The thanks in Thanksgiving, revisited.

This is the only blog post reposted on this site for seven years now.

In 1978, Charles Kuralt visited Alex and Mary Chandler in rural Mississippi. Sharecroppers who lived in a cabin, the Chandlers raised nine children who had nearly nothing to their name except the ability to pick cotton.

And, yet, all nine children graduated college.

Here is the five minute video that explains their story, and how they truly embody the thanks that should be in Thanksgiving.





The happiest of Thanksgivings to you and yours.

The giving and the thanks in Thanksgiving.

This is the only blog post reposted on this site for six years now.

Charles Kuralt was an essayist and journalist for CBS, where he sought out the unique, the interesting, the small slices of good that exist in life.

In 1978, he visited Alex and Mary Chandler in rural Mississippi. Sharecroppers who lived in a cabin, the Chandlers raised nine children who had nearly nothing to their name except the ability to pick cotton.

And, yet, all nine children graduated college.

Here is the five minute video that explains their story, and how they truly embody the thanks that should be in Thanksgiving.





The happiest of Thanksgivings to you and yours.

Joseph Stalin loved his son as much as he loved the Russian people--which is to say, not so much.

Joseph Stalin was a tyrant, a dictator, and a despot that led the USSR for thirty years, and his actions and behaviors caused millions of Russians to die in purges and in prison camps.

In other words, he was a sweetheart.

You can see that sweetheart behavior in the way Stalin wrote a letter to his then 17-year old son's school teacher in 1938. Vasily Stalin was thought to be a spoiled, bratty child, and apparently word traveled back to dad about his son's misdeeds at school. The teacher complained to the Soviet leader, and Joseph Stalin wrote back apologizing, all while showing as little affection as possible for his son:


"To teacher comrade Martyshin. I have received your letter about escapades of Vasily Stalin. Thank you for the letter. Replying with a great delay because of being overloaded with work. My apologies. Vasily is a spoiled young man of average abilities, little wildman, not always honest, likes to blackmail weak "teachers," not rarely an insolent fellow, with weak - or more accurately - unorganized willpower.


He was spoiled by various "god fathers" and "god mommies," who continually emphasize that he is "Stalin's son." I am glad that in your person there is at least one self-respecting teacher who treats Vasily as everyone else and demands that the insolent boy follows the school's policy. Vasily is spoiled by principals like the one you mentioned, washcloth-people, who have no place at school; and if insolent Vasily hasn't destroyed himself yet it is because our country still has teachers who don't give slack to the little young swell.


My advice: demand stricter from Vasily and don't be afraid of fake blackmail threats of "suicide" from the capricious child. You will have my support.
Unfortunately I don't have the opportunity to fuss with Vasily myself. But promise to grab him by the collar from time to time.


Cheers!"


Average abilities, weak, not honest, spoiled, and insolent?

Aww, dad really did love his son after all!

Thanksgiving, once again.

There's only one story that gets reposted on this blog every year, year after year. Just this one.

Charles Kuralt was a reporter for CBS News for nearly 40 years, his goal to find smaller moments, forgotten moments, in America.

Being Thanksgiving, here's Kuralt visiting a family in prairie Mississippi--a family that embodies the holiday and the word together.





May you and yours be happy and thankful for anything you have this year.

Thanksgiving, revisited, once again.

The only story reposted on this blog every year is this story.

As the word implies, Thanksgiving is about giving thanks--not to deities or dollars, but in life, general. In 1978, CBS reporter Charles Kuralt visited a family in rural Mississippi that had something to be truly thankful for.

This is that story.

 
May you be thankful for anything you have today. Happy Thanksgiving, folks.

Thanksgiving in Prairie Mississippi: A Charles Kuralt Story

The only story reposted here every year is this story.

Discounted toys and clearance rack bargains needn't be what Thanksgiving is about, nor the gluttony of seeing how much tryptophan it takes to mimic entering a diabetic coma from too much pecan pie.

So here's the annual reposting of a Charles Kuralt story that aired on CBS in 1978 about a rural Mississippi family that had something to be truly thankful for:

May you and your family have many things to be thankful for this year. Happy Thanksgiving, folks.

