From Sidelines to Headlines: The Optimistic Journey of Ed Ackerman

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Music.
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Hello, my name is Vito Qualia. Welcome to A Matter of Principle,
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a podcast about school, sports, and leadership.
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Today, our guest is Mr. Ed Ackerman, someone who's been writing professionally for over 50 years.
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Right after graduating as valedictorian in the very first graduating class of
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Pitsenary High School, Mr.
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Ackerman was hired as a sports writer for the Sunday Dispatch in Pittston.
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He began writing his personal column, Ed Ackerman Optimist, back in 1984, and continues to write.
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Nowadays, it's in the Greater Pits in Progress, in addition to the Citizen's Voice newspaper.
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And his Optimist blog also appears online on the Pits in Progress website.
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Mr. Ackerman is a professor of communications at Luzerne County Community College.
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So without further ado, let's welcome the award-winning writer and college professor,
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Mr. Ed Ackerman, to the podcast. Welcome.
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Thank you, Vito. It's nice to be here. Well, this is a new podcast.
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We just started recording some episodes this summer.
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And in a nutshell, just so you, the listener at home, and also Mr.
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Ackerman, know where we're going. It's basically just a conversation,
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a free-flowing conversation about sports and life lessons and leadership,
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maybe some mentors that we've had in the past, and maybe some people that we've
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influenced or had some impact upon ourselves.
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So, I mean, let's just start off with your career, Mr. Ackman.
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You've worked in the communications field for decades.
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Is there something that you can attribute your longevity and your success to?
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Oh, that's a darn good question. You know, in life, there's always something that's a bit of luck.
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And I often quote the old baseball commissioner Branch Rickey.
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And he made a statement about luck and it's misquoted.
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And the misquote is as good as the actual quote. So the misquote,
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people say, luck is the residue of desire.
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That's the misquote, which is a pretty good one. The actual quote is,
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luck is the residue of design.
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And so I guess maybe those two things came together.
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The design was me being a really good student in school,
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and the luck was a mentor, a teacher of mine had been writing sports for the
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dispatch and was taking a job out of town and said, I'm going to recommend you
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for the part-time sports writing job, and that'll be a good job for you while you're in college.
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It'll be a nice little paycheck on the side and that's what got me into the
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field and I think after that For whatever reason I never lost my enthusiasm for it.
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And I think maybe that shows in the stuff I write I still am very enthusiastic
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about communicating with people. I
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And I think one of the things that makes a good storyteller and makes a good
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story is when you marry that universal theme with something specific that people can latch on to.
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And so much of what you write, and I've been lucky enough to see you serving
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as a toastmaster or speaker in different things, and you have that knack.
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You know how to bring a universal theme into something that all of us have a
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personal connection to. So I definitely think that's something that runs throughout
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all of your columns and all of your stories.
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And now you talked about sports and you've had tremendous opportunities over
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the years to interview and to cover hundreds of great athletes and coaches.
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And I know I'm putting you on the spot with this, but could you name one or
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two of the best athletes that you've seen in your time of covering sports?
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Yeah, that was and that was all local sports, as you know. And that's a question
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I'm asked of quite frequently, believe it or not, because I did that for about
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15 years on the sidelines, on a court side, things like that.
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And what I say, and I say it in all honesty, the best athlete is not what people might think.
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They might think I'd say Jimmy Cefalo. He's the best football player I ever saw.
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But the best athlete is the guy who's the current AD at Pitson area,
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Charlie Turco. What a tremendous three-sport talent, natural ability,
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unbelievable natural ability.
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And a lot of people will agree with me when they hear that.
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On the west side, from my years of covering sports, I say the version of that
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from Wyoming area is a kid named Donnie McDermott.
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And interestingly, Donnie McDermott was a star in the first sporting event I
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ever covered. In the summer of 67, when I got the job, I was sent up to Tunkhannock
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to cover the Little League All-Star District Championship game.
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And Donnie McDermott, who looked like a little professor in his professorial-looking
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glasses, pitched a tremendous game that day for Wyoming West,
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Wyoming All-Stars. That was Little League.
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And as he went through high school and so forth, I put him in that same category,
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tremendous all-around athlete.
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There have been dozens of others, of course, but those two guys really stand out.
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Okay. How about coaches? I mean, there's been plenty of coaches on both sides
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of the river and in the valley. Who would you say are the number two?
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I have tremendous respect for all coaches, and I was lucky enough to spend a
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lot of years writing about Bob Barberi's football teams.
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And Bob Barberi, to me, was a much misunderstood person.
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The fiery guy on the sidelines was not the guy off the field.
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Bob Burberry was a philosopher and educator first and just a great all-around
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guy. I love that man and I miss him tremendously.
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I got to know Jack Gallagher a little bit when he coached basketball at Pittston area.
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Jack Gallagher was good friends with Coach K, good friends with Bobby Knight.
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I mean, so, you know, my one degree of separation to those guys was tremendous.
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Got to know Jack Hensis when he first started at Wyoming Area.
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And then Tom Vaxmonsky followed there. And then Paul Marenka.
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They're about to dedicate the weight room facility at Wyoming Area in Paul's
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honor. And it's a great honor.
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So over the years, just Jimmy Comensberger coached St.
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John's when it was the PCIAA, the Pennsylvania Catholic Interscholastic Athletic Association.
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And took a team to the state finals, and I got to cover all of that.
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So, yeah, I never met a coach who, you know, keep in mind, I was a kid when I started.
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So there were coaches being interviewed by an 18-year-old, and every one of
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them treated me with tremendous respect, every one of them.
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What do you think, and some of those coaches that you mentioned,
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I mean, legendary, you know, fellas who lasted years in those positions.
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And today, you don't see that kind of longevity with coaching. I mean, you might.
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There's outliers here and there. But a lot of times, you know,
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someone's in a spot for three, four, five years and they move on.
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Do you think there's different?
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I don't know if it's patience with people who hire these these guys or,
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you know, you have to win at all costs.
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Or do you think the student athletes today are different than they were back
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in the past? What do you think about that?
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I think yes to everything you just said.
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I think times have changed. Players have changed. I think, you know,
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you know, it's it's harder to it's harder to raise a family.
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And I'm talking from an economic perspective.
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So so if a coach then we've known this for years. If a coach were to figure
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out what the coach is paid per hour to coach, it's ridiculous.
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And sometimes a teacher maybe can't make ends meet on a teaching salary in today's day and age.
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And those hours that could be spent coaching, something a coach absolutely loves,
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the fellow might have to say, I got to do something else to supplement my income.
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This is taking me away from my family and the reward isn't there.
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And that's a shame. But one thing about longevity of coaches,
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Wyoming area picked up a few games with Columbia, the tremendous football program down there.
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And I remember a couple of years ago when they decided to play them,
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Southern Columbia winning all kinds of state titles.
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And somebody told me the coaching staff at Southern Columbia has been the same for 30 years.
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That produces a winner. When you're jumping back and forth year to year to year
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to year, there's no consistency. and see the teaching becomes different,
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and it's hard to win that way.
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It's always been tough to coach. I think it's harder to do it in today's day
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and age. Then you have social media.
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It was one thing for the fans to yell at you on Friday night from the sidelines at a football game.
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Now you get lambasted all week long on social media.
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And you hit the nail on the head when you said now it's like –,
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it's there's only two things now there's that you win it
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all or you're a loser and that's a shame you know especially
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in high school sports it should be a an experience more than a one loss thing
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but it's me talking no and i agree with you that's that's one thing remind me
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hope i don't i should write a note i want to i want to talk about high school
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sports versus like travel sports and things like that like that there's two
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different kind of things going on i want to get your take on that.
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But going back to, you know, Pitson area and you were there when the jointure
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happened, who was, you probably had more than one, but who would you say might
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be your favorite teacher that you had at Pitson area high school?
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That's another interesting question. Again, I was a very good student.
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And maybe there's a, you know, a chicken and egg thing there.
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I liked all of my teachers. maybe maybe they liked
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me maybe i was a teachable guy a lot
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of names stand out a fellow just passed away a few
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days ago jim gilmartin was my world world
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cultural teacher in high school he's the guy about a
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month after i graduated high school who called me up and said
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i told the people at the sunday dispatch i'd find them
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a sports writer and i think it's going to be you that man
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changed my life forever i did not start out to
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get into journalism he put me in journalism and i'm still in
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it you know 50 some years later so there's
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him but when i i mentioned jimmy comensberger the the coach
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earlier i had him as a teacher and uh i really
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liked that man i liked his style he taught french but you
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know before there was you know you're in education what are the letters of the
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state tests the kids have to take today to prove they learned something well
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the pssa yeah those things pssa you know what they're the ruination of education
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a guy like jim comensberger teaching French wasn't teaching us to a test.
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What he was doing was giving us his whole self.
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So in the French class, he was a philosopher.
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He was a historian who would go to the arts a little bit and he would teach us French.
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But there wasn't something hanging over his head as a teacher to make sure we
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passed a standardized test at the end of the year. And that applies to to all of my teachers.
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And so they go off script is what I'm saying.
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And a long time ago, I heard a quotation.
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Long time ago. I'm talking at least 50 years ago. I heard this quotation.
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An education is everything you remember after you've forgotten everything you learned in high school.
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I'll repeat it. An education is everything you remember after you've forgotten
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everything you learned in high school.
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That's worth unpacking a little bit. We don't have to do that now.
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But I always thought I thought that made a lot of sense.
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And then I heard many years later, who said it? Albert Einstein.
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Wow. So can I get by in a little bit of French after taking four years of French with Jim Cominsberger?
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Once in a while, just about get by. But are his fingerprints all over me as a man? You bet.
