Inspiration - CBS Sunday Morning

You probably realize by now that I'm not shy about sharing what I'm passionate about. When one of those life-altering moments that occur all too rarely happen, I talk about it. Like last Sunday morning.


I'm not a huge television fan, and in fact lived happily for over two years with no television at all when my cable broke, and I elected not to repair it. The one program I am absolutely wedded to is the CBS news program, CBS Sunday Morning, which just celebrated its 30th anniversary.

Over the years I've enjoyed many of the segments they've aired, but one they broadcast last Sunday, September 13, was one of the best, first aired on CBS Evening News then spotlighted on CBS Sunday Morning.

It's the heartwarming story of a grizzled and grouchy Phoenix cabbie, Tom, who gets lost going to pick up a client. (Apparently he regularly gets lost!) He arrives thirty minutes late. He and his rider, Rita, get off to a rocky start as he takes her to a medical clinic for an appointment. The rider declines to give the driver a tip and hopes never to see him again. Tom feels the same. Of course fate pairs them over and over, and the cabbie decides to find out why she goes so regularly to a kidney dialysis clinic. What he learns about dialysis gives him a new perspective toward Rita. She needs a new kidney, and up to now she's been unable to find a match. Something about Rita and her story touches Tom, and he tells Rita he'll get tested. She doesn't expect him to follow through. Both doubt he'd be a match even if he does since every member of Rita's own family has failed the test. He keeps his word, though, and the doctors tell Rita and Tom that if they were any closer matched, they'd be siblings. They've got a date with the surgeon in December, 2009. In an adjunct to this story, Tom realized another benefit from his gift. Tom's daughter, lost to him for 30 years as a result of a bitter divorce, contacts her father and introduces him to his grandchildren. Told with grace, wit and empathy, the story left me in tears.

I'm proud to say I've been a CSM follower since the beginning. I've traveled with Charles Kuralt all over the US, followed all the human interest stories, laughed at Bill Geist's slices of life, learned details about the lives of singers and painters and politicians and just-plain-people. They seem to get to the heart of whatever story they're covering and celebrate the best (or worst) in their target of the moment.

I cried when Charles Osgood took over the CSM reins--and even harder when Charles Kuralt died, much too soon, not too long thereafter.Although Charles O has grown on me over the years, I still miss the original Charlie K. Probably always will.

In a way, I credit CSM for the start of my writing career, as a result of a formerly-regular segment called "Postcards from Nebraska" written/produced by Rodger Welsch. That segment fast became dear to my heart because my parents grew up in Clarks and Central City, Nebraska, not terribly far from Welsch's town of Dannebrog. Although I've visited my parents' home state a few times, I've never lived there. Something, though, draws me to the rural life they lived and that Welsch described in his segments. One postcard, in particular, hit home in a way no other accomplished. Welsch talked about how high school kids spent months of their summers helping their parents and neighbors in the corn fields that so dominate the Nebraska countryside. He described particular techniques that are used to make sure the corn pollinates properly.

I don't know why that segment captured my imagination, but it sparked a story I called "Coming Home" which I wrote early on in my classes with Fresno writing teacher Elnora King. Although it was far from an overnight success with Elnora, it proved to me (and eventually to her) that my writing had potential. That was not the first story I published, and eventually my firiend Virginia Walton Pilegard--who has actual farming/ranching experience--helped polish it up. When we submitted it to the editor at Sterling Macfadden Publications' True Love magazine, we got a call. "We want to buy your story, and I want you to know that this is the first time EVER that we have decided to buy a story as soon as we read it."

It's important to mention that by this time, in conjunction with my first writing partner, Sunny Baker, I had a track record with Sterling Macfadden.  We'd sold some twelve stories to the "confession" market. It was not by accident that they looked at "Coming Home." But it touched my heart that those editors caught the love I poured into that tale and eventually published the story Virginia and I wrote.

Since that market seems to have dried up in the years since I stopped writing, it's not likely the Kidney-Cabbie tale will end up as a short story, but it's good for the soul (my soul, at least) to see that the compassion embodied in the tale still exists.

As Ghandi says, we must be the change we wish to see in the world.