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Davis Young
- Nov 29, 2022

DY: In Just a Few Words (#111)

I also used to bowl, but this is not about that.

Last Saturday’s Ohio State - Michigan game reminds me football bowl season is almost here again. Yippee!

One of the best things I ever did relates to the Orange Bowl. No, I didn’t score the winning touchdown. But, every year when it’s Orange Bowl day (now night), I stop and remember that it was during an annual Orange Bowl game in 1985 when Karen and I gave up the terrible habit of cigarette smoking. It was the third quarter of the Washington vs. Oklahoma game. Neither one of us ever touched another cigarette. Not once.

In the late ‘90s, my son, son-in-law and I became big fans of the San Diego-based Holiday Bowl, attending several of the annual games in gorgeous evening weather. We didn’t have a team. We just loved the event. Well-run. Good teams.

One year we ran into a guy in the stadium parking lot wearing a red blazer. Turns out, he was the CEO of the Holiday Bowl. Great guy. A long conversation ensued. He was very instrumental in positioning the Holiday Bowl as an annual fixture on the football schedule. Mark your calendar. This year’s game is December 28.

Another of our favorites is the Quick Lane Bowl (formerly the Motor City Bowl), played in the neighboring city of Detroit. What a pleasure to attend an indoor bowl game in a warm and dry domed stadium. (Are you listening, Cleveland?) Semi-local teams we’ve seen play in that game are University of Toledo (my son-in-law’s alma mater) and University of Akron. We also saw my alma mater, UNC, one year.

But the granddaddy of them all is the Rose Bowl, and it was 2001 when Keith and I got up very early to attend both the Rose Parade AND the Rose Bowl game, where Washington edged Purdue. What a great day!

On a side note: Our family has a long history with the Rose Bowl stadium that started well before the 2001 game. We lived in Southern California after World War II. My brother’s junior college - John Muir - played home games in that huge venue. Can you imagine what the 100,000 capacity RB looks like with 1,500 fans at a game? We were there a number of times.

Beyond that, I have vague memory of playing in a flag football competition there when I was about nine years old. I mean really vague, but I’ll claim it nevertheless.

Yes, your neighbor and friend played in a Rose Bowl game (well, a game in the Rose Bowl....).

Next week I’ll tell you what it was like to attend an Army-Navy game.

DY: In Just a Few Words is a blog that comes out when something needs to be said or every Tuesday - whichever comes first. Davis Young is a communications professional who adds 50+ years of experience and perspective to issues of the day. His emphasis in DY: In Just a Few Words will be humor (a touch of sarcasm here, a pinch of facetiousness there...). Once in a while, he will touch on something a bit more serious - but hopefully not too deep or depressing.

This blog is a product of DY Author & Speaker LLC. Feel free to quote content with attribution. Respond. Agree. Disagree. Share the content with your friends. Heck - even invite him as a speaker for your group! Enjoy!

Davis Young
- Nov 22, 2022

DY: In Just a Few Words (#110)

So many things to be thankful for this year.

Hard to believe this week marks my 83rd Thanksgiving. I don’t want to advance radical thinking into the discussion, but it seems to me Thanksgiving week is the right time to focus on the many blessings in our lives.

I am thankful for a high honor that has been (almost) bestowed on me in the current issue of People Magazine. You may have seen that the cover story features The Sexiest Man Alive. As part of that enlightening piece of journalism, they have a photo and a little bit of info on the 100 Sexiest Men Alive. I am told that I just missed out, finishing #106 (give or take a few hundred spots). I am pretty sure I am the only person in my neighborhood to ever finish at that level.
I am thankful that cold weather has returned. This signals the end of Fly Season. Anyone who knows me knows that flies are my ENEMY #1. I cannot stand them and spend much of the warm months conjuring up new ways to eradicate them. So I welcome the cold months. In fact, if it gets even colder (and let’s hope it does) we may be able to eradicate flies all together or at least get them down to a cycle where we only have to deal with them like Cicadas every 17 years. What a blessing that would be.
I am thankful I don’t live in Buffalo with its 5+ feet of snow. I am also thankful I live just south of Cleveland’s dreaded Snow Belt.
I am thankful that the big Lake Erie cloud that starts every year in Toledo and covers the entire region has removed any desire to go outside and sit in the sun. There’s no sun to sit in and that is a gift I will long appreciate. That's good for me, but not for my dermatologist.
I am thankful it is the season for Medicare enrollment ads. I get outstanding advice from a celebrity football player turned pitchman.
I am thankful that the political season never really ends anymore. The midterms were three short weeks ago (there are races STILL NOT CALLED and a runoff election scheduled for December 6 in Georgia) - and we already have at least one presidential candidate for 2024.
Last but far from least, I am thankful to the Salt Police for guiding me past temptation just as I know they will on Thanksgiving Day. They have given new energy to my taste buds with Salt Substitute, which reminds me of my all-time favorite food - cardboard. Who in the world would want to eat a turkey that contains some salt? Not me. When the local coroner is done with me, his findings will be that Mr. Young is the first person in recorded history to pass from a low sodium count. I always knew the Salt Police would kill me with their kindness.

So, that’s my Thanksgiving list for this year. Good wishes and an abundance of blessings to each and every one of my blog readers.

Davis Young
- Nov 15, 2022

DY: In Just a Few Words (#109)

My college years. Part 2.

There was a legendary journalism professor at the University of North Carolina who was known far and wide as the most stringent grader on the entire campus. His specialty was community journalism, and rumor had it that he had never graded any assignment with an A. That would certainly have ruined his day.

In addition to his academic responsibilities, he was the editor of the local weekly paper. Unlike today, when parents parachute into the grading process to ask why their wonderful, brilliant child didn’t get an A, no one would dare face off against this man. That would have been a very short conversation. So you - and your parents - accepted your grade. Whatever it was.

Now he was a terrific journalist, but nothing - and I mean nothing - was ever good enough for this crusty old guy. I actually worked for him one summer. I wrote news and feature stories, even an occasional editorial. I ran the photo engraving machine and did some page layout. I was a proofreader who carefully checked every syllable. I delivered quantities of papers to our local drugstores and grocery outlets for sale to their customers.

We put a darn good community newspaper on the newsstands every week. Readers knew that, bought it and read it.

As a journalism major and editor of the student paper, it was just a matter of time before I would encounter him in a classroom. And, so I did.

Our class of perhaps 20 students got a writing assignment one day. I was hoping for a B. Again, NO ONE thought about the possibility of an A from this guy. Now, professors have many different styles when it comes to returning fully graded papers. In this case, the grade was on page one in the upper right-hand corner, with comments below.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. There it was. Grade: A.

Then came the comment: This paper is not entirely rotten.

This was an excuse to pump some quarters into my dormitory pay phone for a celebratory call home to my parents.

Hello, I just got an A on a writing assignment from the prof who never gives anyone an A.

That’s great, they responded. Nice going.

Then came a question I found very awkward. Did he say anything or just give you a grade?

Well, the truth is that he did write a comment.

And, what was that?, my proud parents asked.

This paper is not entirely rotten.

Hmmm....

I guess there’s always room for some improvement. I’m still working on that.

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