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You bet. Well, and that kind of is one of the things that, you know,
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the podcast is built upon is this idea of relationships, right?
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Where everything, every success you can have, and this is a veto quality opinion.
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I think some people would agree.
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It's based on your relationship. Your relationship with your partner in life.
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Your relationship with your job. your relationship with your team if you're
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a coach, your class if you're a teacher.
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And if you invest in that relationship, you're going to see success.
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And I think teachers like that, teachers like the guys you mentioned,
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cared more about their students and making those connections than they – I'm
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sure they cared about the content they were teaching.
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But just by what you're talking about, it shows me that they cared about the relationships as well.
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Yeah. A book came out last year or the year before called The Good Life.
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The Good Life was based on the longest study ever of what it takes to be happy.
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And the study was over 70 years old. It started with a study group of men who
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were at Harvard because there were only men there and then people in and around the Boston area.
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John F. Kennedy, as a college student, was one of the people in the group.
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And what the researchers did over the years was interview them,
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ask them questions. As they grew up, they asked them more questions.
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As they died off, they asked their offspring if they would participate.
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As the people who started the study died off, people picked it up.
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So for 70-some years, through surveys mostly, they tried to deduce what makes for a happy life.
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You know what they came up with more than anything else? Relationships.
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Relationships. There you go. Lots and lots. And not necessarily romantic ones,
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but lots of relationships. The more relationships you can build,
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the happier you will be in life, which is underscoring what you just said.
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And one thing about the teachers building relationships back then,
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not only did they want to, but they were allowed to.
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I think today some teachers may want to, but they're kind of hamstrung a little
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bit by a standardized test that somehow are worth and proves that students are
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getting what they're getting.
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And if you ask me, those things don't prove a thing.
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Well, and it goes to, you know, what people are held accountable to.
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I mean, you know, the papers will come out every year when the state test scores
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come out and they rank the schools by their test scores.
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And not to mismatch the media, but they don't come out with a survey or a ranking
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system of those kind of things.
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You know, rank your school by the kind of relationships that your faculty builds with your students.
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I don't know how you would measure that, but I mean, they're the things that
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we all know mean something.
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And I'm sure that if I were valedictorian, so you knew that you had great grades.
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But for the most part, when you ask someone about a favorite teacher,
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they can't remember the grade point average maybe they had in that class.
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But they remember what that how that teacher made them feel,
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you know, and they're the measurables that matter.
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But yet, you know, we don't report on that. We don't rank schools based on that, which is sad.
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We want to we want to reduce everything to almost the contest.
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You know, I agree with you when those when those results are published,
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there's nothing in between the lines.
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And, you know, the real the real measure of of something working is not necessarily
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quantifiable in that way. I know we want it to be.
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We'd love it to be. But it isn't. And I maintain, even though,
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you know, like that term valedictorian, you know, I don't I don't walk around
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with a big V on my chest. I will.
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But I maintain that that grades aren't that great a measure of anything. thing.
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And even though my grade point average put me at the top of a class,
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did the grade in any given class measure what I got out of it? No.
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And I tell my students today, I said, at the end of a semester,
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you're going to get a grade.
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The grade has very little to do with what you will take with you.
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If you got nothing out of the class and for some reason, a clerical error,
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or I'm just being a benevolent guy, I stick A after your name, but you got nothing.
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That A doesn't mean you suddenly got something.
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You know, whatever you got out of the class has nothing to do with the grade you get at the end.
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I know we have to, I guess we feel we have to quantify things,
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but I just think that when we make that too big of a deal.
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You know, it's it's not it's not a sporting event when we look in the paper
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and we know, you know, Pittston area did this and somebody else didn't do that
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or whatever the schools might be. We almost make everything a contest anymore.
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And it's, you know, it's kind of our nature as being competitive people.
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But I think it's it's what we measure, you know, to that.
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I think we lose track of what we try to grasp for something that ranks,
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you know, somebody somewhere. And the only thing that is published,
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unfortunately, are test scores.
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And I think we have to find some other measurable things.
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Talking about teaching now and your career in writing that started when you
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were just a kid yourself, did you know you wanted to be a teacher?
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What led you to become that professor at LCC? How did that happen?
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Not at all. I think, you know, I didn't even want to be a writer.
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I began college as an art major. I could always draw. on. I wasn't so sure what
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I was going to do with that. I really didn't.
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I remember a guy named Joe Schwalick was a counselor at Wilkes.
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That's where I went to school.
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And I remember I went there with my mom. My parents knew nothing about college.
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And we went to a meeting and he looked at my transcript and he said,
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I see you're majoring in art. I said, yeah.
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And he looked quizzically and he said, is that something you really want to do? And I went, yeah.
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And I think he was wondering with my grades. Why wasn't I doing something else?
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And he never said it, and that was fine. But as far as the writing,
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as I said, a former teacher...
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Said he thought I could do a good job writing sports for the local paper.
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And that ignited that writing in me.
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Never dreamt I'd make a career out of it, but it kept getting more interesting,
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more interesting, more interesting.
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I stayed with it. And then I worked for the Little Sunday Dispatch.
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It was a weekly paper. All week long, we did other things.
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I know this is a long answer to your question, but one of the things we did
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was we had a printing press, a really wonderful printing press,
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great quality of printing. thing.
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We wound up printing all of the college newspapers in the area.
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And each college had a different relationship with us.
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And the late Tom Moran, M-O-R-A-N, was the advisor to the beacon, the paper at Wilkes.
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And what he worked out was he brought the whole Wilkes staff up to the Sunday
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Dispatch on a Tuesday, which when we weren't real busy, we were a Sunday paper.
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Newspaper and he basically had me
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teach them all the things about journalism i was just
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doing that because it was fun never realizing off to the
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side was this man observing me well a few years went by i get a call from wilks
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would i consider being an adjunct professor in some journalism classes and so
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i did and then 1989 i get a call from tom moran who is now the president of
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Luzerne County Community College.
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Would I ever consider teaching journalism full-time at the college?
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And so I didn't set out to be a teacher and there we were. I said to Mr.
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Moran, I have a bachelor's degree in psychology.
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And he said, yeah, but you've got 23 years experience in the newspaper field.
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And we have a formula that qualifies you at a PhD level.
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We'd love to have you. It was a big pay cut. My kids were little and it meant
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I'd be home with them all summer long.
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So I took the pay cut and that was 1990 and it's now 2024.
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Now, you know, some people think of teaching as an art. Other people,
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you know, think teaching is a science.
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What do you think? Or do you think it's a little bit of both?
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I think maybe probably never having an education course in my life.
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You know, it became a seat of the pants thing with me. And seat of the pants
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operations usually have a little more art in them than science.
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I probably could use a little more of the science.
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One thing I did immediately, and there might be some art in this.
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I don't know. no, I'm a problem solver.
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And I remember thinking, what do the kids really know?
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And what do they know? They know inside out. It sticks to their ribs.
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It's not the Battle of Hastings in 1066. What do they know?
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And I came up with, most of them, college kids, they all know how to drive.
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And I thought, did they learn that sitting in a classroom three days a week
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for 15 weeks with the PowerPoint presentation?
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Did they learn that from somebody with a PhD in driving.
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They learned it probably from a mom or dad at the end of a long day of working
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somewhere who the last thing they wanted to do was take them driving.
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Who knew nothing about pedagogy.
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They're trying to teach their kid how to drive, blah, blah, blah.
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Anyway, they all learned how to drive.
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And I knew why. It's obvious why.
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Motivation. They really wanted to learn how to drive. And so I've always tried
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to employ or incorporate motivation and to everything I teach.
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You know, I teach public speaking. The kids may wonder, why the heck do I need to know this?
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What's the motivation for this? And I tell them on day one.
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You can go through your whole life never giving a speech. So there's no motivation
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there. You can go through your whole life never giving a speech.
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But I say, I'm sorry to tell you, you can't go through your whole life never
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losing to death someone you love.
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And when that happens, you might be the perfect person to get up at a service and talk about them.
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And if you don't know how to do it, you'll sit there while someone else does
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it. And you'll feel real bad that you couldn't give your friend or your loved one this gift.
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And there's some motivation there then. And, you know, maybe they'll never employ
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those skills for another 50 years.
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And I hope they don't. But when the time comes, they'll know how to do it.
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And so I try to do that with everything.
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I try to motivate them. Now, that sounds more artsy to me than science. But what do I know?
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No, I think that, I mean, as a former English teacher myself,
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that's a really cool, you know, vehicle to get the motivation,
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you know, because thinking everyone, unfortunately, will deal with the loss of a loved one.
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And hearing good eulogies or maybe wanting to be that person that can show that
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appreciation and celebration of that life, that is tremendous motivation.
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So that's really cool. If you thought that one on your own, you're top-notch,
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my friend. That was all right. I like that. You're kind to say that.
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You know what I'm doing as a teacher?
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I always want to give everything my best every single time.
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I always want to give it my best, and I want to keep analyzing myself and checking
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myself on what I'm doing and stuff like that.
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And people ask me why I'm not retired.
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You mentioned the year I graduated. So next fall, I will turn 75 years old.
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And people say, when are you going to retire?
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And I say, so far, at the beginning of every semester, I'm unbelievably enthused.
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I'm excited. And I say, I'm going to teach this class better than I did it last time.
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And the minute I don't feel that way, then I'll know this is my last semester coming up.
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Well, that's the way to do it because I'm a huge Springsteen fan and I'll still
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go see him and he's still, you know, rocking in his 70s and Mick Jagger,
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you know, and Keith, they're out there at 80.
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So if you love it, if it's a passion and you still have the fire and you still
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enjoy it, keep doing it because I think that's unfortunately,
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you know, people slow down and retire and stop doing things.
