Yeah, July was the coldest on record in West Michigan, Kris. And the heat’s been on at my house a couple times this week.

Some of the karate/kung fu training has been pretty grueling. I have asthma and the lungs don’t do well with humidity. And doing a hard-core workout or sparring in a non- air-conditioned dojo can be beyond exhausting.

That’s so true, Mar. Especially the first major tragedy. I’ll never forget that July 1989 night in our Tampa apartment, when Jude told me she was dying. I got physically ill. I know that experience, and it’s hell.

That’s almost exactly what Black Sabbath wrote in their "War Pigs" lyrics in 1971.

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of deaths construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds, oh lord yeah!

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor

Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait till their judgement day comes, yeah!

Now in darkness, world stops turning
As the war machine keeps burning
No more war pigs of the power
Hand of God has sturck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings
All right now!

P.S. You can tune me in late-afternoons (Eastern time 4pm-6pm) at www.wjrwam.com

Very sweet of you E.V. McKee. But (here cometh the disclaimer after that preposition…) it’s all easier said than done. When you do radio news, you’re considered lower than the janitor at most radio stations. They don’t see you as having a direct connection to their bottom line. It’s the drive-time talk-show hosts that get all the loot and the glory. The news people work incredibly hard. Journalism has to be in your blood to sustain. I’ve bounced around like a rubber ball in the ‘biz, many times, it becomes physically or financially impossible to survive.

I got so disheartened with radio in 1995 that I went back to college (Grand Rapids Community College) 10 years after I graduated (from Ferris State and Central Michigan universities). I was aceing the classroom part of the Computer Electronics curriculum, but they just assumed all of the students would hit the ground running with the lab part (which was way over my head). So, I had to drop out. I flipped pizzas, I worked temp jobs (data entry), you name it.

Even though I’d had major-market news experience in Detroit and Tampa, a station I did weekend news for for four (three 4’s in a row!!!) years, would not hire me full-time. I even won a state (Associated Press) ‘Spot News of the Year’ award for the station in 1997! So, in 1999, I quit to take a sales job. The job ended when the company left the Grand Rapids market the following year.

I mean, I could go on and on. I worked at a business magazine, etcetera. But journalism is a barren, barren field for all but a lucky few who are in the right place at the right time. The rest of us grunts toil in our misery. I know of another guy in Grand Rapids who’s been a long-time news guy with nothing to show for it, really. He’s very good, very smart.

But every time I catch myself feeling sorry for myself, I think of so many people who have it so much worse. But whenever I hear people talking about a dream of theirs might be dashed, I have to chuckle. Try having all of your dreams dashed, and some of your loved ones gone on top of it, living by yourself for years. The old saying is true. You can either let it crush you, or you can "pull yourself up by the bootstraps."