Pull up a chair and adjust your rabbit ears, ‘cause we've got a good one this week. 2

You might remember Amy Walls from a while back, when we talked across the bleachers somewhere (the name of the place escapes me, the point does not). Back then she was flipping between a hundred job applications and a Chick-fil-A headset.

Well, I went and paid her a visit at her new gig, and folks — she is not serving chicken anymore that’s for sure. She's at a television station, A PBS station at that. I escaped those hot studio lights because I spent years sitting UNDER THEM facing the cameras. And added to the misery was thick thick orange makeup that intensified the heat because it wouldn't let my skin breathe.

Grab your coffee or whatever makes you shake and jitter with delight, and let's get into it.

It’s showtime!

My mother handed me a cup of coffee before I could properly walk, so I know stale when I taste it. Most of what's on the grocery shelves nowadays was roasted so long ago it's practically a fossil. This week’s partner, Angelino's Coffee, is a family roaster in Los Angeles who roast it fresh and ship it to your door within days, which is the difference you taste in the very first sip.

Clicking the link below supports the show with a whopping $1.12 — no signup required. One click, and you've done more for me than my last three doctors.

Take it away, Angelino’s!

That grocery store pod? It was roasted long before it hit the shelf. Coffee starts losing flavor within weeks of roasting — which is why your morning cup tastes flat, no matter how nice your machine is.

Angelino's does it differently. A third-generation roaster in Los Angeles, they roast, grind, and seal every pod in-house for peak freshness, then ship it to your door within days of roasting. The difference is the first thing you'll notice: real aroma, real flavor, no bitterness.

Mix and match from 50+ specialty coffees, teas, and flavored blends — all Keurig®-compatible — and save more with every box you add, up to 34% off at 12+. Order once whenever you're running low, or subscribe for an extra 5% if that's easier. Entirely up to you.

New customers get 15% off their first order — applied automatically, no code needed.

Taste the Fresh Difference

I remember the time I was a student pilot flying cross country from Carbondale, Illinois to Cape Girardeau, MIssouri. Once I crossed the Mississippi, I spotted a TALLLLLLLL transmitting tower. The flashing red light on top of it was at least 1000 feet above the ground! That was the KFVS TV transmitting tower. It had to be that tall to cover southeast Missouri, southern Illinois and northern Kentucky, the station's market area.

KFVS is on channel 12. Here in Chattanooga, PBS station WTCI-TV is on 45.1, 45.2. and 45.3. Why does WTCI-TV have so many channels?

It's because we're living in the 21st Century. You can also visit wtcitv.org and find more ways to tune in, just by clicking.

But back when I was a student pilot, had I flipped a contact lens and bent over looking for it on the cockpit floor, missed seeing KFVS-TV tower, and hit it, there would be "technical difficulties" both for the TV station and for the 19-year-old pilot. Yup, there was only one way to watch TV in those days: over the air with a TALLLLLLLLLL transmitting tower and an antenna on the roof of your house, or rabbit ears on your TV with that BIG tube that was the screen.

As for the people you saw on the tube: The overhead lights were so bright that the studio air-conditioning had to be turned up a half hour before air time and the talent (AKA me!) had to be on set 10 minutes before air time so I wasn't squinting at the camera when the floor director cued me, and I announced, "Good evening!".

Yours truly also tripped over the inch thick cable when he walked into the studio because he could never see it in the malevolent glow of the million mega watt lights. And the makeup! Imagine smearing orange colored flour on your face every time you went on camera like D...oh nevermind. Meanwhile, the floor crew operating the cameras behind the lights shivered in the arctic cold.

BUT

Technology has changed the burning sun like lights to a tolerable glow, the hulking Volkswagen sized cameras have been reduced to a moped, and the need for a floor crew the size of a minor league baseball team has been reduced to two or three people.

Also, there are no teletypes in newsrooms (use your laptop!), the mics are the size of index fingers and don't need wires, television control rooms no longer have windows to see the set. (Why?) There are these little cameras all over the place) and not a lot of TV isn't live anymore. (Why wait for it to come to you, when it is only a click away?)

BUT

There is lots and lots and lots of equipment in BIG racks in the control rooms. What does it all do? Nobody knows.

Six months ago she served Chick-fil-a customers with Second Mile Service after leaving a ten year teaching career. Today, she’s putting her education background once more and reminding this old anchor that the in-between jobs count for something too. Amy Walls returns, and she's got a BIG update to share.

When Amy told me she'd left teaching to deliver flowers and work a Chick-fil-A window, I had my fatherly little speech all loaded up. “You've got a master's degree, kiddo. Don't waste it flipping patties.” Well, they don't flip anything at Chick-fil-A, but you know what I mean.

Then she explained: She wasn't lost, just burned out from the current system, and she went looking for the most gloriously mindless work she could find: which turned into driving a carful of flowers up Signal Mountain. no lesson plans or grading and minimal screaming, just the smell of somebody else's good news riding shotgun.

Now, my generation has a word for that, and the word is "quitting." We were raised to believe the only honorable direction is up and the only speed is faster. You didn't step back, instead you white-knuckled it until something in you gave out, and then called it character development.

So here's one I didn't expect to agree with: sometimes the smart move is the small one. Amy figured that out at thirty-something, and it took me about fifty years to do the same.

Now you’re here reading this because of it. Well I’ll be damned!

Until next time friends,

Robert