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And that's when, you know, before you know it, they become sick or something
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else happens because they lost that fire.
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So if you can keep it kindled, I mean, that's terrific.
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We need a purpose. Absolutely. We need a purpose. Yep. When you said the best
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– a person I was talking to, Frank Parenti, was talking about how he teaches
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and coaches and always trying to motivate his players and his students in the
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classroom to be the best versions of themselves.
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And he wants – he tries to bring that every day when he's teaching and coaching.
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And you echoed that same thing. And that reminds me of something you probably
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heard Sinatra saying that.
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Why do you give it your all? You're old and towards the end of his career.
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And he said, you see that guy, there's somebody in the rafters that paid,
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you know, all their money and, you know, three paychecks to come and see me.
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And that's the first time he ever saw me. And I want him to feel like it means something.
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You know, like he always brought his best to two thoughts come to mind there.
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One along those lines, when I think of the NBA and I think of a guy saves and
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saves and saves and takes his kid to his first National Basketball Association game.
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And the star has decided to take the night off just to rest up.
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That's the opposite of what you just said about Sinatra. And the other thing
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is there's a great story about Joe DiMaggio where the Yankees had already clinched the pennant.
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They're going to go to another World Series, and there's a fly ball to the outfield,
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and DiMaggio makes a diving catch.
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And afterwards, a reporter says to him, like, why did you do that?
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You could have hurt yourself, and the team really needs you in the playoffs.
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And DiMaggio said, I'm always thinking there might be someone in the stands
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who never saw me play before.
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That's giving your all all the time, all the time.
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Well, and it's such, you know, it fights at the fabric of what,
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you know, America, this is going to be a giant broad stroke of a comment.
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But, I mean, we kind of hold ourselves up as, you know, we're individuals and we can do anything.
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And, you know, it's almost unfortunately capitalism, you know, breeds that me, me, me.
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And, you know, what can I do for myself and my family and win at all costs or succeed at all costs.
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But then everything you read, you know, talks about servant leadership and and,
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you know, whatever faith you follow, you know, always talks about sacrifice
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and, you know, worrying about the community instead of yourself kind of thing.
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And, you know, Simon Sinek writing books about, you know, that leaders eat last,
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you know, make sure all your guys are fed first and then you go.
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So it's just there's a dichotomy, right? There's just these two different things
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that you see all the time. You see people that work their tail to the bone to
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be successful, and maybe they're sacrificing some things that they'll regret someday.
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And then you see other people like you're talking about that every day, like, hey, guess what?
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I got to bring my best because I don't want to let anyone down.
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And where's the balance?
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I mean, can you have the balance? Can you be an alpha? Can you be a leader and
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still be a servant leader successfully? Or what do you think about that?
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That's a lot. I know there's a lot there. I'd like to say...
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I'd like to say yes. I'd like to say yes, that we can be these perfect people, really.
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But, you know, as much as I bill myself as Ed Ackerman optimist,
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I think the truth is I'm Ed Ackerman realist.
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I take an optimistic approach to everything.
401
00:26:23,427 --> 00:26:27,307
I'm a very, very positive person, but I am a realist. And, you know,
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00:26:27,327 --> 00:26:32,587
sometimes the skill sets that we're talking about that we value,
403
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you, if you're blessed with those,
404
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it's hard not to let those become a tool you use to gain financial success and
405
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maybe lose yourself in the process.
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We don't reward the good qualities that we're talking about.
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And so people who want to be self-motivated to be the best they could be without
408
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just striving for material success, boy, it takes a lot to keep hanging on to that.
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That we don't live in a society that rewards that very
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very well we we we measure people by what
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they're driving and how big their houses are and that's just the way it is and
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i'm not saying we're bad for doing that i'm just saying that's the
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way it is you know i i've said and
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i mean this and i don't mean i mean this truthfully if
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if i look at that that v word again you know
416
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valedictorian coming out of pitston area and i
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would say depending on the yardstick you use to measure me
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someone could take out a yardstick and say wow what
419
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an underachiever you know he he teaches at
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a community college and he writes for the local paper what
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an underachiever we thought he was going to you know
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we thought he was going to write for the new york times or sports illustrated
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or be an anchor on tv and look look what he wound up doing that's one yardstick
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you take another yard stick out and it's the one fortunately that i measure
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myself by and and you you think of did Did I make a difference? Did I influence lives?
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00:27:58,067 --> 00:28:00,527
Did I do this and that? You kind of say, okay, I did it right,
427
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but it depends on who's doing the measuring and what the value system is.
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00:28:04,447 --> 00:28:09,507
Speaking about influence, in all the years that you've covered different events
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and just written about a myriad of topics,
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00:28:13,047 --> 00:28:17,667
could you name a couple of the most influential people that you think have come
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from the greater Pittston area? Oh, gosh, gee.
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So, you know, you look at people often come back and think of Jimmy Cefalo.
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You know, he played in the NFL.
434
00:28:30,322 --> 00:28:32,542
He scored a touchdown in a Super Bowl.
435
00:28:33,122 --> 00:28:39,622
You know, I really I recall that Penn State did not have the following that
436
00:28:39,622 --> 00:28:42,442
Penn State has today before Jimmy Cefalo played at Penn State.
437
00:28:42,702 --> 00:28:45,622
And when he played there, it seemed like all of Pittston wanted to get down
438
00:28:45,622 --> 00:28:48,142
to a game all the time. And then that just built and built and built.
439
00:28:48,302 --> 00:28:54,342
That's tremendous influence. There are people, gee, you know,
440
00:28:54,362 --> 00:28:56,762
creative piston people that went on to influence.
441
00:28:57,822 --> 00:29:01,262
I'd have to give that some more thought. Does someone pop into your mind?
442
00:29:01,342 --> 00:29:06,602
Well, I just, I always think, I mean, you know, from our conversations in the
443
00:29:06,602 --> 00:29:08,342
past, I'm like a local history buff.
444
00:29:08,382 --> 00:29:14,222
And I think there's a pocket in Northeast PA that not a lot of people who aren't
445
00:29:14,222 --> 00:29:16,202
from here, you know, know our history.
446
00:29:16,202 --> 00:29:19,222
And if you think about some of the things, you know, whether it's,
447
00:29:19,222 --> 00:29:23,502
you know, Greater Pittston is a smaller thing. But, I mean, I think about, you know, Mr.
448
00:29:23,682 --> 00:29:26,982
McGowan, you know, from Nashville, where I came from, you know,
449
00:29:27,002 --> 00:29:30,042
with the telecommunications and MCI, I think it was, and all that.
450
00:29:30,122 --> 00:29:34,982
And then, you know, you have, you know, different people that went on to be bishops or cardinals.
451
00:29:35,142 --> 00:29:39,122
And, you know, Pittston itself, I mean, there's some notorious people from our
452
00:29:39,122 --> 00:29:42,802
area that also went on maybe to have influence, whether it's good influence or bad influence.
453
00:29:42,802 --> 00:29:45,722
Influence but you know if you if you think about some
454
00:29:45,722 --> 00:29:48,522
of the ones and i think some people don't come back you know that's
455
00:29:48,522 --> 00:29:51,282
another thing too that maybe people go on and leave and become
456
00:29:51,282 --> 00:29:54,002
successful and might have influence somewhere else in
457
00:29:54,002 --> 00:29:57,422
the country or in their community but they're from here that's i was thinking
458
00:29:57,422 --> 00:30:01,102
of you i was kind of hoping that you would know some people that i don't know
459
00:30:01,102 --> 00:30:05,202
because you've been covering so many stories for so long when i think of the
460
00:30:05,202 --> 00:30:09,322
guy i mentioned earlier the the jim gilmartin who got me my job he he left for
461
00:30:09,322 --> 00:30:13,102
hamburg pennsylvania to become a vice principal of a high school.
462
00:30:13,402 --> 00:30:17,702
He later became superintendent of Hamburg area. He did that for about 14 years.
463
00:30:18,875 --> 00:30:23,955
After that, in retirement, one after another, his services were sought to be
464
00:30:23,955 --> 00:30:26,215
an interim superintendent at struggling school districts.
465
00:30:26,415 --> 00:30:30,195
And he was doing that over and over and over. At one point, Pittston Area brought
466
00:30:30,195 --> 00:30:34,895
him back to advise George Cosgrove when he was the superintendent of Pittston Area.
467
00:30:35,035 --> 00:30:39,815
So this guy had nothing but success, success, success in the area of Hamburg, Pennsylvania.
468
00:30:40,255 --> 00:30:45,535
Never had any children of his own and has a surprisingly tiny extended family.
469
00:30:45,535 --> 00:30:48,675
But always and and i
470
00:30:48,675 --> 00:30:51,975
know numbers but i i don't feel privileged to to
471
00:30:51,975 --> 00:30:55,195
mention them but a lot of checks came from
472
00:30:55,195 --> 00:30:58,095
mr gilmartin to a lot of causes back in his hometown of
473
00:30:58,095 --> 00:31:00,775
pitston uh the thing that
474
00:31:00,775 --> 00:31:03,595
is a matter of record is scholarships the friendly sons of
475
00:31:03,595 --> 00:31:07,075
saint patrick supported completely by mr gilmartin full rides
476
00:31:07,075 --> 00:31:09,995
at his alma mater king's college that he funded
477
00:31:09,995 --> 00:31:12,935
so never had an opportunity to
478
00:31:12,935 --> 00:31:16,235
come back here physically although came back frequently I
479
00:31:16,235 --> 00:31:19,395
wasn't that far of a drive but boy supported this
480
00:31:19,395 --> 00:31:22,255
area over and over and over that that's
481
00:31:22,255 --> 00:31:25,295
pretty cool a success story that the Greater
482
00:31:25,295 --> 00:31:28,955
Princeton Chamber of Commerce just honored Sandy and Sulaco with a Titan of
483
00:31:28,955 --> 00:31:36,315
Industry Award and in Sulaco is a very very wealthy man and Sulaco has made
484
00:31:36,315 --> 00:31:39,875
a lot of other people wealthy by giving them opportunity is employed a lot of
485
00:31:39,875 --> 00:31:42,695
people and and is still going at it.