The publisher of the Dalkey Archive Press is looking to hire.

Good news if you always wanted to recreate The Devil Wears Prada in the workplace environment, but only had a Wal-Mart budget.

The Dalkey Archive Press recently posted an advertisement for new job hires as it transitions its European base to London. John O'Brien, the director of Dalkey Archive, is very specific what he wants in new employees. Oh, and did I mention the following is for an unpaid job?

Any of the following will be grounds for immediate dismissal during the probationary period: coming in late or leaving early without prior permission; being unavailable at night or on the weekends; failing to meet any goals; giving unsolicited advice about how to run things; taking personal phone calls during work hours; gossiping; misusing company property, including surfing the internet while at work; submission of poorly written materials; creating an atmosphere of complaint or argument; failing to respond to emails in a timely way; not showing an interest in other aspects of publishing beyond editorial; making repeated mistakes; violating company policies. DO NOT APPLY if you have a work history containing any of the above.

Sounds like a charming work environment! And unpaid, too! What other lovely tidbits do you have, Mr. O'Brien, before I sign on?

[D]o not have any other commitments (personal or professional) that will interfere with their work at the Press (family obligations, writing, involvement with other organizations, degrees to be finished, holidays to be taken, weddings to attend in Rio, etc.)…

No vacation? Never see my family? Hopefully that elderly, dying relative won't keel off any time soon. Dying is so selfish, what--with their funerals and whatnot. Take a hint, grandma!

Charles Kuralt and Thanksgiving, Revisited.

These days Thanksgiving is about football and your extended relatives getting tanked on boxed wine and Natty Ice.

While the NFL games are a great sedative for the vegetative state you'll induce yourself into via mass quantities of tryptophan and saturated fats--and though the boxed wine is probably the highest mid-level low quality boxed wine on the market--Thanksgiving was about more noble things once.

So here's Charles Kuralt. Last November I posted this video, and it seems appropriate to post again with Thanksgiving tomorrow.

It's five minutes about a family with something to be truly thankful for:

The best of Thanksgivings to you and yours, folks.

Birch bark canoes. As old-timey as you imagine.

Canoes are little death traps on the water. They can't handle a wave, so every time someone flies by on a speed boat at 75mph you need to angle your canoe head-on to the incoming tsunami wake just created or you're taking a header into water. And nothing is sexier than wet jeans and the great suction cup effect they create on your crotch.

But birch bark canoes are from a simpler time. A time when Levi Strauss didn't create jeans, when gas engines didn't exist, and canoes mainly found themselves placed on remote little rivers as a means of transportation.

And some folks became great at making canoes, as Charles Kuralt showed in one of his video essays. Bill Heifman lived in the rural woods of Minnesota with his wife, and no one made a better birch bark canoe than he did.

As we can see, ol' Bill mocks us by wearing jeans that suck in the diaphragm and go to his ribcage. A canoe maker rockin' the jeans.

I see how it is, Bill. I see where you're going with this.

Old Dead Men Giving Essays: Charles Kuralt Edition

Who was Charles Kuralt?

He was the folksy stand-in of an uncle that told an affecting story. His skill was writing televised essays for CBS News, kind of like Andy Rooney did--except less grouchy and more sentimental. Rooney spoke with his liver while Kuralt spoke with his heart. Rooney spoke from his office while Kuralt spoke from the road. Rooney instigated. Kuralt motivated.

With Thanksgiving next week, here's Kuralt's 1978 report of a poor, rural family from Mississippi that had something to be thankful for:

Andy Rooney on art: "A writer ought to be able to write simple sentences before he tries to be a poet."

An old man isn't a fan of modern art! Because it's a stereotype! Because he's old! And modern art is weird! So he hates it! Get it? Get it??

Except, really, he's right. At least to me.

