Guilt. Motivation.

Circumstances have conspired to prompt this post. Truth be told, one reason I started this blog was to re-acquaint myself with writing. Why? To recover motivation for a project that has been too long idle. The Jim project. Jim is my 93 year old father-in-law. The former head of the Journalism school at Iowa State, Jim has an award named after him that is presented to a distinguished journalist each Homecoming at Iowa State. This year's recipient is Christine Romans of CNN, if any of you watch her (financial reporter). This award has been given out for years and years, but not until Stephanie started attending ISU did we ever make it for one of the ceremonies. Shame on us. Maybe three years back, the whole family made it for the award presentation, including Jim and Toni. The recipient was Pat Dean, associate dean of journalism at USC, although she spent a lot of her life at NBC in Chicago. Her speech inspired me to interview her and many, many others about the extraordinary accomplishments of a man who would describe himself as "ordinary." My intent was a book. But after a year of interviewing him for an hour each week, and talking to many incredibly successful students of his, I've let it lie dormant. Again, shame on me. Tonight I got an email from Jim, passing on a story written by one of those students, for me to use in my writing. As if I'm doing that. Arrgghhh. Get me started!!