486
00:31:42,735 --> 00:31:46,035
I think he turns 85 or 84 this summer, 85, I think.
487
00:31:46,815 --> 00:31:51,315
And at the Chamber of Commerce event, when he was honored, you know,
488
00:31:51,315 --> 00:31:53,455
his accomplishments were listed.
489
00:31:53,595 --> 00:31:58,335
And what he said was, I'm really glad that I was able to do all of that right here.
490
00:31:58,415 --> 00:32:02,635
I would not want to have done all the things I did anywhere else.
491
00:32:02,675 --> 00:32:07,315
I wanted to do them where I was born and where I grew up. That's a real success right there, I think.
492
00:32:07,555 --> 00:32:12,275
Oh, definitely. And, you know, that old attribute, don't forget where he came from.
493
00:32:12,355 --> 00:32:16,415
So clearly he never forgot where he came from. If you think about the Insulaco family,
494
00:32:16,755 --> 00:32:21,935
the Falcone family with the brothers that started the distributorship,
495
00:32:22,095 --> 00:32:26,535
I don't know if those types of, I want to say rags to riches,
496
00:32:26,735 --> 00:32:29,695
but I mean, humble beginnings to people that are really successful.
497
00:32:30,195 --> 00:32:35,575
I don't know if that happens much anymore where a whole family works together
498
00:32:35,575 --> 00:32:40,355
and holds it together and realizes generational wealth, things like that,
499
00:32:40,395 --> 00:32:42,015
that those two families have.
500
00:32:42,095 --> 00:32:44,475
And, and I'm sure there's countless others all over the place,
501
00:32:44,495 --> 00:32:50,055
but now you'll see, you know, individuals that are successful and sometimes successful overnight.
502
00:32:50,175 --> 00:32:53,195
And they, you know, they can't manage that success and it falls apart a little
503
00:32:53,195 --> 00:32:56,735
bit, but that incremental growth and like starting very humbly,
504
00:32:56,755 --> 00:32:59,235
whether it's a little fruit stand on the side of a road and,
505
00:32:59,255 --> 00:33:01,855
and building and building and building and being smart with your money,
506
00:33:01,895 --> 00:33:04,815
it seems like people don't have patience to, to build that way anymore.
507
00:33:05,516 --> 00:33:08,356
Yeah, I don't think society has it, and I think you're right.
508
00:33:08,976 --> 00:33:12,696
Yeah, so I don't know if we'll see that again. Here's an example of talk about
509
00:33:12,696 --> 00:33:15,836
being what you are, let's say.
510
00:33:15,896 --> 00:33:19,616
Be an example of what you preach is the mayor of Pittston, Mike Lombardo.
511
00:33:19,736 --> 00:33:20,916
Mike Lombardo lives in town.
512
00:33:21,096 --> 00:33:25,976
Mike Lombardo lives in Pittston. Mike Lombardo restored a home on Broad Street,
513
00:33:26,116 --> 00:33:31,456
lived in it for a while, moved up the street a little bit, bought an older home and restored it.
514
00:33:31,556 --> 00:33:36,916
So he's the mayor of the town and he lives right in the heart of Pittston, right downtown.
515
00:33:37,556 --> 00:33:42,376
That's pretty cool. It's pretty cool because he could be in any of the wonderful
516
00:33:42,376 --> 00:33:46,316
developments that are still greater Pittston, you know, on a couple of acres
517
00:33:46,316 --> 00:33:49,216
of ground and stuff like that. But he's on Broad Street.
518
00:33:49,476 --> 00:33:53,336
When he was when he was mayor and he was living across the street in a home
519
00:33:53,336 --> 00:33:56,856
he restored. And Mike was a track guy in high school and at Bucknell.
520
00:33:57,056 --> 00:34:01,616
And he used to tell me that he lived a triple jump away from his office in City Hall.
521
00:34:02,876 --> 00:34:09,136
Now, I might be wrong with this, so correct me if I am, but doesn't he tell
522
00:34:09,136 --> 00:34:13,076
people that one of the main reasons that he ran to be mayor was when he was
523
00:34:13,076 --> 00:34:14,636
so heartbroken with the old American theater?
524
00:34:15,136 --> 00:34:19,496
Yeah, he says that all the time. Yeah, and my friend Jack Smiles just wrote
525
00:34:19,496 --> 00:34:25,476
a story about the history of the American theater, and Jack Smiles is the consummate
526
00:34:25,476 --> 00:34:27,256
researcher, and it appeared in Pitch Some Progress.
527
00:34:27,256 --> 00:34:31,476
And I always had a sense that the American Theatre was even bigger than the Kirby Center.
528
00:34:31,716 --> 00:34:37,096
And Jack had the seating capacity. American Theatre sat 2,300 people. The Kirby seats 1,800.
529
00:34:37,696 --> 00:34:39,336
The American Theatre, the wrecking
530
00:34:39,336 --> 00:34:42,516
ball hitting that building was really a shame. Really, really a shame.
531
00:34:42,936 --> 00:34:48,716
And of course, Mike Lombardo, you know, his plans are to build probably a 350-seat
532
00:34:48,716 --> 00:34:52,176
theatre in town, which I think will work very, very well.
533
00:34:52,296 --> 00:34:54,416
There's a similar one down in Sellersville, Pennsylvania.
534
00:34:54,876 --> 00:34:57,916
The Sellersville Theatre. theater and i think it's exactly what
535
00:34:57,916 --> 00:35:01,556
mike has in mind and i've been down there and i look forward i look forward
536
00:35:01,556 --> 00:35:05,276
to that happening in pitston well and i think one of the i mean that we're definitely
537
00:35:05,276 --> 00:35:09,456
taking a left turn on this but it's a good thing you know those the sidewalks
538
00:35:09,456 --> 00:35:12,796
and all of that and and you know you always have detractors of oh what are they
539
00:35:12,796 --> 00:35:15,836
doing we don't need we need other things why are we doing sidewalks well the
540
00:35:15,836 --> 00:35:17,696
research shows that if there's walkable neighborhoods.
541
00:35:18,456 --> 00:35:21,796
That you know there's so much more people want to move there and then if you
542
00:35:21,796 --> 00:35:25,916
can walk to a market or you know, some kind of little, whatever it is,
543
00:35:25,936 --> 00:35:30,636
a niche store here or there that people will retire to communities like that,
544
00:35:30,676 --> 00:35:31,556
because that's what they want.
545
00:35:31,716 --> 00:35:34,936
I mean, that's that nostalgia of that's what it was like when I was a kid kind of thing.
546
00:35:35,016 --> 00:35:39,756
But so you can see that Mike and his team has really researched what works,
547
00:35:39,776 --> 00:35:44,816
you know, found the grants and what's out there available to get the money here, the funding here.
548
00:35:44,896 --> 00:35:48,456
They've done a tremendous job. And I know other little towns around kind of
549
00:35:48,456 --> 00:35:52,076
look to Pittston, you know, the downtown as a blueprint of what they could do,
550
00:35:52,076 --> 00:35:55,236
You know, so it's really a tremendous story that they've done.
551
00:35:55,820 --> 00:36:01,520
Former Representative Mike Carroll, the village or the town of Moscow was in
552
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:06,000
his purview, his district, and he was up there one time a few years ago.
553
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:11,020
And he said to the leaders of Moscow, what can I do for you?
554
00:36:11,100 --> 00:36:12,560
And they said, turn us into Pittston.
555
00:36:12,940 --> 00:36:18,220
What a tribute to Mike Lombardo. And what I say about Mike Lombardo,
556
00:36:18,340 --> 00:36:21,920
and you touched, you said it just briefly a second ago, got to have vision,
557
00:36:21,940 --> 00:36:25,460
but you got to find the money. and to have vision and money.
558
00:36:25,660 --> 00:36:30,360
And public money can only take you so far, but the public money can set you
559
00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:34,140
up in a situation where the private people want to invest their funds.
560
00:36:34,340 --> 00:36:38,320
And once that happens, now you're rolling. And we're seeing that.
561
00:36:38,820 --> 00:36:41,620
Pittston City is becoming a place where people want to live downtown.
562
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:46,080
You know, when they remodeled the old Pittston Apparel building into high-end
563
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:50,240
luxury apartments, they were all booked before they were even ready to be occupied.
564
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:53,760
People want to live in town because it's desirable.
565
00:36:54,940 --> 00:37:01,160
And Mike Lombardo will cast a spotlight on his team, and that's a big part of it.
566
00:37:01,340 --> 00:37:04,140
But nothing in Pittston is happening without Mike Lombardo.
567
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:09,540
I agree. And it wasn't too long ago, for anybody who might be out there listening
568
00:37:09,540 --> 00:37:12,020
that doesn't understand what Pittston is.
569
00:37:12,700 --> 00:37:16,120
Vito, are you still there? I'm here, yes. Did I cut out? Yeah.
570
00:37:16,220 --> 00:37:19,480
We can edit that part, so that's good. Did you hear me say about... Yeah, you cut out.
571
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:24,000
Did you hear me? You were starting to say something about Lombardo and downtown,
572
00:37:24,420 --> 00:37:26,260
and you cut right out. Okay, I'll go back to that.
