A kind of September...

Fifteen years ago, I was getting ready for work. Ten days before, I had finally made it to Manhattan.

My first trip to New York City, on Sept. 1, 2001, was magic. Perfect weather. Perfect day.

Well, almost perfect. The good news is I got to meet my hero Thomas Magnum, aka actor Tom Selleck, who was appearing that season in a revival of Herb Gardner's "A Thousand Clowns." The bad news is I was starstruck and speechless.

Anyway, Drew Weaver, Scott Frith, and I were there that Labor Day weekend. We took a train into Grand Central Station from Connecticut. Everything I'd wanted to do, dreams derived from the pages of The New Yorker, halfway pretending I was going to be a guest on "What's My Line," for that spectacular Saturday, I got to pretend.

Ten days later, everything changed.

Pieces remembered: My late grandfather knocking on the bathroom door to tell me a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers (this was at 8:46 a.m.). Getting downstairs just as the second plane hit. Turning on NPR on the way to work, listening to Bob Edwards try to explain the chaos. Getting a phone call from Doug from the Rotary Club. Watching the news at work on a portable black-and-white television set. Wishing I were with my family.

That night, I thought the thing to do was go watch television coverage with my mother.  Even though I was in my 20s, a college graduate, and gainfully employed, I knew I was no longer El Gallo's tender and callow fellow, to quote the song from "The Fantasticks." 

I eventually learned I knew a family who lost their brother that day. They planted a tree for Tony Karnes at Gibbs High School later that year.

Visiting Ground Zero with Drew the following February was sobering to say the least. We went downtown, and nobody, and I mean nobody, was saying a word.

We looked at the handmade memorials. One quoted Jack Kerouac. Another one needed no poetic prose: "Osama: Kiss my ass."

I thought everything would change. I thought the partisanship that had marred much of the 1990s and the 2000 presidential election was gone. The civilized parts of the world were united.

Well, you know how that turned out.

I have to tell myself that goodness can arise from the aftermath of atrocities, but post-9/11, it was difficult to see how.

Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo said it as well as anyone on a PBS documentary a few years after the attacks. 

 "9/11, how can you possibly use it for a good purpose? Look, what this reminds you of is the importance of your own life, and making the most of it, because you can lose it in a flash. And if that's all you learned from 9/11, if that's all you remembered, that, my god, that you could extinguish life so suddenly, so unexpectedly, and it could happen to me, and therefore I should think harder about the way I spend my life instead of wasting it...

"Now, it's not going to teach you what to do with your life, but it will teach you to do with your life, and to do it more and quicker and better."

Fifteen years, after all, went slip sliding away, and much of the nation, indeed much of the world, is starving for stability, and sanity, for people doing more, quicker and better.

Never forget the first responders. Never forget the fallen. Never forget the day. Never forget Cuomo's words.

Never forget.

But try too, if you can, to remember El Gallo's kind of September, when no one wept except the willow.

A favorite scene from my favorite show

Happy Friday, y'all.

To get the weekend started, I'd like to share with you a favorite scene from my favorite TV show, "Magnum, p.i."

Here's hoping it brightens your evening, makes you laugh, or confirms your suspicion that I am nuts.

"Higgins! I'm going to kill you..."

Where were you when the world stopped turning?

I was still in the shower.

My grandfather Wayne Wyatt, who passed away last September, poked his head into the bathroom and said, "A plane has hit the World Trade Center."

Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001.

"Terrible accident," I think.

By the time I got to the bottom of the stairs, the second plane hit the other tower.

This was no accident.

I went to work. Doug Shipman called to talk about a golf tournament. I asked if I could call him back.

I watched news coverage on a small black-and-white TV. My boss came in about 10 and told us to get to work.

"If you just sit there, the terrorists have won."

She was right. I went to work.

Then it hit me:

I was in Manhattan the week before. It was my first trip to New York. I took a train to Grand Central Station. I met Tom Selleck. I saw those magnificent twin towers.

Turns out a guy with whom I once attended church, Tony Karnes, perished in the attacks. So, too, did so many others.

Everything changed. Nothing changed.

Where were you when the world stopped turning?

The speech

I joked that I'd shown up because I'd seen a light on and was looking for food, but guess who was asked to speak to the senior citizens at Beaver Dam church last night?

Yeah, I know. They must not have been able to get anybody else.

I love speaking to seniors. They're nice. They cook well. They get my references to radio shows and Lawrence Welk. They applaud even when I try to sing.

