So at 16 I got a job at the local radio station. And I was working after school and weekends. I did the news; I did everything. I did – played records.
No, I did night clubs right here in Los Angeles. My partner, Phil Erickson, put me in the business, a guy from my home town, a dear friend who we just lost a couple of months ago.
My son Barry, of course, has been on from the beginning. And his son Shane is playing now a med student regularly on the show. And at one point or another, I’ve had all four of his kids on the show.
I was the worst game show host that ever lived, and I knew it.
In general, things either work out or they don’t, and if they don’t, you figure out something else, a plan B. There’s nothing wrong with plan B.
Why is it amazing that I don’t act my age? Why should I act my age? Or more to the point, how is someone my age supposed to act? Old age is part fact, part state of mind, part luck, and wholly something best left for other people to ponder, not you or me. Why waste your time? I don’t.
Be careful not to trip over the ottoman.
I agreed with his thesis that God was not an all-powerful “cosmic superman” looking down from the penthouse as much as He was Love.
Hope is life’s essential nutrient, and love is what gives life meaning. I think you need somebody to love and take care of, and someone who loves you back. In that sense, I think the New Testament got it right. So did the Beatles. Without love, nothing has any meaning.
I found myself thinking about what worked for me, and also what I wanted to do for work, what was important to me, and what I wanted my work to say about me.
The best writers were philosophers who wrapped their commentary about life in laughter.
The show became its own little world, with its own internal rhythm and high standards.
Every single of one of the station’s phone lines lit up. The switchboard looked like a Fourth of July display.
I survived – and looking back, I learned not to sweat the little stuff.
Something greater than me was happening. And yet, it was happening to me.
Like it or not, life is a never-ending confrontation with bouts of uncertainty and chapters of self-discovery. As I was about to learn, it is a series of fine messes that we enter, some wittingly, and others not.
Scripture says you should put aside childish things when you grow up. I take that to mean willfulness, self-centeredness, and things like that – not imagination, creativity, and joyful curiosity.
Accepting that life is a perfectly imperfect experience is a crucial part of appreciating senior citizenship and coming to terms with the past.
Call it fate, luck, or whatever. If you make it past then, as I have, you discover a truth and joy that you wish you had known earlier: there is no plan. As you get older, you figure this out. You relax. You exhale. You quit worrying.
No one expects me to go anywhere soon. Good for me. I am not about to complain. In terms of money, though, my family will be up the creek. I probably shouldn’t say this, but I may have to fake my own death before I’m ninety-five. I feel too good.
It is a relatively recent phenomenon that human beings worry about old age, social security, medical bills, and long-term care. But you can only plan so much. In general, things either work out or they don’t, and if they don’t, you figure out something else, a plan B. There’s nothing wrong with plan B. Most of life, as I have learned, is a plan B. Or a plan C. Or plans L, M, N, O, P.