573
00:37:26,580 --> 00:37:31,560
So many years ago, not many years ago, rather, there's boarded up storefronts.
574
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:34,880
And downtown Pittsburgh was not a place that anyone would want to go.
575
00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:36,520
You would kind of drive through there quickly.
576
00:37:36,620 --> 00:37:40,580
And it was really a place that no one had a lot of pride in.
577
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:45,200
So in a matter of, I think, only two decades, really, maybe the late 90s is
578
00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:47,860
when everything started to kind of swing in his direction.
579
00:37:48,120 --> 00:37:50,200
He's done a tremendous amount of work.
580
00:37:51,329 --> 00:37:55,349
Yeah, I agree. I agree. I agree. It's, it's, it's, it's fun to say you're,
581
00:37:55,349 --> 00:37:58,869
you're part of this community and you drive through Pittston.
582
00:37:59,989 --> 00:38:04,049
Ed, can you hear me? I wonder what happened. We lost you. I lost you at 39.
583
00:38:05,329 --> 00:38:09,609
Okay. Do you have any non-negotiables in your routine that you have to complete
584
00:38:09,609 --> 00:38:11,869
in order to have a good day, a good week or a good month?
585
00:38:11,949 --> 00:38:14,489
I know, I know you like to work out, so that's probably important to you,
586
00:38:14,549 --> 00:38:16,389
but is there anything else in your routine?
587
00:38:16,389 --> 00:38:19,189
I love that term non-negotiables you
588
00:38:19,189 --> 00:38:22,069
know at one point in my life I'm sure there were lots
589
00:38:22,069 --> 00:38:25,329
of them but here's my my philosophy of
590
00:38:25,329 --> 00:38:28,189
life and uh you know I've known a lot of people who have gone through recovery
591
00:38:28,189 --> 00:38:32,889
and there's some some tremendous philosophies that come out of that and and
592
00:38:32,889 --> 00:38:37,089
one of them is only control the things you can control that's a great way to
593
00:38:37,089 --> 00:38:40,429
go through life if you can learn that only control the things you can control
594
00:38:40,429 --> 00:38:44,689
and I always say I've adapted I've adopted that and adapted it.
595
00:38:45,029 --> 00:38:50,029
So for me, it goes like this. I only control the things I can control and I
596
00:38:50,029 --> 00:38:51,009
can't control anything.
597
00:38:51,629 --> 00:38:55,549
So a good day for me is a day when I get to sweat.
598
00:38:55,889 --> 00:39:01,009
If I could run on an elliptical, if you see me at Planet Fitness after I've
599
00:39:01,009 --> 00:39:04,769
been on an elliptical, say hi to me, but don't touch me because you'll get grossed
600
00:39:04,769 --> 00:39:06,789
out. I have a massive perspiration.
601
00:39:07,509 --> 00:39:10,449
That's not a non-negotiable because life gets in the way.
602
00:39:10,629 --> 00:39:15,909
And so there was a time when I could run, when my knees allowed me to run.
603
00:39:16,109 --> 00:39:19,389
If I didn't get in a five-mile run every day, I was miserable all day long.
604
00:39:19,509 --> 00:39:20,389
I don't want to be that way.
605
00:39:20,549 --> 00:39:25,409
So I don't want there to be non-negotiables. I guess I want to roll with the punches.
606
00:39:25,869 --> 00:39:30,529
Gotcha. Okay, good. Now, if you could go back in time, we jump in a time machine,
607
00:39:30,989 --> 00:39:36,909
what advice would you give 10-year-old Eddie Ackerman? Ooh. Okay.
608
00:39:37,753 --> 00:39:43,413
Okay, can we spin it ahead one year? Sure, sure. 11 year old Eddie Ackerman.
609
00:39:43,913 --> 00:39:49,593
I was a guy in sports that I was the classic what they call great practice player.
610
00:39:50,093 --> 00:39:53,813
Man, you watch me practice and you would think, wow, that kid's a star.
611
00:39:54,113 --> 00:39:57,733
I don't know how to explain this, but I guess other people can relate.
612
00:39:57,733 --> 00:40:00,813
Put me on a field, and in those days it would be Little League.
613
00:40:00,953 --> 00:40:04,573
Put two people in the bleachers, and I couldn't tell you my name.
614
00:40:04,633 --> 00:40:05,913
I couldn't get out of my own way.
615
00:40:06,173 --> 00:40:12,193
I couldn't flip that switch to just be in the moment and play the sport.
616
00:40:12,453 --> 00:40:17,833
And so I think I would have said to that little 11-year-old guy, don't give up.
617
00:40:17,873 --> 00:40:21,333
Keep plugging at that, and those two things will come together,
618
00:40:21,473 --> 00:40:26,313
and you'll be able to perform on the athletic field the way you do on the practice field.
619
00:40:27,093 --> 00:40:29,893
I never said that to me, and nobody else ever said that to me.
620
00:40:29,973 --> 00:40:34,493
And I guess if I have a regret, I was not a big kid when I was in high school,
621
00:40:34,613 --> 00:40:36,553
but I didn't go out for any varsity sports.
622
00:40:36,773 --> 00:40:41,633
And I think that was a mistake, and I think it was because of what I just said.
623
00:40:41,853 --> 00:40:45,253
So I wish I could have sat down with an 11-year-old. I wish I could have told
624
00:40:45,253 --> 00:40:49,153
the 11-year-old Eddie Ackerman, if you could see yourself at 22 playing tennis,
625
00:40:49,233 --> 00:40:51,533
you'll be shocked. So hang in there.
626
00:40:52,513 --> 00:40:57,533
But, you know, I graduated high school. I was 5'7 and 140 pounds,
627
00:40:57,773 --> 00:41:00,293
and a year later, I was 5'11, 185.
628
00:41:00,833 --> 00:41:02,373
Wow. You hit a growth spurt there.
629
00:41:03,333 --> 00:41:07,273
I hit a growth spurt, yeah. Well, that's good advice, and I think a lot of people
630
00:41:07,273 --> 00:41:12,033
would probably benefit from that, especially when you're young and you hit that
631
00:41:12,033 --> 00:41:16,353
first little bit of adversity and you don't have that stick-to-itiveness to
632
00:41:16,353 --> 00:41:17,833
go. You just need that little nudge.
633
00:41:17,933 --> 00:41:22,553
So I think that's good advice. We all could go back in time and tell the younger versions of ourselves.
634
00:41:23,153 --> 00:41:27,653
Now, it doesn't have to be when you were 11, but can you think of someone that
635
00:41:27,653 --> 00:41:30,073
might have been your most memorable classmate?
636
00:41:30,113 --> 00:41:31,793
So, I mean, it could be elementary, it could be high school,
637
00:41:31,853 --> 00:41:35,293
but somebody that stands out. If I said, tell me about, you know, a character.
638
00:41:36,331 --> 00:41:41,711
Well, character to a degree, but it's interesting that you bring that up because
639
00:41:41,711 --> 00:41:45,271
I had breakfast this morning with my most memorable classmate.
640
00:41:45,571 --> 00:41:49,711
Somehow, and we talked about it today, what the heck caused us guys to be buddies?
641
00:41:49,711 --> 00:41:53,431
But we met in seventh grade his name is martin soa s-o-w-a
642
00:41:53,431 --> 00:41:56,471
we met in seventh grade and here
643
00:41:56,471 --> 00:41:59,171
we are guys in our in our 70s we're both
644
00:41:59,171 --> 00:42:05,191
74 and we have maintained a close friendship all those years and it has evolved
645
00:42:05,191 --> 00:42:10,191
where we sit down today over breakfast and we're talking about spirituality
646
00:42:10,191 --> 00:42:15,171
and what life is all about and things like that like our our spiritual paths
647
00:42:15,171 --> 00:42:17,031
together you know You know,
648
00:42:17,031 --> 00:42:20,331
my son lives in L.A. now.
649
00:42:20,551 --> 00:42:25,151
He went to school in Savannah, Georgia. He worked in Boulder, Colorado.
650
00:42:25,411 --> 00:42:27,671
He moved to Chicago and worked. He moved to L.A.
651
00:42:27,951 --> 00:42:31,671
He's been all over the place. And he said, Dad, I make friends wherever I go.
652
00:42:31,811 --> 00:42:34,371
They know my friend Martin Sowa. He calls him Uncle Mart.
653
00:42:34,891 --> 00:42:38,291
He said, Dad, I make friends wherever I go. I'm never going to have what you have.
654
00:42:38,551 --> 00:42:42,091
I'm never going to have someone I've been friends with for more than 60 years
655
00:42:42,091 --> 00:42:44,351
on a continual basis, seeing them all the time.
656
00:42:44,351 --> 00:42:50,871
Time so yeah martin's so a big influence on me right my kids feel like my kids
657
00:42:50,871 --> 00:42:54,271
think he's a superhero how'd they just see him that way both of my kids they
658
00:42:54,271 --> 00:42:55,671
call him uncle martin the adorn.
659
00:42:56,531 --> 00:43:02,291
And it's isn't it strange that the people the friends you make that time of
660
00:43:02,291 --> 00:43:06,371
your life i mean i mean you're lucky that you've established you know that the
661
00:43:06,371 --> 00:43:10,071
continuity where you get to see him so much over the years but i but i bet you
662
00:43:10,071 --> 00:43:11,631
if you left for 20 30 years and
663
00:43:11,631 --> 00:43:15,131
came back you would you you'd pick up the conversation where it left off.
664
00:43:15,211 --> 00:43:20,851
Like the friends you make at that age level, it's just amazing how that bond stays. Truly, truly.
665
00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:25,040
When I meet people that I graduated high school with, I genuinely love them.