So, I told them about the time I got all tongue-tied when I met Tom Selleck in New York. And I said that I used to want to be an Oak Ridge Boy when I grew up. (I still do, come to think about it.)

And I told them about Catfish Dave and Bruce Blakely and Ed Byer and several other super stories it's been my privilege to share over these past 11 years.

I told them that the thing I loved most when Sandra Clark sold the Shopper to Scripps five years ago was being able to say that I work for the same company that once employed my hero, war correspondent Ernie Pyle.

I like Ernie because he hung out in the trenches with the troops. And he wrote well. A favorite observation: "When you go long enough without a bath, even the fleas leave you alone."

My other hero, the late, great Charles Kuralt, who worked for CBS News, has a great quote. "The everyday kindness of the backroads," he said, "more than makes up for the greed in the headlines.

I told the seniors at Beaver Dam that, too. And I believe it.

Thanks for having me, y'all.

All the world's a stage...

I should have been an actor.

Particularly a stage actor. I had forgotten until I spoke to the Halls Women's League last night how wonderful it is to bask in the warmth of an audience. I don't know how good I would be at it. But, I know I would love it.

It's funny. I remember watching Damon Patterson and a girl who's name is lost to time -- Allie something, maybe -- do a scene after dinner at a high school awards banquet. I was quite taken by it. I also remember a friend leaning over and saying, "I can see you doing that."

Couldn't stay asleep tonight (that seems to happen nearly every night anymore), so I finally quit tossing and turning and finished Alan Alda's book. He talks about the ups and downs of performing. His theory is that an actor has to reach a point in which you "care without caring." I think that makes a lot of sense and can be useful in many walks of life.

(I told you yesterday how much I always admired Alda. I used to want to be just like him. Funny, isn't it? Whatever late hour I get off work tonight, I'm going to light a fire and watch him and Ellen Burstyn in "Same Time, Next Year" if I can stay awake. I always watch that movie the night before Thanksgiving. Go figure. I'm nuts.)

What finally steered me away from any serious thoughts of thespianism (other than fears about earning a paycheck) was anxiety over learning lines. But, I was so taken by Damon's performance that I took a couple of years of drama in high school.

I love the play we did my sophomore year ("The Foreigner"). I didn't so much like the play we did my junior year. By my senior year, I'd fallen in love with journalism and dropped out of Denise Pennington's drama class to work on the school paper an extra semester. Don't have any regrets. As it turned out, I've made newspapers my life's work.

But I've never lost my love for live performance. One of my fondest memories is seeing Tom Selleck in a revival of "A Thousand Clowns" 10 days before 9/11 in New York. One of my goals for 2009 is to take time to catch as many local plays as possible.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll seek out more invitations like talking to the Women's League. The ham in me loves the applause, sure, but it's really more than that. Sometimes the performer connects -- really connects -- with the folks sitting out there in the crowd. You share a common moment and it makes you realize that one of the most important things in life happens when human beings relate to one another.

Kind of puts the best spin on Shakespeare's declaration that all the world's a stage.

Ten days before

The train came rumbling into the station, full of passengers making their way into the city for the holiday weekend.

It was as laid-back as New York City can ever possibly be, beautiful, not a cloud to be found. We alighted and walked in the general direction of the Empire State Building. I stopped at a newsstand long enough to get a morning edition of the Times.

We took our time at the Manhattan landmark, joking about finding Meg Ryan up on the roof. For a long while, we gazed southward into Lower Manhattan at those expansive World Trade Center towers. What a sight.

After awhile, we left, and made our way up to Times Square, where we found lunch and then headed for the small Broadway theater that was our ultimate destination. They weren't letting anyone inside yet, so we milled around on the sidewalk.

A few minutes later, up pulled an SUV with tinted windows. A man alighted from the car, familiar, friendly. He didn't have his famous mustache, but it was indeed Magnum, p.i. himself, Tom Selleck.

He shook hands, or signed autographs for, or took pictures with everyone who wanted something. I shook his hand, but couldn't think of one darn word to say.

We enjoyed his play, a revival of Herb Gardner's "A Thousand Clowns," very much. Phil Donahue was even in the audience.

After it ended, we made our way to Grand Central, hunting for the train that would take us back to Connecticut.

It was a day to remember, something you tell your kids about years later, a first visit to New York City.

The date was Sept. 1, 2001.

The February following the 9/11 attacks, I returned to New York. We walked down to Ground Zero. All of the normal cacophony of the city was hushed at that hallowed ground. Nobody said a word; it was very much like being at a funeral.

