Welcome to OLD GOATS!
I want to give you some idea of what I'm up to here. It's a little different.
When I was a kid growing up in Chicago, we had a legendary local columnist named Irv Kupcinet--”Kup”--who hosted a weekly local talk show devoted to what he called “the lively art of conversation.” As a reporter in my mid-20s, I went on the show once--can’t remember the topic---which was proof that Kup was interested in people who were not quite as famous as earlier guests like Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Bob Hope and Malcolm X.
OLD GOATS is my effort to engage in that “lively art” and encourage you to do so, too, this time in written form that you can scan much more quickly than a podcast. My hope is that my weekly ruminating with friends and acquaintances who aren’t ready to be put out to pasture will spread and help generate conversation in this community.
We’ve got an Old-Goat-in-Chief and a couple of Anthonys (Fauci and Hopkins) as proof that most of us still appreciate the value of wisdom and experience. But there are a helluva lot of other accomplished people with some mileage on the odometer who can help us on the road ahead.
For the first two months of "OLD GOATS, all content will be free. Every Thursday, you’ll get a fresh conversation between me and someone I know. Some will be famous; others unfamiliar to you. I’m betting that at least some of them will help you separate wheat from chaff--signal from noise.
And I look forward to engaging with you and other subscribers--young, middle-aged and old--in the well-moderated Comments section, which will also be free until end of summer.
I’ll post my own periodic short takes, usually with an historical lens affixed to my analysis of what’s in the news. Like Dwight Hansen, the otherwise despicable father played by Robert De Niro in This Boy’s Life, I like to think “I know a thing or two about a thing or two”. But it’s unlikely I’ll be in your mailbox more than twice a week.
In the meantime, jump in. The water’s warm.
And share this with your friends.
Jon