[00:00.00]Lesson Eleven
[00:02.98] Text
[00:06.03]Selling the Post (I)
[00:10.61]Russell Baker I began working in journalism when I was eight years old.
[00:18.65]It was my mother's idea. She wanted me to"make something" of myself and,
[00:27.51]after a levelheaded appraisal of my strengths,
[00:32.76]decided I had better start young
[00:36.88]if I was to have any chance of keeping up with the competition.
[00:42.55]The flaw in my character which she had already spotted was lack of "gumption.
[00:51.10]My idea of a perfect afternoon was lying in front of theradio rereading
[00:59.14]my favorite Big Little Book,Dick Tracy Meets Stooge Viller.
[01:09.80]Seeing me having a good time in repose,she was powerless to hide her disgust.
[01:17.35]"You've got no more gumption than a bump on a log," she said.
[01:23.51]"Get out in the kitchen and help Doris do those dirty dishes.
[01:27.95]"My sister Doris,though two years younger than I,
[01:33.23]had enough gumption for a dozen people.
[01:37.78]She positively enjoyed washing dishes, making beds, and cleaning the house.
[01:44.75]When she was only seven
[01:48.20]she could carry a piece of shortweighted cheese back to the A&P,
[01:54.83]threaten the manager with Legal action,
[01:58.96]and come back triumphantly with the full quarter pound we'd paid for
[02:05.62]and a few ounces extra thrown tn for forgiveness.
[02:11.27]Doris could have made something of herself if she hadn't been a girl.
[02:17.61]Because of this defect however,
[02:22.29]the best she could hope for was a career as a nurseor schoolteacher,
[02:28.45]the only work that capable females were considered up to in those days
[02:35.72]This must have saddened my mother,
[02:39.48]this twist of fate that had allocated all the gumption to the daughter
[02:45.75]and left her with a son who was content with Dick Tracy and Stooge Viller.
[02:52.20]If disappointed,though she wasted no energy on self pity.
[02:58.55]She would make me make something of myself whether I wanted to or not.
[03:05.31]"The Lord helps those who help themselves,"she said.
[03:10.88]That was the way her mind worked.
[03:14.74]She was realistic about the difficulty.
[03:19.11]Having sized up the material the Lord had given her to mold,
[03:24.46]she didn't overestimate what she could do with it.
[03:29.21]She didn't insist that I grow up to be President of the United States.
[03:35.46]Fifty years ago parents still asked boys if they wanted to grow up to be president
[03:42.90]and asked it not jokingly but seriously.
[03:48.47]Many parents who were hardly more than paupers still believed their sons could do it
[03:55.52]Abraham Lincoln had done it.
[03:59.18]We were only sixty-five years from Lincoln.
[04:04.45]Many a grandfather who walked among us could remember Lincoln's time.
[04:10.70]Men of grandfatherly age
[04:14.67]were the worst for asking if you wanted to grow up to be president.
[04:20.83]A surprising number of little boys said yes and meant it.
[04:26.89]I was asked many times myself.
[04:32.25]No,I would say,I didn't want to grow up to be president.
[04:38.31]My mother was present during one of these interrogations.
[04:43.87]An elderly uncle,
[04:47.03]having posed the usual question and exposed my lack of interest in the presidency
[04:54.30]asked,"Well,what do you want to be when you grow up?"
[05:00.67]I loved to pick through trash piles and collect empty bottles,
[05:06.23]tin cans with pretty labels, and discarded magazines.
[05:12.11]The most desirable job on earth sprang instantly to mind.
[05:18.56]"I want to be a garbage man," I said.
[05:23.42]My uncle smiled,
[05:26.66]but my mother had seen the first distressing evidence of a bump budding on a log
[05:34.21]"Have a little gumption, Russell,"she said.
[05:39.17]Her calling me Russell was a signal of unhappiness.
[05:44.92]When she approved of me I was always"Buddy. "
[05:49.96]When I turned eight years old
[05:53.52]she decided that the job of starting meon the road toward making something of myself
[05:59.68]could no longer be safely delayed.