I read the graffiti ("Osama: Kiss My Ass") and was moved by the posters that hung here and there, people still searching for missing loved ones.

Bookends of two different trips, the events between which changed the world. Here's hoping we never forget what happened that hauntingly beautiful Tuesday morning -- especially the innocents who gave the last full measure of devotion in a war they didn't yet know they were fighting.

There used to be a ballpark

And there used to be a ballpark
Where the field was warm and green
And the people played their crazy game
With a joy I'd never seen.
And the air was such a wonder
From the hot dogs and the beer
Yes, there used to be a ballpark, right here.

-- Frank Sinatra, "There Used to be a Ballpark Here," 1973

The gaping hole in the side of old Tiger Stadium this morning has nothing on the gaping hole in my heart.

I finally made it to the corner of Michigan and Trumbull in the late summer of 1999. It was the last year for baseball at the beloved ol' stadium in Detroit. Me and a buddy from Halls, Drew Weaver, made the 8-hour trek to Motown to say good-bye.

The Tigers were awful that year, as they so often were from 1988 to 2005. But, on this magical Saturday afternoon, they beat the Baltimore Orioles. I've forgotten the score. Cal Ripken Jr. wasn't playing that day, but he brought the lineup to home plate before the game.

It was a special moment in several ways. That game marked the beginning of my enduring friendship with two special pals, Michigan native and "Magnum, p.i." guru David Romas and his wife, Jennifer Bondy. It was also my first -- and only -- visit to the grand ol' girl that was Tiger Stadium. The last home game at the Corner was played that September; the Tigers moved to big new Comerica Park downtown the following year.

We were the last fans to file out of the stadium that Saturday night. We stayed and stayed, not wanting to say good-bye.

I looked out over that green field, thinking about Cobb and Kell, Kaline and Cash, Lolich and McLain, Tram and Sweet Lou. I looked up at Ernie Harwell's broadcast booth and wondered if he'd go to the new park. (He did, finally retiring in 2002.)

I thought about Tom Selleck, who for all practical purposes introduced me to the Tigers through Thomas Magnum in the '80s. And I knew with all my heart that I'd never step into another park quite like this one.

Several groups tried to save the stadium over the last 8 years. Meanwhile, she sat and rotted, cracking at the seams -- sad, lonely, neglected. The wrecking crew tore a big hole in her side yesterday. Looking at the pictures on the internet made me want to throw up.

A group is still frantically working to save the field, the dugouts, 3,000 seats and Ernie's booth. I don't know. From what I understand, it hinges on government money, so I'm not going to hold my breath.

But generations of Michiganders -- and even a Tigers fan from Tennessee -- will forever have their memories. I'll never forget that Saturday at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull for the rest of my days.

"Yes," Sinatra sang, "there used to be ballpark right here..."

Happy birthday, Higgins!

I've gotten more enjoyment out of "Magnum, p.i." than a human being should be allowed to have over the years.

The show has not only provided a hundred laughs, but it's also been the organizing factor behind countless get togethers and indirectly led to a couple of great friendships. In short, it's a fun old program.

I first watched "Magnum" on Thursday nights (and, later, Wednesdays) during its original 1980-88 run on CBS. My dad loved the show and I guess I picked it up from him. When USA added the show to its lineup in the mid-1990s, several high school buddies and I would gather around the tube at 4 p.m. to watch our favorite Vietnam vet in action.

Whenever I visit pal David Romas, the ultimate "Magnum" guru, and his wife Jennifer Bondy in Michigan, a screening of several "Magnum" episodes, usually accompanied by several of Magnum's favorite beverage, is always a must. Buddy Drew Weaver and I have spent many a baseball rainout laughing at some of our favorite moments.

Most of such moments somehow involve co-star John Hillerman as the stuffy but loveable Sgt. Major Jonathan Quayle Higgins. I remember being flabbergasted when I discovered a few years after "Magnum" was canceled that Hillerman really wasn't British. I've often said that his characterization of Higgins owed as much to "Magnum p.i."'s success as Tom Selleck, Hawaii, the Ferrari, Robin Masters or those dobermans ever did.

David e-mailed last night to say that today is John Hillerman's 75th birthday. I wish him well. I doubt I could ever repay that guy for all the joy he's brought me over the years. I don't know if Hillerman ever won an Emmy for his portrayal of our favorite majordomo, but if he didn't, it's a darn shame.

I guess I'll have to watch a favorite "Magnum" moment or two before bed in honor of Higgie's big day.

Here's to you, John. Thanks for the laughs.

"Higgins, I can explain!"