Tales by Tom

Welcome to Tales by Tom - This wraps up Nobody Likes A Proofreader.  Let us know which story you liked the best!This episode includes stories # 23, # 24 and an epilogue. # 23. I had a voluntary operation that worried me because I didn’t know how I’d be “on the other side.” It worried me because I listened to others who’d had this done. When I woke up in Recovery, I was spouting a bible verse I didn’t know I knew. It was what I’d call an out-of-body experience. There had to be a reason for it. What was it? It took me 20 years to find out.Snippet: The practice of medicine is just that --- practice, and that was what I worried about. But I should have worried more about the message I received in the process.# 24. Charlie, the forever cat.I adopted a cat. Signed papers. Promised to send pictures back to the people who found her. For 12 years, this unusual cat we called Charlie lived among us and ruled the roost. She was part of our family, a four-legged type. Then she got sick. Knowing my Charlie as well as I did, why did I ever think she would say goodbye any other way.We see you in two week with something new!Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or at the listener call in line at 206 339 5456.

Welcome to Tales by Tom - This collection is a group of 24 stories under the title of Nobody Likes a Proofreader and Other Lessons I Have Learned During and After a Life in Retail.This is the penultimate episode of this series!  In this episode we will listen to stories 21 and 22.   Which of the stories so far has been your favorite?# 21 A rut is a rut is a rut is a rutRuts come into all of our lives. One reason that they infect us all is that they have so many faces. Some look inviting; others look appetizing. They are so clever in their disguises that we don’t see them until ---- well, you get the point. Getting out? That’s the tough part. Recognizing them before they happen is something else.# 22. Who isn’t afraid of the dark sometimes?Define dark, President Clinton might say. I say it’s what you don’t know. Whatever your “dark” is, that can be frightening. If you’re preparing for an event and are worried about its outcome, there is not much you can do except YOUR JOB, whatever that may be. You over-prepare and over-prepare, then sit back and watch things happen. Somehow, the Boogie Man usually stays away.Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or at the listener call in line at 206 339 5456.

Welcome to Tales by Tom - This collection is a group of 24 stories under the title of Nobody Likes a Proofreader and Other Lessons I Have Learned During and After a Life in Retail.This epsode includes stories # 19 and 20. Story 19: I’d have liked a Mulligan, but you only get those in golf.I’ve played that maddening game since I was 13. Mulligans are a fact of life in a more relaxed game with friends. One on the first tee; one more wherever.Once upon a time in my youth, I shanked a shot, and I’ve had that memory ever since. I was 16. That was a long time ago. But it seems like yesterday. Wish I could get that Saturday back. his is a story of that shank and what I have done since so that it doesn’t happen to any of my children. Story 20: He named her RascalRascal is the name my seven-year-old son gave our new dog, a female Basset. His dog. Well, as we all know, in short order the care of the pup falls to a parent – in this case it was me, his father. I was fine with that. Wherever we walked, people stopped to chat. I loved it. Rascal was NOT good to jog with, but we worked around that. Rascal aged, of course, and in the end it was my being with her in her last moments that will keep her in my heart forever.Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or at the listener call in line at 206 339 5456.

Welcome to Tales by Tom - This collection is a group of 24 stories under the title of Nobody Likes a Proofreader and Other Lessons I Have Learned During and After a Life in Retail.This epsode includes stories # 17 and #18. Story 17: How to give up a three-pack-a-day smoking addictionI smoked since I was 14. I tried to quick for 10 years, starting in college. I failed 10 times or more. And I hate to fail. But I did. It was awful. Then one Sunday in Waterloo, Iowa, after the Surgeon General made his first pronouncement, even though I missed Mass, I made the leap. Everything clicked. I stopped. I swore the tail would not wag the dog for another day.But my way is not for many, but it did work for me.Story 18:  A Song of lifeEverybody has one. Digging up your personal ancestry is not easy. Writing it down is not easy. But the lessons you can learn in the process for the years of toil and trouble can be the hardest task of all. But you know what? You leave something for the people that follow. Can’t out a price tag on that. What a legacy! Legacy, by the way, is the only word in the English language you can make out of my name and not have any letters left over.Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or at the listener call in line at 206 339 5456.

Welcome to Tales by Tom - This collection is a group of 24 stories under the title of Nobody Likes a Proofreader and Other Lessons I Have Learned During and After a Life in Retail.This epsode includes stories # 15 and #16. Story # 15: News from Tokyo about the Irish in me.  All kinds of unexpected things happen when you travel. Ask my son --- he knows, but in this story I meet a very attractive lady as we are flying from Tokyo to San Francisco. After a martini, the conversation turns to ancestry, and this lady hands me--- puts it right in my outstretched hands --- the key to a mystery that has plagued me for 40 years. Her husband works for dadada and that used to be called dadada and that’s who my long-lost and long-dead Irish relative worked for in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s. Why was she there and why was I there just then? Who knows but it’s a good story.Story # 16: We have all filled out resumes over the years. Did any of them work? None did for me --- until I found out the secret: You have to define yourself in terms of what the prospective employer wants to hear. It’s the only way they’ll listen (and retain) to a word you say. Sound complicated? It isn’t. Just tell them what you can do for them --- not a half dozen meaningful things, but two or three (at the max) that you know they need and you can provide and have before. Yes, they’ll want examples. Less is more here ---and the bigger the better. . You know the famous line that Cuba Gooding’s character told Jerry Maguire in the movie of the same name. Well, show it to them.Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or at the listener call in line at 206 339 5456.

