This Thanksgiving marks 50 years at the Miami Herald — and a lifetime of gratitude | Opinion
My mentor on these pages, the great Edwin Pope, left us almost five years ago at age 88. He used to write these heartfelt Thanksgiving columns every year that (full disclosure) made some of the younger writers roll our eyes a little bit. We loved and admired our leader so much, and yet we would smirk. We called these his annual “smell of new-mown grass” columns.
The cynic would delight to note that the fresh-cut lawn scent we all know actually is produced by molecules released when plants (including) grass are damaged by insects, disease or other forces — like lawnmower blades. In effect, that pleasant smell is your lawn screaming it has just been cut in half. But I digress. The point is:
Edwin had it exactly right.
You appreciate the little things. You don’t overanalyze. You let your heart lead you to where your thankfulness and gratitude should go. You have faith it it will steer you right.
I love Thanksgiving for the family and food and football, but mostly because it is the one holiday whose reason for being is to encourage that we stop, pause, reflect and appreciate.
That can be tough, sometimes. We have all been surrounded by so much the past couple of years. The horrific COVID-19 pandemic we are still trying to get free of. The racial injustice and national discord that has turned civil to vile. Just Monday we awakened to the terrible headline involving a deranged SUV driver and a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
The antidote is in the smile of my first grandchild, and her laughter, her dance. She is not quite 4, and everything good and hopeful about the world and future radiate from her. She calls me “Pop.” I melt.
I don’t do the Thanksgiving column much; think I’ve done maybe a couple through the years. But I saw Jim Martz in the Hard Rock stadium press box the other night during the Hurricanes-Virginia Tech game and it triggered something.
It occurred to me that Jim, then the Miami Herald’s Broward sports editor, had hired me as a part-time clerk in late 1972. And what if he hadn’t? I have a half century of gratitude for this man. In the company of others I always joke “he’s to blame” for my unlikely career
So 2021 is the 50th consecutive year my byline or picture sig has appeared in the Herald. And it would never have happened if Martz had not that afternoon hired a high school kid too young to drive so he took a city bus to the interview.
Or before that if my older brother, smoking his morning Winston over coffee, had not happened to point out a small ad in the paper mentioning an opening for a sports clerk.
Or before that if a journalism teacher at Hollywood McArthur High, Mrs. Cheryl O’Connor, hadn’t seen something in my writing that led her to coax me onto the school paper. To encourage me. (Years later I tracked her down through social media to say thank you. To this day I appreciate little more of any walk of life than I do a dedicated, caring teacher with the power to change lives, one at a time, without even knowing it).
The clerk’s job that bloomed into an unexpected, enduring career has led me to be thankful for so much about doing what I do in this South Florida market.
We are one of only 11 regions in the U.S. with all five major sports, the traditional NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, plus Major League Soccer.
I will see any of the others’ Mount Rushmores of sports and raise them with Don Shula, Pat Riley, Dan Marino and Dwyane Wade.
I am thankful for five Hurricanes national football championships, even as so many fans can only see the lack of a sixth.
I appreciate the relentless grace and good nature of Tua Tagovailoa, through all of the [bleep] the Dolphins have made him endure.
I am grateful for Jimmy Butler’s humor and fire. For Aleksander Barkov’s greatness and Joe Thornton’s beard. For the majesterial Ray Hudson and the trailblazing Kim Ng.
I appreciate what Jim Larranaga and Katie Meier give that we take for granted.
I say thank you, Butch Davis.
I am grateful too for our high school sports (my first beat at the Herald, back when papers were dropped on lawns by pterodactyls), because we are as great a cornucopia as anywhere in America at filling out the rosters of major colleges and the pros. (And thank you, Larry Blustein).
I am grateful for family most of all, of course, but I guess that goes without saying as does my appreciate for our decades of steadfast Herald readers, for the legions who hear me on the Dan Le Batard Show With Stugotz thanks to Dan, and more recently to the loyal listeners of our podcast, the success of which has been a gratifying, late-career delight.
Thursday from the head of our table I will say grace, and keep it short. Because the mashed potatoes would turn ice cold if I took the time to let out all that is in my heart.
I will take a moment to hear the clatter of knives and forks and the murmur of laughter at a crowded table.
I will catch the small glance and giggle of my granddaughter, and I will wish I could live forever.
Happy Thanksgiving, all!
This story was originally published November 22, 2021 at 12:14 PM.
