One of the best things about my responsibilities as host of WGTD’s Morning Show is that I get to utter sentences such as “that reminds me of something Maya Angelou told me the other day. . .” It isn’t that the interviews I do with luminaries of that magnitude are my favorite interviews; they tend to be quite brief conversations and ultimately frustrating more than satisfying. But still, to be able to say that you’ve spoken with people like Maya Angelou and Marlo Thomas and Alan Alda and Jimmy Carter and Tim Russert and Teri Garr and Fannie Flagg and Gene Hackman – even for a precious few minutes, and only over the phone – is thrilling.
My Maya Angelou interview aired yesterday, and unfortunately, some of it was unusable because we did not have the best phone connection and she does not speak all that clearly and distinctly. I ended up chopping off the first three minutes of our nine-minute interview, which was a painful thing to do, but I knew that radios across Racine and Kenosha would be snapping off or tuned to a different station if people were forced to sit through three minutes of unintelligible conversation. But what remained was powerful and poignant, including a story she tells in her latest book (Letter to my Daughter) about a moment when she felt herself going insane from the stresses of touring in “Porgy and Bess” and being separated from her young son. In desperation, she ended up at the doorstep of her voice teacher, who sat her down, handed her a blank yellow tablet and asked her to write down all of her blessings. She was not very interested but her teacher persisted, and prompted her to write the first few entries- Be thankful that you can hold this pen and see the paper. Be thankful that you know how to write. Be thankful that you can read. Be thankful that you can hear my voice. . . and on and on. And in that simple act of counting her blessings, she stepped away from the dark abyss of despair which had threatened to engulf her. In the book, she follows up the story with these remarkable words:
The ship of my life may or may not be sailing on calm and amiable seas. The challenging days of my existence may or may not be bright and promising. Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. I think of how amazingly blessed I am.
Incredibly, when I recorded this interview with Maya Angelou last Thursday morning it was my second “big” interview of the day. I had just hung up the phone from interviewing an NBA All-Star named Alonzo Mourning, talking about his book “Resilience: Faith, Focus, Triumph.” There’s plenty of basketball in this book, but what it really focuses on is Mourning’s astounding comeback from life-threatening kidney disease and a kidney transplant which he underwent five years earlier (to the day). It’s always a little bit worrisome to have a multi-zillionaire pro athlete as a guest, but this guy was a perfect gentleman and articulate to boot and his story is fascinating.
The book is brimming with marvelous observations such as:
Faith makes things possible. But it doesn’t make them easy.
and
We are all products of someone else’s service to us. None of us got to where we are all by ourselves; no one walks this earth alone.
But I think my very favorite words in the book are actually the words of one of his most important coaches and mentors- Pat Reilly. He once told his team “Adversity introduces a man to himself.” That has certainly played out in Mourning’s life, and I can certainly see that as well in someone like Playford in his battle with ALS. You see the full measure of a human being when they are confronted with the worst that life can give. And as I read Mourning’s book, I realized that although the specific details of his story are unique to him, the heart and soul of what he talks about is applicable to all of us. And as this interview aired yesterday, I hoped that it was making a difference for the better in the life of someone struggling with a challenge of their own.
Believe it or not, my favorite interview of the day was neither the Mourning chat nor the Angelou chat – but a longer and deeper conversation with John Stoffer, author of “Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.” With Barack Obama about to become our next president, it felt so right to explore the deep and lasting impact which these two great Americans of the 19th century had on each other – and on the country. And as fun as it is to interview famous people, what really nourishes me most is when I can talk to authors who have written wonderful books about fascinating topics. It’s in those conversations that the distinction between work and fun loses all meaning, because it’s all fun.