Daddy Sang Bass

WHO? Listen up. When things are running relatively smoothly, and you are getting by, it's very easy just to take things for granted. There reaches a point where you become so wrapped up in the routine, your work, that it's almost easier to ignore someone who is going through rough times than it is to be sympathetic. In essence you stop caring or learn only to selectively care. Why should you get involved? Why drag yourself down? It's easier to walk away than stay and join the crowd. Yet if you do reach that stage, isn't it time to wonder if it's you or them who has something to work on? What good am I if I'm like all the rest, if I just turn away when I see how your dressed.? I thank a Dairy Queen for reminding me of that valuable lesson in what life is about this past week. I've had many a moving and wonderful phone conversation (being a former phone professional) over the past few years, but none I appreciated and enjoyed more than the one I had the other night. Opening up, and the process of discovery, I might be on to something really special here. I just have to remember to use my journalism background and ask all the right questions. Stay objective. Someone near and dear to me once identified a strength of mine as being a good listener. We should appreciate and be thankful for our gifts. That's something I won't ever take for granted again. It's not a curse, it's a blessing, a matter of perspective.

WHAT? We began our weekly column last week with a tidbit about the importance of fruit juice. Quite frankly it made no sense, had no purpose like so much that has come to fill these pages and yet it was written as a springboard to get the creative juices flowing, or so I thought. Monday I went downstairs to the break room at work and got my usual can of grapefruit juice. On the way back up I rode the elevator with a woman who said she didn't ever drink fruit juice but that mine looked good. We were joined by a woman who jumped into our conversation by telling us that over in the World Trade Center, they have freshly squeezed orange juice every morning. Then last Friday I got called up by someone from the Health Department who surveyed me on health concerns. One of the first questions was how much fruit juice I currently drank and how much I thought a healthy person should drink. Coincidences? I think not. Just further proof the newsletter has its hand on the pulse of America's hottest trends.

WHERE? A new game: TRUTH OR LIE

*My first girlfriend was Loni Anderson's daughter?

*I once received college credit for auditioning for the dating game?

*Me and Max's stupid pet trick is that we sound exactly the same when we eat corn chips?

*In May, I may merrily, or might meekly marry a Mary?

*I once saw Christian Laettner at a "Hot Dogs and More"?

*I once bagged Frank Viola's groceries?

*I once ate dinner with Dave Winfield?

*I once talked to Prince's manager on the Secretary of State's corporation information lines?

*In the fall, my heart's inspiration will be in the nation's capital?

WHEN? And when a poll is taken showing a disturbing split- blacks believe the accused is innocent and won't receive a fair trial and whites believe the accused is guilty, where does that leave the rest of us that don't fit into those two groups? Are our opinions important? Doesn't that show the poll itself is skewed somehow or disruptive in its implications?

WHY? If you were accused of a crime and if you were absolutely 100% innocent, wouldn't you want all the evidence to come out? Wouldn't the more information that came out increase your side of things? Why would you be trying so hard to get evidence thrown out, like the results of DNA testing?

HOW? A former acquaintance once asked me why I had to have a favorite, favorite Beatle, favorite Bangle, favorite soda pop, favorite comic strip... why I couldn't just like them all, take things for what they are? When the issue becomes trying to treat people fairly, people you must treat fairly, how does this favoritism thing get solved? Everything changes, everything passes, you do what you think you should do... But why set yourself up in the first place? How to you deal with it?