Um, uh, um, uh ... th, th, thank you

Some things shouldn't be hard.

Reading "Madeline" to little Jack. Trying new foods. Turning down one last drink. Saying thank you.

Jack's far away tonight. I made a little salad for dinner. Iceberg lettuce. And I think I will have that beer in a little bit.

But, you know what I did today? I said thank you.

"Are you Tom?" I asked a little meekly as I slipped up on the desk of the veteran reporter.

He looked up, his head rising patiently as newsroom stalwarts do. Weathered, but distinguished. Seasoned, but not grizzled. Busy in thought, but tolerant of a stranger even at 8:30 in the morning.

"Yes."

"I'm Ted, Ted Power. I'm here to run this design studio."

"Oh, yes, good to meet you."

"I, uh, well sometimes I need to just say what's on my mind."

I realized as my words spilled over that Dilbert-gray partition and across his note-littered desk, the kind with a coffee cup here and a stack of notebooks there and probably an old city directory and phone book under it all, how odd they must have sounded. 

I suspect Tom Witosky braced for some criticism of his co-bylined story this morning on the shooting death of a rural deputy sheriff. Tom looked up and nodded, welcoming, curiously, perhaps cautiously, whatever was on my mind.

"I began in Nashville and covered Tracy Caulkins and all of those great swimmers there."

"Sure, sure, yes."

"And I guess you were covering Gable and wrestling and the Olympic committee and such in those days."

"Yes I was over in sports for 25 years and I enjoyed it," he said, relaxing, turning almost conversational. Not chit-chat, but explanatory as if he was in front of a another bunch of high school juniors on career day. "But then came the opportunity to do something else, so I'm over here now."

"Well, I just wanted to tell you how much I admired what you did in those days, what you wrote about, what you cared about."

"Oh! Well, thank you."

"Well, I just wanted to tell you, you were an inspiration."

I slipped away. I didn't turn back. I hope I made him feel good.

I made myself feel good. 

Maybe it won't be so hard next time.