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Did you keep a journal or write stories or poems when you were a kid?

And. maybe just as important, did you keep them?

One who did was singer-songwriter-poet Suzanne Vega. We talked some twenty years ago when she publisjhed a collection of some of her own youthful writings.

Now I’m off to have some lunch .. at Tom’s Diner, of course.

U.S. Navy Admiral James Stockdale was Commander James Stockdale in 1966 when he was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese.

He was held as a POW for the next eight years.

How did he do it? How did he survive?

I had a few minutes to talk with him in 1983.

In later years James Stockdale served as president of the Naval War College, president of The Citadel, and candidate for Vice President of the United States 1992, as independent Riss Perpt’s running mate

On television, Richard Belzer often plays characters who believe in conspiracy theories, sometimes complex, complicated, and outrageous theories.

But twenty years ago, Belzer wrote a book called “UFOs, JFK, And Elvis.”

Guess what it was about?

The name Barney Frank is well-known in his home state of Massachusetts, and nationally. Frank was alongtiem Democratic Congressman who made his mark in many ways in Congress, including the legislation that followed the 2008 financial crisis called the Dodd-Frank Act.

But in 1982, when I first met him, Frank was a freshman, about to run for his second term — facing a longtime Republican lawmaker named Margaret Heckler, thanks to a rapportionment map that threw them both into the same district. . .

Was he scared of losing. I asked?

In 1981, Congress gave itself a generous and controversial tax break for things like, meals. Barney Frank voted agsinst it.

When we talked in the fall of 1982, Barney Frank was facing that uiphiull battle against eight-term Republican Margarer Heckler.

But Frank beat Heckler that fall. She later becmae Secretary of Health and Human Services. and U.S. ambssadior to Ireland. Frank went on to serve 15 more terms in Congress. He did not seek re-election in 2012, and retired from Congress.

1984 was a very good year for gymnast Mary Lou Retton. She won five medals at the Summer Olympics that year in Los Angeles, including a gold, two silver and two bronze.

Her athletic prowess, and her infectious smile, captivated America’s hearts. Mine was no exception.

But it turns out there is something in Mary Lou Retton’s life that was much more important than gymnastics.

I was thrilled to meet her in 2000.

June 25th is #BOURDAINDAY a day designated by friends of the late chef and world traveler Anthony Bourdain.

June 25th, 2019 would have been his 63rd birthday.

Bourdain shot to fame nearly twenty years ago with his book “Kitchen Confidential,” in which he pulled back the curtain to let us see what really goes on in a restaurant kitchen. But his book also helped elevate food preparation to a desirable, even glamorous , profession.

I met him in the spring of 2001….

So what do you say we all go out to eat tonight, for Bourdain Day?

I’ve interviewed thousands of people over the years, some much more colorful than others.

But one I’ll always remember as one of the most colorful was the late newspaper humor columnist and standup comic Lerwis Grizzard.

Over a period of years, Grizzard wrote 25 books, with titles like “When My Love Returns From the Ladies Room, Will I Be Too Old to Care?” .. “You Can’t Put No Boogie-Woogie on the King of Rock & Roll” .. and “I Haven’t Understood Anything Since 1962”

One of my several interviews with him was on his book called, “Don’t Bend Over in the Garden, Granny, You Know Them Taters Got Eyes”

Lewis Grizzard died way too young, at age 47, in 1994.

Berkeley Breathed is perhaps best known for his comic strips “Bloom County,” “Outland,” and “Opus.” But he’s also a gifted children’s book creator. I first met him in 2003, on publication of his book “Flawed Dogs.”

The next time we talked was in 2007, after publication of his book called “Mars Needs Moms,
which later became a Disney animated film. It’s about a 9-year-old boy namd Milo who comes to appreciate everything about his mom, after she’s abducted by Martians.

And Berke Breathed is still producing great comics — “Bloom County” returned in 2015.

Gloria Vanderbilt died this morning at the age of 95.

I met her in 1994 when she wrote a fact-based novel about a young woman who was murdered in 1931. The book was called “The Memory Book of Starr Faithfull,” and I found Gloria Vanderbilt to be a charming and fascinating woman.

In many people’s lives, there is a “before and after day,” the day when their entire life changed, sometimes radically and painfully.

For Jim and Sarah Brady, that day was March 30th, 1981. Jim was then-President Ronald Reagan’s press secretary, and had accompanied the president to an appearance at the Washington Hilton Hotel. No one knew that John Hinckley Jr. was waiting outside the hotel and would attempt ti assassinate the president.

Jim Brady was gravely injured and nearly died.

But just six years later Jim and Sarah Brady were on a book tour. i met them that fall:

Jim Brady died in 2014 just a few days shy of his 74th birthday. Sarah died a few month’s later at age 73.

Their legacy may be an untold number of lives saved by their campaign against gun violence.