BACK IN THE CATBIRD SEAT

Well hi there. Thanks for having me back, or having my back, if you've recently sent any good things my way. Somebody's been up to something, that's for sure, because after a year of being on the wrong side of a log jam, I seem to have hooked up with Old Man River and we're doing a bang up job of just rollin' along.

Keeping it cheap and cheerful, then, let me offer a deeply felt thanks to you lovely folks who stayed in touch during my, ahem, downsizing (i.e., getting chopped down to size). In the months that followed, many of you counseled me to be patient and kind to myself while I recovered from my job loss, regained my balance and rethought my place in the world.

Despite my deep respect for all animals, I am forced to fall back on cliche and confess that your words of wisdom fell like pearls before swine. These last 16 months since my NPR swan song aired have positively sucked. I've been neither patient nor kind nor remotely forgiving, more often than not believing myself a loser for losing my job. In this I have excellent company; how mighty our numbers in unemployment free fall! All us misplaced jigsaw pieces, lost under the sofa, wondering if we'll ever find another puzzle where we'll fit back in.

Ay, there's the rub: Sometimes there's just no fitting back in. Sometimes you've just got to start over, creating a new picture around your own peculiar jigsaw shape. And that's where I am. In the past month, I've turned a huge corner -- which explains my return to blogging -- and I'm now crafting the puzzle that will reframe the next part of my life.

Which brings us back to this inaugural post's title: Back In the Catbird Seat. It's a quote from my old friend and ersatz grandfather, Red Barber, voice of the Brooklyn Dodgers, then the New York Yankees. Red was quite famous for referring to teams and players as "sitting in the catbird seat". It was his way of describing that delicious moment when you're sitting oh so pretty, like a batter ahead of the count with runners poised to score.

Looking back, I remember when the Ol' Redhead himself was in a gentlemanly free fall. His was one of those vintage names that would cause people to say, HE can't still be alive! But he was and his career was behind him, if omnipresent on the walls of his home. He was too religious a man to despair over his lost profession, but you gotta know it couldn't have felt too good to have become invisible and taken for dead.

I met Red during his period of obscurity, a meeting that changed both our lives. This was 1979. After accepting my offer to join Morning Edition for weekly chats with its then host, Bob Edwards, I crafted the show around this beautiful old puzzle piece long lost under the sofa. By getting Red Barber back up in the catbird seat, I changed, too, and still believe I was put on the planet to make sure Red Barber got his second career.