied for his doctorate at the University of Birmingham, singer Kate Lamont came back to the States and spent her teen years in Anderson and Muncie. After 15 years singing with Hoosier bands MabLab and Blueprintmusic, she just has released “After the Traffic,” her first solo album with the online digital distribution label Audio Reconnaissance.  

         

Nuwer: I hope this one is going to work because it's a new Marantz.
This other is my old one. You're my my first interview [on the new one].

Lamont: OK.

Nuwer: Christening it.

Lamont. All right, stereo. Whoo-whoo. Recording.

Nuwer: Let's jump right in.

Lamont: OK.

Nuwer: There's a danger in listening to music and trying to interpret it just as there is with poetry. A critic once wrote about poet Hart Crane that you could miss the whole poem by listening too closely to the lines. Having said that, I think there is a theme that runs all the way through this album. What would you say that theme was in terms of vision?

Lamont: The quote you said explains the first track entirely, because if I listen to the lyrics too carefully I don't know what it means myself. The title ["After the Traffic"] came during the recording of the very first song. You'd have to have a good stereo and good headphones to hear the background noise for Track Five. That's the only song we recorded off site. We recorded it at the Earth House Collective downtown, a 130-year-old brick German church [Lockerbie Central United Methodist Church] downtown. Well, I wrote that song half an hour before a friend's wedding because I was supposed to sing something. We recorded it and it's right in the middle of the day at East and New York downtown, so every forty seconds you have this huge slue of diesel trucks going by. My recording engineer would say, "OK, I'm ready, go," and I would say, "After the traffic?" He'd say, "Yeah, after the traffic."

Nuwer: That's neat.


Kate Lamont next plays the Chatterbox in Indianapolis on August 10, 2010
Photo by the Rev. Rebecca Craver

Lamont: That's where it came from. I heard that [conversation] when I played it back and I thought, this is the theme of the whole album. When I heard that quote I thought, well, it represents where I am after 15 years of performing and now embarking on my first solo project. After all this energy and synergy and creativity and collaboration comes this other thing that still means something.
Nuwer: Then there's old church. From oxcarts to diesel trucks going by. There's a lot of time passing in this album also, forward or backwards, and in one song, someone missing a connection by four or five years.

Lamont: That's true and maybe you did just touch on the theme there--in track three on "Adeline." I wear a class ring my grandmother gave to me. In 1922 she graduated from high school. That song is about the generational connection between me and my grandmother and then her relationship with her Aunt Adeline, which was so strong. This ring is the most fun conversation piece because it has a B in the center and everyone wants to know what the B stands for. Well, rubbed off in the top right hand corner you can almost see a 2. So it's B Square and that was their class motto. It meant be strong, be solid, be a rock.

Nuwer: That's interesting, the culture they had back then. You knew her?

Lamont: If I knew her it was as a baby; I don't remember her. But because I have such a strong connection with my grandmother I feel like I know her. I have a lot of her things. [Adeline] was like my grandmother's mentor. When my grandmother was 14 or 15 she took her on a trip with her to South America. Ade

Add a Comment

Happy St. Dionysus Day!!!

Let everyone else celebrate St. Valentine's Day like a bunch of sheep. Let us give our whoop and holler today to good old St. Dionysus and Ammonius. Let's lose our heads for five minutes with a big cheer in their honor!!

St. Dionysius
Feastday: February 14

Martyr of Egypt with Ammonius. They were beheaded in Alexandria.

Take your heart and take a walk, St. Valentine's. My heart is with Dionysus. Hank

Add a Comment

Quotations for Writers

Quotations for Writers

"As a writer you one day find your body in excruciating pain and that is when you reach a point where you count the remaining seconds of life and intensely poke each second like gold in a pan. What you spill when you sift can never be regained." --Hank Nuwer, November 26, 2009.

"Writing only when you find a muse is practicing self-deception if you truly are a writer. It's like calling yourself a husband or wife if you treat your Muse like a one-night stand. You have to give (not just take) your all on good days and bad, and at the end of life maybe, just maybe, you can say you and that Muse had one heluva good satisfying marriage." --Hank Nuwer

"Here is one writer's version of Black Friday. You read and think because you're always shopping for ideas. You spend and spend all your energy. You love a sale but you can't be for sale. You reach here and there to touch the merchandise of life." --Hank Nuwer, Black Friday, November 2009.

