Traveling Down Memory Lane With An Eye On The Future

This photo shows me talking with Jean Byrne during an interview I did while hosting a
 show for WNET TV.  Bryne was at the time the wife of N.J.'s  Gov. Brendan Byrne. 

I mentioned in my previous blog entry that I had an opportunity to travel down memory lane with Doug McConnell during our meeting in Cooley Landing Park this past April.

That meeting with McConnell was just the beginning of my travels down memory lane, because I had to make some introductory remarks about myself for the Palo Alto Rotary Club on May 20 of this year and, then several weeks later, I made a similar presentation on May 29 for the East Palo Alto Rotary Club.

Believe me there is nothing like looking back on various aspects of one’s life and thinking about the people who’ve been a part of one’s past, ranging from classmates like David Bing and Stokely Carmichael (also known as Kwame Ture) to professional associates.

I had the experience, for example, of sharing an elevator at Rockefeller Center with Barbara Walters, when I was a reporter for WNBC TV in New York City and I, later, had a fun encounter with Charlie Rose when he was Bill Moyers’ assistant and I was the host of Dateline: New Jersey at WNET TV, which is the Public Broadcasting Station in New York City. Do you think Rose would remember when he and I first met? Now that’s a question worth asking.

Would David Bing, who is the outgoing mayor of Detroit or Sharon Pratt, the former mayor of Washington, D.C. remember me? For the most part, people remember their classmates and co-workers.

At the top of this post is a photo from my WNET TV experience when I interviewed Jean Byrne, who was, at the time of the interview, the wife of New Jersey’s Governor Brendan Byrne. My co-host was Jerome Wilson, who was a former New Jersey State Senator.

Going down memory lane can be bittersweet, because one has to look back at what one has done, could have done, but didn’t do and, then, compare these three things with what one is doing in the present.

It’s exciting for me to keep in mind that each day brings new experiences full of amazing possibilities.

In the news business there is a saying. “You’re only as good as your last story.” I’d like to add, “Everyone is always as good as or better than what they’re working on now.”  You’re as good in the present as you were in the past with the potential of the future in front of you.

So, isn’t it better to keep striving rather than to rest on anything that one has done in the past? The past is static, but the present is always changing.