666
00:43:25,100 --> 00:43:27,980
That's the only word for how I feel about them. Every one of them. I just love them.
667
00:43:28,460 --> 00:43:30,520
Well, you know what? Now that you mentioned that as a question,
668
00:43:30,620 --> 00:43:32,500
I didn't ask, but I'm curious.
669
00:43:32,780 --> 00:43:35,980
What was that like when the jointure happened?
670
00:43:36,220 --> 00:43:40,040
Like back in 67, you know, that's when you had all the smaller schools come
671
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:41,380
together to form, you know.
672
00:43:41,780 --> 00:43:46,940
Here's what happened. A few years prior to that, the first jointure was Northeast.
673
00:43:47,340 --> 00:43:50,220
And Northeast brought together all the small schools.
674
00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:53,460
Duryea was the biggest of them. Brought together Duryea, DuPont,
675
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:57,940
Avoca, Houstown, Jenkins Township. They all came together to form Northeast School District.
676
00:43:58,820 --> 00:44:04,540
Pittston City still stood alone. And then, you know, the first year of Pittston
677
00:44:04,540 --> 00:44:08,260
area was the fall of 66, first graduating class 67.
678
00:44:08,700 --> 00:44:11,780
So the joint year was put together. It was suddenly Pittston area.
679
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:18,020
There was no building to house, you know, 370 seniors, let alone everybody else.
680
00:44:18,020 --> 00:44:26,940
And so we were in an area, but I still think just so did kids that were in a building in Duryea.
681
00:44:27,060 --> 00:44:30,560
And believe it or not, the commercial students, that's what they used to call
682
00:44:30,560 --> 00:44:33,320
it then, you know, college prep general commercial.
683
00:44:33,520 --> 00:44:36,300
Commercial students were housed in the old Huston High School.
684
00:44:37,200 --> 00:44:40,140
Where was that on the corner? Go ahead.
685
00:44:40,600 --> 00:44:44,800
Huston High School. No, it's Huston High School is where the host company is
686
00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:48,480
now in Huston on Center Street. That was Houston High School.
687
00:44:49,420 --> 00:44:52,820
And so they brought us together.
688
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:55,580
We had never met each other, didn't know much about each other.
689
00:44:55,620 --> 00:44:57,880
The football team knew each other, of course, the sports teams.
690
00:44:58,060 --> 00:45:00,260
They brought us together to rehearse for graduation.
691
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:03,840
And we rehearsed in the old Jenkins Township High School.
692
00:45:04,464 --> 00:45:10,304
Where there's now a medical center. And I don't even think that school was functioning,
693
00:45:10,824 --> 00:45:12,424
but they brought us together there.
694
00:45:12,964 --> 00:45:16,984
I don't know if it was the gym or what there, where they brought us all together to practice.
695
00:45:17,484 --> 00:45:21,284
And then we graduated from what is now Scranton Cultural Center.
696
00:45:21,524 --> 00:45:24,484
That's where we graduated from. They didn't know what to do with us.
697
00:45:24,584 --> 00:45:28,984
It was this gang of people, and at a graduation, there'd be thousands of people
698
00:45:28,984 --> 00:45:31,504
wanting to go to it. So we finished from Scranton Cultural Center.
699
00:45:31,664 --> 00:45:36,664
So what it was like, to answer your question, Not a lot changed except the name
700
00:45:36,664 --> 00:45:37,964
of the school we were graduating from.
701
00:45:38,324 --> 00:45:43,564
What it's been like is to this day, I can meet someone and they could say,
702
00:45:43,664 --> 00:45:46,204
you never knew me, but I graduated from high school with you.
703
00:45:46,344 --> 00:45:50,064
I still meet high school classmates that I never knew along the way.
704
00:45:50,564 --> 00:45:55,364
So that's interesting to me. Yeah, and that's something that would never be
705
00:45:55,364 --> 00:45:57,704
replicated, right? I mean, that only happens once.
706
00:45:58,864 --> 00:46:03,324
Yeah, you're right. Well, I think it just happened, but it just happened in Wilkes-Barre area.
707
00:46:03,324 --> 00:46:06,124
You know pulling together everything you know
708
00:46:06,124 --> 00:46:09,124
what it does do and this is often a tangent but you know
709
00:46:09,124 --> 00:46:11,984
we talked about what i'd say to literally 11 year
710
00:46:11,984 --> 00:46:14,644
old me there are athletes who are
711
00:46:14,644 --> 00:46:17,444
late bloomers and when you put together those big
712
00:46:17,444 --> 00:46:20,704
mergers those kids get lost because you know
713
00:46:20,704 --> 00:46:23,664
there isn't the time to hang around through their freshman year
714
00:46:23,664 --> 00:46:26,704
when they haven't fully developed yet that's there they uh
715
00:46:26,704 --> 00:46:29,484
there's no room for them on the football team or
716
00:46:29,484 --> 00:46:32,204
the baseball team or the the basketball team they can't cut the
717
00:46:32,204 --> 00:46:35,104
mustard and yet maybe in two years they would have been stars
718
00:46:35,104 --> 00:46:37,924
but the big joint years don't really allow
719
00:46:37,924 --> 00:46:40,684
for that i agree i agree
720
00:46:40,684 --> 00:46:43,564
and and that was one area where i
721
00:46:43,564 --> 00:46:49,564
wanted to go before but revisit it is is that idea of you know local sports
722
00:46:49,564 --> 00:46:53,884
teams high school sports teams and then travel sports teams and i understand
723
00:46:53,884 --> 00:46:57,104
the need for the for the travel i mean you get the best of the best and you
724
00:46:57,104 --> 00:47:00,384
put them on teams and you compete against the best best of the best from other
725
00:47:00,384 --> 00:47:03,264
areas and you're really fine tune those skills.
726
00:47:03,524 --> 00:47:09,884
But I think you lose out the program building, you know, and the availability
727
00:47:09,884 --> 00:47:13,704
of those late bloomers to kind of work their way up to the top.
728
00:47:13,804 --> 00:47:21,184
And, and to me, those skills, the program building skills are what translate into the work world.
729
00:47:21,524 --> 00:47:24,744
You know what I mean? And I think that's where I understand it.
730
00:47:25,124 --> 00:47:27,744
Yep. I, I, I understand that.
731
00:47:28,626 --> 00:47:31,946
And I think that we miss out. I mean, you want to, you know,
732
00:47:31,966 --> 00:47:33,906
you want to polish diamonds, right?
733
00:47:33,986 --> 00:47:36,506
You want to make sure that the ones at the tip of the spear,
734
00:47:36,666 --> 00:47:38,166
you know, they keep getting pushed.
735
00:47:38,426 --> 00:47:43,046
But then are we sacrificing those other people that, hey, when they're 22,
736
00:47:43,246 --> 00:47:47,126
24, 34, and they're working somewhere with a team of someone,
737
00:47:47,386 --> 00:47:50,946
you know, groups of people working towards a goal, are they going to be as good
738
00:47:50,946 --> 00:47:53,626
at it as they could have been if they were, you know, working,
739
00:47:53,766 --> 00:47:54,866
you know, if they grew up with that?
740
00:47:54,866 --> 00:48:00,086
And it's all romantic ideas of what education really is and how sports kind
741
00:48:00,086 --> 00:48:02,626
of envelopes in with teaching and so on.
742
00:48:02,746 --> 00:48:07,146
And I get it. The parents that spend the thousands of dollars so someone's going
743
00:48:07,146 --> 00:48:08,506
to be the next Bryce Harper and whatnot.
744
00:48:08,746 --> 00:48:12,706
And I understand that. But there's only so many of those people out there, right?
745
00:48:12,766 --> 00:48:17,126
The rest of us need to figure out how to be average athletes but work together
746
00:48:17,126 --> 00:48:18,686
and have a living, right?
747
00:48:20,226 --> 00:48:24,646
There's tons of what you just said. We could do a whole podcast on this stuff alone.
748
00:48:25,246 --> 00:48:31,126
You know, and sometimes the travel leagues that we're talking about and things
749
00:48:31,126 --> 00:48:36,726
like that, it comes down to almost specialization where the three-sport athlete
750
00:48:36,726 --> 00:48:38,306
has become a thing of the past.
751
00:48:38,466 --> 00:48:42,326
When we talked earlier about the great athletes that I remember,
752
00:48:42,586 --> 00:48:45,206
McDermott from Wyoming area and Charlie Turco from Pittston area,
753
00:48:45,906 --> 00:48:47,806
they played all three sports.
754
00:48:47,906 --> 00:48:51,306
And there was overlap of skills from one sport to the other.
755
00:48:51,926 --> 00:48:54,846
You know, now sometimes we sit down with the kid and say, man,
756
00:48:54,866 --> 00:48:57,426
you know, why do you want to run around a basketball court all winter and we
757
00:48:57,426 --> 00:49:00,486
can have you in the weight room and you're going to go to a Division I school
758
00:49:00,486 --> 00:49:03,526
to play football and make it to the NFL someday.
759
00:49:04,526 --> 00:49:09,546
And, you know, I think we rob a lot of experience from a kid when we do that.
760
00:49:09,626 --> 00:49:13,286
Again, who am I to say, and I don't want to knock any parent who's doing that.
761
00:49:13,346 --> 00:49:16,526
You know, they're doing what they think is best for their child.
762
00:49:17,126 --> 00:49:20,486
There's other things, too. You know, when, believe it or not,
763
00:49:20,566 --> 00:49:27,246
when I was in high school, it wasn't until maybe my senior year that they talked
764
00:49:27,246 --> 00:49:30,386
about what they were calling homogeneous grouping then.
765
00:49:30,886 --> 00:49:34,706
Sometimes back then, you were in a class with, I was an acrobat and you were
766
00:49:34,706 --> 00:49:38,246
in the class with everybody from A to G. You know, it was all alphabetical.