"On writing a novel. Sometimes the words go on the page with a firehose. Sometimes they dribble onto the page like water through a sluice in a drought. Get the words down. Use dialog often to advance the plot. Hear the voices of your characters in your head. Complicate their lives. Repeat often." --Hank Nuwer, November 22, 2009

"Get into the reality of your characters' lives as best you can when writing a historical novel. My novel is about two Basque herders. I am having bread crusts in boiled milk, beans, and a bit of left-over lamb for breakfast. The meal transports me to 1899 Nevada south of Jiggs, NV. Food can jumpstart your chapter as you digest it." Hank Nuwer, November 20, 2009

"Daily writing gives me 2-3 hours of being alive. It's like trampolining while that trampoline is surrounded by hot stones and hot coals. Enjoy the lift and the heat but don't fall off and be consumed." --Hank Nuwer, November 20, 2009.

Add a Comment

Discovered The Paris Review in 1968 and am still a fan. Happy
50th, Ms Paree! Highlight for me is its interviews with authors. I once interviewed PR editor George Plimpton in his office. His bathroom had hundreds of pictures of himself on the walls. Guess that was better than another friend's bathroom who papered the walls with rejection slips. Loved this review!

Add a Comment

Veteran newshounds weren't surprised when one news guy punched another in the hallowed halls of the Washington Post.

I mean, journalism has a lot of fighting terms.

Stories are keyed into the sytem with a SLUG, for example!

We cover stories like education or cops by going on a BEAT.

In our stories, we separate key facts or a list with a BULLET.

Then, of course, we KILL a story with a SPIKE.

And saddest of all, copy editors go crazy if they let a WIDOW slip into the paper.

Add a Comment

To catch you up, gentle reader, I bought an Oral B toothbrush whose bristles fell out everywhere upon first brushing. I just woke up and I stil have more to get out between the molars. Yuk. So here's a poem and then a parody song to the Oral B makers!


When bristles fall like pine needles.
Oral B needs an ad campaign that wheedles.
For when bristles lodge in one's back teeth
You have to pick at your gums to get beneath.
... Read More
Song refrain:

As the blackbird in the spring
'neath the willow tree

Sat and piped
I heard him sing
cussing Oral B.
Oral B! Oral B! Made with flimsy hair

Brushing with thee makes me swallow bristles everywhere.

If you don't get "Aura Lee" click here. LOL



This has a happy ending. Oral B wrote a nice letter.

Hi Hank,

Thanks for contacting Oral-B.

Our goal is to produce high quality products that consistently delight our consumers and I'm sorry this wasn't your experience with our Oral B Advantage toothbrush. What you are describing is unusual, we would not expect this. All of our products go through numerous quality checks.

Please be assured I'm sharing your comments with the rest of our team.

Since your satisfaction means a great deal to us, I'm sending compensation by postal mail. You should receive my letter within the next 2-3 weeks.

Thanks again for writing
.
Laure
Oral-B Team

Add a Comment

My dog has one time when he is a pain. It is when I prepare to go on a trip and pack my suitcase, a sort-of oversized backpack. He scoots under my feet, puts on a miserable face, gets licky and obnoxious, and has to be put outside.

Add a Comment

John Steinbeck in Travels with Charlie wrote that he was worried about being recognized when he set off in truck with his trusty poodle beside him. He never was. Today one of the very few times I was recognized by a stranger, a Kroger checkout woman, and it was because of an ESPN show she saw. It's happened 3-4 times at an airport, once on an elevator, once by a policeman who helped me after an auto accident, once on a plane, and once on a street. It's a very strange feeling when that happens.

Add a Comment

Bought a new Oral-B Advantage toothbrush today and on first brushing a bunch of bristles fell out. In all the years of brushing I never had this happen. Definitely switching brands.

Add a Comment

Two employees at the Steak 'n Shake at breakfast decided to win a Betty Boop doll in that glass tank filled with stuffed animals. The first (Bobby by tag) lowered his hourly wage by a buck with two tries. The other, George Brooks, nabbed the doll on first try. "George stole Betty away from me," complained Bobby.

Review: Tasty breakfast. Super service. Superior entertainment. Thanks, Gents. A lot of fun and a little good food made my morning perfect.

Then I gave a talk at Indiana University in a sports and violence class & loved the students and their prof.

Add a Comment

Longtime friend Earl Conn of Ball State University journalism fame died over the weekend. Last time I saw him was three weeks ago. He put his arm around me to joke that he thought I had "mellowed" since working for him 1985-1989. He was a good guy, an always fair boss, and became an author in his older years. Rest in peace, Earl.

Add a Comment

Add a Comment

I'll be using this spot as a starting place. The goal is to make this research trip as economical as possible.

Here are some of the places I'll stay in Ely, NV. for example.

Montana reservations for backcountry tent camping

Add a Comment