Thanksgiving in April

Mentors, A Country Music Singer on the Notion of Voice with a Capital V & Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has no meaning for me unless I take the time to consider the ways that I have been blessed my mentors.

I have many mentors, young and old, living and dead, ancient and postmodern.

A mentor really is someone who knows more than you do about something you want to know more about. So, if I am open to it, I learn things from each of you. For that I am thankful.

The day after I ran the New York marathon, I spent two hours discussing big ideas and small ideas with my Columbia University university adviser, Melvin Mencher.

He is one of the smartest people I know who thinks deeply and writes about journalism. Since the day I first met him in New York in August 1973, he has been my mentor. I have files thick with letters he has written to me over the years.

Some of my mentors, such as writer and writing coach Don Murray, have passed on. His guidance lives on in his books. Sometimes I re-read his handwritten notes and letters for inspiration.

Other mentors I have never met. I read their words in library books,magazines, newspapers or books I buy in the bookstore or online. On the internet, I look up stories about these people.

One of my mentors on the matter of Voice is country music singer Ernest Tubb, whose band was the Texas Troubadors (That is how they spelled it,without the "u.")

Early during World War Two, although he had a recording contract, Tubb was making little money. He considered quitting the music business and taking a job at a factory making equipment for the United States military.

Soon, though, Tubb's 1941 record "Walking the Floor over You" hit big. Eventually it sold more than one million copies.

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEDXNmShNXk (Watch and listen. It's VERY retro.)

By the time Tubb died at age 70, in 1984, he had recorded more than 250 songs and sold 30 million records.

"I don't care whether I hit the right note or not," he once told an interviewer. "I am not looking for perfection of delivery--thousands of singers have that. I am looking for individuality."

In what way does your reporting, writing, editing, revising, designing, photographing, and living--your Thinking and Being--express a distinctive, memorable Voice?

What are the Next Steps toward uncovering that distinctive Voice?

See Texas Historical Society web page on Tubb:
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/TT/ftu16.html

Happy Thanksgiving,

BH