767
00:49:38,426 --> 00:49:43,366
And then it was, we better put all the smart kids in one class and then the
768
00:49:43,366 --> 00:49:45,786
next level in another class and so on and so forth.
769
00:49:45,786 --> 00:49:51,346
And I look back and I think I was in a class with people of varying skills and
770
00:49:51,346 --> 00:49:54,806
varying academic skills, but also varying other skills.
771
00:49:55,106 --> 00:49:59,826
You know, academics wasn't just everything. And I made lifelong friends with
772
00:49:59,826 --> 00:50:04,286
kids who never would have been in class with me if we were always grouped based
773
00:50:04,286 --> 00:50:07,966
on our IQ or our test scores.
774
00:50:08,546 --> 00:50:13,786
And and you know i learned tons and continued to learn tons from from kids who
775
00:50:13,786 --> 00:50:19,426
weren't gifted academically but had so much more to offer and you know so like
776
00:50:19,426 --> 00:50:22,906
you know i mean i'm all over the place with this but it's related to the same
777
00:50:22,906 --> 00:50:25,806
the same topic you know i think you know.
778
00:50:26,529 --> 00:50:30,309
Is there anything wrong with producing well-rounded young people?
779
00:50:30,929 --> 00:50:34,809
No, exactly. And I think, you know, it's a conversation.
780
00:50:34,949 --> 00:50:39,849
And, you know, that spins off onto another podcast we could have about the whole,
781
00:50:39,909 --> 00:50:43,249
you know, partition concept in politics.
782
00:50:43,329 --> 00:50:46,549
Not that I'm going to go into politics and make enemies on this podcast.
783
00:50:46,689 --> 00:50:50,269
But, you know, I think all of the problem that we have, whatever you believe
784
00:50:50,269 --> 00:50:52,329
in, it could be your faith, it could be your political party,
785
00:50:52,409 --> 00:50:57,449
you can have an opposing view. But we've lost the ability to discuss it or even
786
00:50:57,449 --> 00:50:59,369
have a good natured argument about it.
787
00:50:59,429 --> 00:51:03,069
It's OK to have that kind of argument and be passionate about it.
788
00:51:03,109 --> 00:51:03,949
And you can still be friends.
789
00:51:04,129 --> 00:51:06,469
But now it's people are mortal enemies.
790
00:51:06,709 --> 00:51:11,869
You know, no, you can't say anything. And that's I always say the the discussion
791
00:51:11,869 --> 00:51:18,069
of the discussions today, one party or the other gets to F you way too fast.
792
00:51:18,129 --> 00:51:20,509
Yeah. You know, you don't agree with me. Well, F you.
793
00:51:20,909 --> 00:51:24,629
And there's no discussion. You know, in terms of any of that,
794
00:51:24,769 --> 00:51:30,389
you know, without getting into politics, you know what I don't feel good about? The extremes.
795
00:51:30,589 --> 00:51:35,949
No. The extremes. You know, our democracy was built on the fine art of compromise.
796
00:51:36,209 --> 00:51:38,769
And where is that anymore? Where is that? Sure.
797
00:51:39,149 --> 00:51:43,129
No, and I think it's like anything else. The extremes get the press, right?
798
00:51:43,349 --> 00:51:48,609
That's the ads for the TV shows and so on. And they are the minorities.
799
00:51:48,789 --> 00:51:52,749
You know, most people live in the middle of the road. And this whole thing.
800
00:51:53,309 --> 00:51:58,509
You know, if you took 100 people from every walk of life and every kind of money
801
00:51:58,509 --> 00:52:01,089
and you ask them things, they all talk about the same thing.
802
00:52:01,149 --> 00:52:04,589
I just want my family to have a little bit better than me. I want my family to be safe.
803
00:52:04,889 --> 00:52:08,109
I want to be left alone to do what I want to do and have my own belief.
804
00:52:08,269 --> 00:52:11,649
Everyone wants the same thing. But then when it plays out with all the extremes,
805
00:52:11,769 --> 00:52:14,509
it sounds like these people over there are so much different than me.
806
00:52:14,609 --> 00:52:18,849
And so that's not reality. The reality is 60 some percent of the country,
807
00:52:18,909 --> 00:52:22,109
probably 68, 67 percent of the country believes the same thing.
808
00:52:22,129 --> 00:52:26,289
And the 20, you know, 20 some on either side, 18 to 20 on either side are the
809
00:52:26,289 --> 00:52:27,249
ones that are way out there.
810
00:52:28,420 --> 00:52:31,220
Hey, it's what sells. It's all about money. That's where we're at.
811
00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:38,220
Well, here's a media lesson, a shame on me media lesson that a friend of mine who taught me.
812
00:52:38,620 --> 00:52:43,300
And it was many, many years ago. We're covering a high school graduation locally.
813
00:52:43,780 --> 00:52:49,340
And a kid gets a diploma and does a cartwheel. And it's great photography.
814
00:52:51,160 --> 00:52:55,120
Cartwheel got his diploma and all that kind of stuff. And we put that on the
815
00:52:55,120 --> 00:52:56,940
front page. What a great front page photo.
816
00:52:57,420 --> 00:53:00,900
And a friend of mine who was an educator said, I know why you put that on the
817
00:53:00,900 --> 00:53:02,740
front page, because it was a great picture.
818
00:53:03,080 --> 00:53:08,420
But he said, that kid thumbed his nose at education for all four years,
819
00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:14,560
made a mockery of education, and does a cartwheel at graduation and makes the front page of the paper.
820
00:53:15,020 --> 00:53:19,600
He said that the great kid that walks up there respectfully and accepts his
821
00:53:19,600 --> 00:53:22,620
diploma, he's not on the front page because there was nothing exciting about it.
822
00:53:23,200 --> 00:53:26,700
You know what? I I stopped doing that kind of stuff. I stopped putting those
823
00:53:26,700 --> 00:53:28,560
kinds of pictures on the front page after that.
824
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:34,880
Because that guy was 100% right, but the media tends to do that sort of thing.
825
00:53:34,980 --> 00:53:38,800
Like you said, the extremists get all the ink, all the coverage, all the video.
826
00:53:39,200 --> 00:53:41,040
And it's easy. I mean, it's tantalizing, right?
827
00:53:41,560 --> 00:53:47,040
It's like watching a car accident. You're drawn to it, but you need to take
828
00:53:47,040 --> 00:53:48,140
that beat and say, wait a minute.
829
00:53:48,220 --> 00:53:52,120
Is this something we really should be celebrating? But, you know, that comes with wisdom.
830
00:53:52,260 --> 00:53:56,600
And I guess you're a much wiser man than I am. So I know you've learned through
831
00:53:56,600 --> 00:53:57,940
those lessons. I'm much wiser.
832
00:53:58,900 --> 00:54:03,420
He called me out. I think I think a lot of wisdom comes with listening to people.
833
00:54:03,500 --> 00:54:06,920
And, you know, then it goes back to what we said, where we don't we don't listen
834
00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:09,640
to people anymore or compromise. We all think we're right.
835
00:54:10,496 --> 00:54:15,216
We talk about if you have a second for this, this is going to be a long in my
836
00:54:15,216 --> 00:54:16,516
my public speaking classes.
837
00:54:16,616 --> 00:54:19,056
I talk about perception and I
838
00:54:19,056 --> 00:54:23,396
tell a story about seeing a little boy in front of me in church one time.
839
00:54:23,656 --> 00:54:27,776
And we developed this. He's a few pews in front of me. And we're looking at
840
00:54:27,776 --> 00:54:29,876
each other and smiling at each other.
841
00:54:30,036 --> 00:54:35,076
And then this little kid at first couldn't couldn't make eye contact with with me, this stranger.
842
00:54:35,196 --> 00:54:38,116
And then all of a sudden we're like buddies who don't even know each other. but
843
00:54:38,116 --> 00:54:40,896
he he starts looking at a book of
844
00:54:40,896 --> 00:54:43,856
trains that he brought with him and now i'm his best buddy
845
00:54:43,856 --> 00:54:46,616
sitting three pews behind him and he wants me to
846
00:54:46,616 --> 00:54:50,936
see the trains so he holds the book up but what he holds up toward me is the
847
00:54:50,936 --> 00:54:56,516
cover of the book he's looking at what he was looking at this double page display
848
00:54:56,516 --> 00:55:01,096
of trains that he wants me to see but when he holds it up to me he's seeing
849
00:55:01,096 --> 00:55:06,096
the trains and i'm seeing the cover of the book and i tell my students he's three years old.
850
00:55:07,276 --> 00:55:10,056
Developmentally he can't understand that he has to turn that around
851
00:55:10,056 --> 00:55:12,936
for me to see it because at three years old
852
00:55:12,936 --> 00:55:16,096
he has no concept of another point of
853
00:55:16,096 --> 00:55:21,636
view and i say that's okay he's three that's not okay when you're 30 and you
854
00:55:21,636 --> 00:55:26,296
can't understand another point of view but that's where we are that's a great
855
00:55:26,296 --> 00:55:29,296
that's a great story great anecdote i like that i never i mean i've thought
856
00:55:29,296 --> 00:55:33,116
of that concept but not that little that little thing puts it right there in
857
00:55:33,116 --> 00:55:34,636
your forefront because we've all been in church.
858
00:55:34,676 --> 00:55:39,676
We've all sat near that kind of little guy who would do something like that. That's a good one.
859
00:55:40,216 --> 00:55:44,076
All right. At this point, we're going to do something that I call rapid fire.
860
00:55:44,176 --> 00:55:46,716
I'm just going to give you a series of questions.