Once I visited Boston's ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art), and there was a wooden pallet on the ground--the kind you see in the back rooms of warehouses and grocery stores. The pallet had mirrors inside it. I was told that it represented a look inside the commerce of America--a reflection of the empty production of our society--the misguided economic policies of capitalism--the starvation of the consumer who could only look at themselves after they stripped everything that shipped on that pallet.

But all I saw was a gussied-up pallet.

Yeah, yeah, more Andy Rooney.

CBS News doesn't allow you to embed their YouTube videos into blogs, for what I assume is their attempt to kill any popular attraction to news. This means I get to use uploads from news junkies who apparently recorded 60 Minutes on Betamax. (tracking...tracking...)

Here's Andy Rooney's take from 1996 on magazines and their obsession with numbered lists.

These videos remind me of how good 60 Minutes was at its peak. Mike Wallace, Ed Bradley, Morley Safer, Harry Reasoner, Lesley Stahl. I don't expect you to know any of these people--that's because my soul found a fissure in the space-time continuum and is actually from 1947. But those people weren't creampuff bottle blondes or Grade A American Man Meat news anchors (hell, Morley Safer looks like he's made of wax and was left out in the sun too long), but they really could do a news piece.

Put another way: if Mike Wallace or Ed Bradley showed up at your front door for an interview, that was a sign you'd end up in jail within six months.

Andy Rooney, 1919-2011

Damn you, retirement! Your penchant for death has taken another elderly writer!

Thank God I have enough student loan debt to keep me working well past 150 years of age.

As it is, here were Andy's thoughts on birthdays and growing old from 2005:

BREAKING NEWS: Andy Rooney hospitalized in serious condition.

According to the AP, Rooney is hospitalized in serious condition for unspecified reasons.

Just goes to show that retirement will kill you. Do you know of anyone who retired and didn't eventually die?

Exactly.

Blast from the past: Andy Rooney's take on books and bookstores from 1994.

Mind you, this was when Andy Rooney was already 75 years old. That's the sort of age I'd just be happy to recognize myself in a mirror without first having a twenty minute conversation with someone I mistook as a friendly stranger.

Ahh, remember VHS? When you had to worry about blurry lines on your television? TRACKING TRACKING it might yell at you as voices garbled on screen, drowning in a pool of technology. You tell everyone, with a sly grin, "No worries, I got this" before slapping at random buttons and hoping no one notices the VCR's clock was flashing
12:00

12:00

12:00

12:00
all along.

Andy Rooney isn't a fan of Ernest Hemingway.

Continuing the Andy Rooney send-off:

An interview where he says Ernest Hemingway is a jerk.

Andy Rooney calls it quits on '60 Minutes' this Sunday.

"Quits" is too strong a word. The man is 92 years old at this point. No, seriously, he's 92. That's not my usual charming sarcasm using a little hyperbole. At 92, I don't think anyone can claim you're a quitter. You just get a pat on the back for not dying during the telecast.

Andy Rooney's last '60 Minutes' telecast is this Sunday. He was a writer before he was a television personality. And yet as a television personality he wrote--by this Sunday--1,097 essays, usually curmudgeonly, always to the point, and occasionally offensive. That probably just means he was doing what any good writer should do: provoke a feeling inside you.

Or he might just rail against computers, like any good grandfather would:

Is it bad I agree with him? Just punch my AARP card at this point. I'm one exciting evening away from an assisted living facility where I troll the grounds in a scooter.

Seamus Heaney wins Irish Times poetry award.

Seamus Heaney??

The Irish Times??

Really???

You don't say!

Andy Rooney enjoys finding grammatical mistakes.

And so do I. This is because I have a 90 year old man living inside my soul.



Yes, I understand that on some internet browsers the video comes up off-center. Does it really matter? It's commentary by a kindly old man. This isn't a Lady Gaga video. Andy Rooney isn't going to show up dressed in a latex egg carried by half-naked men. I promise.

Andy Rooney and I have our fingers on the pulse of young America.

Not for nothing, here's Andy Rooney's take on eReaders from tonight's 60 Minutes.

Because, you know, why not? Share it with your grandma. Consider it a bonding moment. You can tell her all about eReaders, and she can tell you who Andy Rooney actually is.