Out here in sunny Sooke, we don’t get all the radio stations from Victoria as clear as you might think. Across the water is Port Angeles, and thanks to the straight line of sight, we actually get American radio pretty clearly. The upshot of it is that on our clock radio we can pick up a limited number of stations and the best pick in the short list is KPLU, the NPR station featuring jazz and blues.
Every morning, I listen to the radio from 5:50 am and then the news at 6:00. The best day of the week usually is Wednesday, that’s the day that Frank Deford from Sports Illustrated has his column. It’s always something sports-related, but often the human side of sport. This morning, it was a touching piece remembering Paul Newman, who happened to live in the same town as Frank. The complete editorial is here, but the part that I really liked was this bit, relating a story of a time when Frank and his wife were out and came upon Paul by chance:
We were at a small concert and, just by chance, he and his wife, Joanne Woodward, sat right next to me and my wife.
When the lights dimmed, I happened to glance over, and I saw that, right away, he’d taken Joanne’s hand. They’d only been married 50 years. He kept holding her hand all the way through, just like they were teenagers.
I reached over and took my wife’s hand. There are not many things any of us could do so well as Paul Newman, but, I thought, if you could follow his lead in any way, then you’d be a fool not to.