Welcome to Tales by Tom - This collection is a group of 24 stories under the title of Nobody Likes a Proofreader and Other Lessons I Have Learned During and After a Life in Retail.This epsode includes stories # 13 and #14. Story # 13:  Loose Lips can sink ships. During WWII, there was a nationwide campaign against leaking secrets to people on our shores who would send it overseas to our enemies. Thus, the title. It relates here because in a competitive business, store business or not, it’s a good idea to keep personal matters to yourself. You should never tell co-workers about your lust for the boss’ secretary, nor would you want that boss to know about your career ambitions outside the store. But people do tell, friends who you have confided in, as you will hear, especially if it is in their own selfish interest. Mum’s the word! Story # 14: I asked her a little question.  Yes, I did. When you hear the question, you’ll know how little it wasn’t. But I didn’t preplan it at all. Yet there it was, in a great setting high in Beverly Hills. The odds that this can happen in your general work-a-day life are reasonable, BUT the odds of it ever happening and working out as a reality for --- what is it? 31 years --- are higher than high, under these circumstances. Outta sight, even. That’s not to say, if you have the courage, that it couldn’t. Leaps of faith happen every day. Ask and you may receive, but be careful when you do that you’re ready for what can happen. Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or at the listener call in line at 206 339 5456.

Welcome to Tales by Tom - This collection is a group of 24 stories under the title of Nobody Likes a Proofreader and Other Lessons I Have Learned During and After a Life in Retail.This epsode includes stories # 11 and #12. Story number 11 is entitled, “The 25-year diary and the wee voice.” I started a diary to an unborn child of mine and stopped when he moved to Florida to begin a career 25 years --- and 3,000,000 words later. The story of the diary was featured on the Today Show on October 10, 2001 and the 3:38 minute segment was introduced by Katie Couric. It also aired on NPR for Father’s Day. It could easily be called “fatherhood one day at a time.”Story12 is a simple story of high expectations. It also is a story about what can happen when need and self-respect meet head on in the same room at the same time.Thanks to all of you who listen and comment --- Joyce for the tears, Karen for understanding how dear those little books were in A voice from beyond the grave.   You would not disappoint me if you told a friend about the the story and the site ….like Gene Lupi has done.Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or at the listener call in line at 206 339 5456.

Welcome to Tales by Tom - This collection is a group of 24 stories under the title of Nobody Likes a Proofreader and Other Lessons I Have Learned During and After a Life in Retail.This edition of Tales includes story # 9 and is entitled “A Stroke in Time.” A play on words because the man who worked for me did have an actual stroke within a certain time frame and I was able to let HIM make his OWN decision on whether or not he should retire --- just in time before another decision would have been forced on him.Story number 10 tells you, via the title, “Why I don’t use red golf tees.” The title tells the story --- those of you who paint or who are interior decorators just don’t know what you’re missing. Thanks to all of you who listen and comment --- Joyce for the tears, Karen for understanding how dear those little books were in A voice from beyond the grave.   You would not disappoint me if you told a friend about the the story and the site …. like Gene Lupi has done.Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or at the listener call in line at 206 339 5456

Welcome to Tales by Tom - This collection is a group of 24 stories under the title of Nobody Likes a Proofreader and Other Lessons I Have Learned During  and After a Life in Retail.We’re into the 7th and 8th stories now, and the lessons learned in Nobody Likes a Proofreader and other lessons I have learned during and after a life in retail. Stories 7 and 8 are connected.Story Seven is entitled “NASSAU--- a honeymoon  until….”  You’ll enjoy the brief story and hear that my wife and I had a good time --- until we came home. Story Eight is called “My wife asked me what I would do if I were single.”  She really did --- and her question, coupled with the opportunity to become a general merchandise manager at 41 years of age AND what happened on our return from Nassau pushed me over the edge to make a decision. As it turns out, I made the decision three times.Contact me at [email protected] or at the listener call in line at 206 339 5456.  Please listen and each of you tell three friends. And let me hear your comments… I listen.

Welcome to Tales by Tom - This collection is a group of 24 stories under the title of Nobody Likes a Proofreader and Other Lessons I Have Learned During  and After a Life in Retail.Stories Five and Six are ”Chew it how many times?” and “In the dream my father seemed real.In “Chew it,” like Santiago’s plight in The Old Man and the Sea, following your lust, you can go beyond your physical limits, and  it can get you in trouble.  In “The Dream,” what could be better than to find a solution to an old-time problem when you’re fast  asleep in your own bed?Please tell your friends to listen and post me all comments, good and bad.Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or at the listener call in line at 206 339 5456