So, what am I writing about now?
Guitars and pens.
At first glance, they may not appear to have much in common. But both are tools—tools for expressing thoughts and feelings that might otherwise remain buried somewhere inside us. I’m fortunate enough to own both, and I use them as best I can to give voice to whatever happens to be moving through my mind on any given day.
The English alphabet contains only 26 letters. That’s all—26 simple letters. Yet, arranged in the right order and placed in the right hands, they have given the world its greatest literature.
A Jesuit once told me to read the classics because there simply wasn’t enough time in one life to make it through everything worth reading. He was right. The world of literature contains nearly everything about the human experience, and it stubbornly refuses to leave anything out.
I have read like a man on fire for most of my life because some extraordinary English teachers introduced me to the dazzling beauty and power of language.
Because of them, I rode beside Don Quixote, danced with Anna Karenina at a ball in St. Petersburg and helped lasso a steer in Lonesome Dove. I confronted the horrors of slavery in Beloved, wandered the streets of Dublin in Ulysses, imagined a hundred stories from The Arabian Nights and watched a baseball change everything in A Prayer for Owen Meany.
I have laughed aloud while reading Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissenting opinions—not always because the subject was funny, but because of the sheer wit and brilliance of his language. I have been humbled by the blazing intellect of Charles Krauthammer’s columns and reminded that a carefully chosen sentence can challenge an idea, change a mind or remain with someone for a lifetime.
Words eventually carried me beyond the page and behind a microphone. They allowed me to introduce myself to listeners while filling in for the great Tom Sipos on Hudson Valley Live at WKIP. Later, they gave me the privilege of hosting my own morning show on WKIP, where every day began with a microphone, a blank page and the opportunity to connect with people throughout the Hudson Valley.
Today, those same words continue through The Valley Viewpoint. Publishing it has given me another microphone of sorts—a place to write about our towns, our schools, our politics and the people and issues shaping the Hudson Valley. Radio taught me the power of speaking directly to a community. The Valley Viewpoint has reminded me that the written word can carry that conversation even further.
None of that happened by accident.
It began with teachers—magnificent men and women who found me when I was still a boy and handed me the precious gift of the English language. They taught me not simply how to read and write, but how to think, question, imagine and communicate. I cherish them, praise them and remain forever grateful for everything they gave me.
Find your voice, and you may also find courage, truth and even a little of God’s justice.
Music offers much the same gift.
I have always believed people would find more pleasure in their daily routines if they occasionally burst into song at significant moments. Life might not become easier, but it would certainly have a better soundtrack.
Music is one of the great unifiers. People who disagree about almost everything can still hear the same song, tap their feet to the same rhythm and sing the same chorus.
It is also one of life’s great rememberers.
A song can return us to happy times and sad ones, to lost loves, old friends and younger versions of ourselves. Years may pass, and then a familiar melody suddenly plays somewhere—a car radio, a restaurant or a grocery-store aisle—and an emotion we thought had disappeared rises quietly back to the surface, often accompanied by a knowing smile.
So, guitars, pens and my voice.
They carried me onto the airwaves at WKIP, through the pages of my blog and into each new edition of The Valley Viewpoint. They are the tools I have been given. I may not always use them perfectly, but I use them honestly and to the best of my ability.
And I’m very glad I do.
Thanks for listening. Thanks for reading. And, whenever possible, keep singing.
The Valley Viewpoint 