[06:04.07]"Buddy," she said one day,"
[06:08.33]I want you to come home right after school this afternoon.
[06:13.79]Somebody's coming and I want you to meet him.
[06:18.15]"When I burst in that afternoon she was in conference in the parlor
[06:24.31]with an executive of the Curtis Publishing Company.She introduced me.
[06:30.27]He bent low from the waist and shook my hand
[06:35.02]Was it true as my mother had told him,he asked,
[06:40.17]that I longed for the opportunity to conquer the world of business?
[06:46.13]My mother replied that I was blessed with a rare determination
[06:51.77]to make something of myself."That's right," I whispered.
[06:58.01]"But have you got the grit, the character,
[07:02.27]the never-say-quit spirit it takes to succeed in business?"
[07:08.12]My mother said I certainly did.
[07:12.07]"That's right,"I said.
[07:16.14]He eyed me silently for a long pause,
[07:21.10]as though weighing whether I could be trusted to keep his confidence,
[07:27.45]then spoke man-to-man.
[07:30.98]Before taking a crucial step, he said,he wanted to tell me
[07:37.74]that working for the Curtis Publishing Company
[07:42.47]placed enormous responsibility on a young man.
[07:47.75]It was one of the great companies of America.
[07:52.01]Perhaps the greatest publishing house in the world.
[07:56.97]I had heard, no doubt,of the Saturday Evening Post?
[08:03.45]Heard of it?
[08:06.09]My mother said that everyone in our house had heard of the Saturday Evening Post
[08:12.46]and that I,in fact,read it with religious devotion.
[08:18.21]Then doubtless, he said,
[08:22.07]we were also familiar with those two monthly pillars of the magazine world,
[08:28.73]the Ladies Home Journal and the Country Gentleman.
[08:33.78]Indeed we were familiar with them,said my mother.
[08:39.05]Representing the Saturday Evening Post was one of the weightiest honors
[08:45.40]that could be bestowed in the world of business, he said.
[08:50.16]He was personally proud of being a part of that great corporation.
[08:56.03]My mother said he had every right to be.
[09:00.58]Again he studied me as though debating whether I was worthy of a knighthood.
[09:07.55]Finally: "Are you trustworthy?"
[09:12.59]My mother said I was the soul of honesty."That's right,"I said.
[09:20.25]The caller smiled for the first time.
[09:24.32]He told me I was a lucky young man. He admired my spunk.
[09:30.49]Too many young men thought life was all play.
[09:35.53]Those young men would not go far in this world.
[09:40.39]Only a young man willing to work
[09:44.54]and save and keep his face washed and his hair neatly combed
[09:50.42] could hope to come out on top in a world such as ours.
[09:56.06]Did I truly and sincerely believe that I was such a young man?
[10:02.12]"He certainly does,"said my mother."That's right,"I said.
[10:09.49]He said he had been so impressed by what he has seen of me
[10:15.16]that he was going to make me a representative of the Curtis Publishing Company.
[10:21.51]On the following Tuesday, he said,
[10:25.95]thirty freshly printed copies of the Saturday Evening Post
[10:32.40]would be delivered at our door.
[10:36.16]I would place these magazines,still damp with the ink of presses,
[10:42.64]in a handsome canvas bag,sling it over my shoulder,
[10:48.59]and set forth through the streets to bring the best
[10:53.35]in journalism fiction,and cartoons to the American public.
[10:59.59]He had brought the canvas bag with him.
[11:03.67]He presented it with reverence fit for a religious object.
[11:09.31]He showed me how to drape the sling over my left shoulder
[11:14.35]and across the chest so that the pouch lay easily accessible to my right hand,
[11:21.20]allowing the best in journalism, fiction,and security
[11:26.76]to be swiftly extracted and sold to a citizenry
[11:32.40]whose happiness and security depended upon us soldiers of the free press.
[11:39.77]The following Tuesday I raced home from school,
[11:44.31]put the bag over my shoulder, dumped the magazines in,
[11:49.67]and,tilting to the left to balance their weight on my right hip,
[11:55.91]embarked on the highway of journalism. |