861
00:55:47,536 --> 00:55:52,876
You're a great interviewer, and you think your answer is out and well-developed.
862
00:55:52,896 --> 00:55:53,896
I don't want you to do that this time.
863
00:55:54,016 --> 00:55:56,296
When I give you the questions, just bang.
864
00:55:56,616 --> 00:56:00,396
Just tell me what you think. I'll do that. Here we go. The last book that you read.
865
00:56:01,576 --> 00:56:05,236
The Thursday's Murder Club. Okay. The last movie that you saw?
866
00:56:06,196 --> 00:56:12,496
Probably in the theaters, Barbie. Okay. Okay. Your favorite place to travel to?
867
00:56:13,620 --> 00:56:16,780
Well, I've got a daughter in Austin, Texas, and a son in L.A.,
868
00:56:16,780 --> 00:56:18,920
and they have children. So those two places.
869
00:56:19,280 --> 00:56:22,580
Take those off the table, anywhere with the beach. Okay.
870
00:56:23,120 --> 00:56:26,300
Would you prefer a long walk or to work out at the gym?
871
00:56:27,340 --> 00:56:32,540
Well, you broke up a little. Repeat that. Yes. Would you prefer a long walk or to work out in a gym?
872
00:56:33,200 --> 00:56:36,460
I do both. I do both. I do both. That's a tough one.
873
00:56:36,540 --> 00:56:42,160
I guess if you put a gun to my head, I'd say work out at the gym or a long walk.
874
00:56:42,160 --> 00:56:50,600
What what is one pet peeve that you have I don't have a lot discourteous drivers,
875
00:56:51,300 --> 00:56:56,020
what is one thing that you're curious about right now what's gonna happen to
876
00:56:56,020 --> 00:57:01,840
me when I no longer have a human body I like that one is there something about,
877
00:57:02,380 --> 00:57:06,800
people that know you that don't know about you they probably don't know that
878
00:57:06,800 --> 00:57:09,740
that I began school as an art major all the people would have to have remembered
879
00:57:09,740 --> 00:57:11,800
from a long, long time ago. I'm sure that.
880
00:57:12,520 --> 00:57:17,500
Is there a best leadership tip that you've learned from someone this year?
881
00:57:18,340 --> 00:57:22,400
No, this year, shut up and listen. Okay.
882
00:57:23,260 --> 00:57:24,820
Beach, pool, or lake?
883
00:57:25,880 --> 00:57:29,000
I'm afraid of flesh-eating bacteria and I'm afraid of sharks,
884
00:57:29,120 --> 00:57:30,340
so I guess I'm taking the pool.
885
00:57:31,520 --> 00:57:36,240
Your favorite sports team? Football, Green Bay Packers, baseball, St.
886
00:57:36,380 --> 00:57:40,840
Louis Cardinals, NBA, I bounce around. This year I rooted for the Celts a lot.
887
00:57:41,540 --> 00:57:45,660
Okay. Do you prefer to read a book or to listen to an audio book?
888
00:57:46,400 --> 00:57:49,160
Read the book. Winter or summer?
889
00:57:50,460 --> 00:57:56,360
Summer. Morning or night? Morning by far. Cookie or donut?
890
00:57:57,200 --> 00:58:03,600
Neither. Oh, okay. And how about this one? Pizza, Old Forge style or round? round.
891
00:58:05,240 --> 00:58:12,220
You might make some enemies on this one. I don't know. Oh man, man. I am a pizza fan.
892
00:58:12,420 --> 00:58:16,920
I could eat pizza every single day. I never met a pizza I didn't like. Gosh.
893
00:58:18,160 --> 00:58:23,360
Again, if there's a gun put to my head, I'm just going to say round right now,
894
00:58:23,480 --> 00:58:26,820
but I might even say square.
895
00:58:26,900 --> 00:58:28,600
Go ahead, pull the trigger. I don't know.
896
00:58:29,340 --> 00:58:33,620
All right. And is there, now you gave me a few throughout this podcast,
897
00:58:33,780 --> 00:58:38,420
but is there one quote that you'd like to leave us with, a quote that means
898
00:58:38,420 --> 00:58:41,840
something or maybe you've used a lot throughout your life or maybe something
899
00:58:41,840 --> 00:58:43,700
that you just heard, but a memorable quote?
900
00:58:43,740 --> 00:58:46,780
Here's a little tiny, since you said that, here's what popped into my head.
901
00:58:46,920 --> 00:58:49,960
And I heard this a long, long time ago. And it's from Cicero.
902
00:58:50,080 --> 00:58:51,640
I guess he was a Roman statesman.
903
00:58:52,740 --> 00:58:55,960
And I'm a guy with a sense of humor. And so here's the quote,
904
00:58:56,080 --> 00:58:59,120
never heard a friend, even in jest.
905
00:59:00,260 --> 00:59:04,920
Sometimes we say something that we think is funny and it hurts the feelings
906
00:59:04,920 --> 00:59:08,000
of somebody that we really really care about we didn't mean it but we said it
907
00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:10,840
that way never hurt a friend even in jest,
908
00:59:11,937 --> 00:59:16,617
And that kind of circles back to something that I think you answered in the
909
00:59:16,617 --> 00:59:19,217
pre-interview questionnaire about a lesson.
910
00:59:19,397 --> 00:59:24,157
And I think if you remember what you said about a lesson that you learned in
911
00:59:24,157 --> 00:59:27,317
school or maybe something about how a teacher made someone feel.
912
00:59:27,437 --> 00:59:28,877
Remember what you wrote?
913
00:59:29,217 --> 00:59:32,297
Ah, yeah. You and I talked about that at one time.
914
00:59:32,377 --> 00:59:37,317
Like, you know, sometimes we teachers teach things without knowing we're doing it.
915
00:59:37,317 --> 00:59:41,117
And when I look back on, and again, I loved all of my teachers,
916
00:59:41,277 --> 00:59:46,957
but teachers have an ability to hurt a student's feelings without realizing
917
00:59:46,957 --> 00:59:49,517
they're doing it. It could be by ignoring them.
918
00:59:49,697 --> 00:59:53,217
It could be a little more overt than that. But when you're in front of that
919
00:59:53,217 --> 00:59:58,317
room, you have tremendous power to help a student or do the opposite.
920
00:59:58,757 --> 01:00:04,557
And when I began to teach, I thought, man, I'm going to be on guard to never, ever, ever do that.
921
01:00:04,557 --> 01:00:11,217
But to never, I guess, by ignoring or belittling or, you know,
922
01:00:11,217 --> 01:00:15,737
not giving praise enough, I never want to hurt a student's feelings.
923
01:00:16,057 --> 01:00:18,517
And that's something I learned by seeing people doing it.
924
01:00:19,537 --> 01:00:22,897
Well, I think that goes to the, you know, whether you're a teacher or a leader
925
01:00:22,897 --> 01:00:24,037
in any capacity, really.
926
01:00:25,177 --> 01:00:29,457
Really. You can't underestimate the impact that you have, the influence you
927
01:00:29,457 --> 01:00:33,937
have, because what you do and say and how you treat people, more importantly, has so many ripples.
928
01:00:33,937 --> 01:00:36,817
You know and a comment off the cuff when you're
929
01:00:36,817 --> 01:00:39,977
in a bad mood it might resonate with somebody forever
930
01:00:39,977 --> 01:00:43,337
you know and so and it's it's you know the thing somebody once
931
01:00:43,337 --> 01:00:46,757
said about teaching teaching you know matters but
932
01:00:46,757 --> 01:00:50,897
the heavy part of it is is it matters every day you know you can't you can't
933
01:00:50,897 --> 01:00:54,517
go in there on that monday morning after the super bowl and kind of just you
934
01:00:54,517 --> 01:00:58,697
know call it in and say things that you you know without thinking because johnny
935
01:00:58,697 --> 01:01:02,617
in the back you know might be affected by that for the rest of his life.
936
01:01:02,717 --> 01:01:04,697
And it's a heavy thing. That responsibility is heavy.
937
01:01:04,817 --> 01:01:10,157
So when you referenced that, I thought, wow, he gets it. He understands what it's really about.
938
01:01:10,577 --> 01:01:14,777
Well, listen, I appreciate you taking the time to talk with us.
939
01:01:15,577 --> 01:01:19,797
I've followed your columns and listened to you speak at events for years.
940
01:01:20,157 --> 01:01:23,517
I think you're one of the best people out there that can tell the story of not
941
01:01:23,517 --> 01:01:26,557
only our local area, but about anything, anything you cover.
942
01:01:26,557 --> 01:01:31,457
You have such a wonderful way of just making us feel the passion that that person,
943
01:01:31,557 --> 01:01:32,697
you know, that story is about.
944
01:01:32,837 --> 01:01:37,197
So I commend you on your career. I think you're not just a wonderful communicator
945
01:01:37,197 --> 01:01:40,757
and a teacher in your own right and a writer, but for anyone who's ever met
946
01:01:40,757 --> 01:01:42,597
you, you're a wonderful guy as well.
947
01:01:42,697 --> 01:01:45,417
So thank you for being you. Thank you for being a guest on the show.
948
01:01:45,757 --> 01:01:49,097
Hopefully we can get you on here again. But thank you very much.
949
01:01:49,677 --> 01:01:53,217
I get a thing you just said about me is true. Thank you.
950
01:01:54,477 --> 01:01:55,717
Well, thank you. You have a good
951
01:01:55,717 --> 01:01:59,857
day. And, again, stay tuned for another episode of A Matter of Printing.
952
01:02:00,257 --> 01:02:02,697
And please have me back someday. Oh, you absolutely.
953
01:02:03,920 --> 01:02:13,578
Music.