Here are the first few pages of Finding Moosewood, Finding God

A sample designed ... of course .. to entice you to want to preorder the book. Any of the online booksellers or, certainly, your favorite local bookstore will be happy to do that for you. And I'll be REAL happy. 

Here starts Chapter One:


                                                  --0--

1: Why Thoreau It All Away?

Commentator Jack Perkins Leaving NBC for an Island

—Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, front page

After 25 years as a TV correspondent, anchorman and commentator, Jack Perkins said Friday he plans to retire from broadcast journalism next month to move to a small island off the coast of Maine.

—Los Angeles Times, page 12

Jack Perkins Leaves for Maine after Leaving his Mark

Jack started doing TV when TV started doing news.  He is one of the founding fathers of TV journalism.  He helped give it direction and purpose.  TV news is important in our society because people like Jack covered news as if it were important and as if we viewers were able to understand and learn from it.

—- Burbank Leader

Newsman Perkins Ankling in June

—Variety

The day those stories appeared, five questions tickled.  1) Why did the Her-Ex think the story deserved front page?  2) Why didn't the L.A. Times think it deserved front page?  3) Why was the Leader so embarrassingly effusive? 4) Why did Variety talk that way? and 5) Just plain why?   

Why, in the midst of a successful and satisfying television career, was I chucking it -- trading west coast for east; megalopolis of 8-million for island, population 2; airline schedules for tide table; TV Guides for Peterson's; Sak's for L.L. Bean; fourteen local TV stations and 82 local radio stations for none of either; three newspapers delivered to the front gate each morning and three more waiting at work, for a trip across the bay to Sherman's to buy the local weekly; smog for fog; mockingbirds for loons; new BMW for used Jeep; convenient public utilities for wood stove and solar power; monthly bills and paychecks for monthly bills; sounds of sounds for sounds of quiet; and freeways for free ways? Why?

For a quarter century, I had been a swimmer in the Magic Aquarium, an electronic image that flickered and fled. Correspondent/commentator/anchorman for NBC News is how I described myself. .  

“Noted actor/reporter,” mocked a non-TV colleague, in envy, I assumed.  

“That blankety-blank Jack Perkins,” muttered a certain president of the United States, not in envy, I assumed.  

Chaser of big doings, teller of grand tales, dweller among great cities, I not only loved my job but loved myself for having it. So what happened? Didn’t I still enjoy the recognition? When approached on the street by a stranger to whom — I could tell from the knowing glint in his eyes — I was not a stranger but a familiar Somebody from Somewhere to whom he had to say something, that wasn’t unpleasant, was it? 

Even better was being recognized by someone who really was a Somebody. Like approaching Bob Newhart at a party to tell him how much I admired his work, only to find him approaching me to tell me how much he admired mine; or when someone on the phone told me his friends had been praising a commentary I’d delivered on the air that day, and those friends were Elizabeth Taylor, Gregory Peck, and Cary Grant, and the Someone on the phone was Frank Sinatra — Why would I choose to “ankle” away from moments like those and become a certifiable Nobody? 

Beyond its superficial satisfaction, TV reporting offered joys of substance -- the pleasure of a story well told, a persuasive commentary.  A reporter had the rare and enviable power to shine light into the dark corners where land developers readied blueprints for urban blight, where con men schemed “Christian book sales” to separate the gullible from their nest-eggs, where malingerers feigned disabilities to bilk taxpayers; the shadowy back rooms where frauds, quacks,, and never-rich-enough billionaires plotted and conspired.  That flickering blue light in a distant window really could dispel darkness.  In an ephemeral medium, you could actually do lasting good.  

Why abandon that? Why would an ego fed on fame decide to diet?  Why, the introvert dependent on recognition to grease social ways withdraw to anonymity?  Having persuaded himself that the spotlight shining on him really did make him brighter — why, while that light still shone, would the actor, mid-play, exit grinning and head for a deserted island?

Or as pastor Dr. Robert Schuller, a man who loved word play, asked us in California one day, “Jack, Mary Jo, with all you have here, why do you want to Thoreau it away?”

Clever line -- which at that moment I couldn't answer. I didn't know. 

Thinking about it today, I realize that while I certainly enjoyed the touch of celebrity back then, something inside me -- yet unacknowledged -- was nagging: You're known, Big Guy. Hooray. But is that enough? Is it enough to have recognition if you don't use it? And how should you use it? Well, think of it this way, TV Man: Where did everything come from; who allowed you to enjoy such recognition? Might it have been the grace of a Holy God, giving you gifts not just to have but also to use? You've sung the hymn, To God Be the Glory. Might that be a purpose for what you have? 

Again, these were thoughts I should have been thinking years back but at least at a conscious level was not. In those golden-ego days, dazzled by the spotlight of celebrity, vanity and self-satisfaction, I was lost in the dark of my own illumination. Never did it occur to me that the flukes, impulses and happenstances that seemed to be directing my life were, in fact, the guidance of a generous hand – indeed, the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  I didn’t know and wouldn’t know for a while, the ultimate acknowledgement coming only slowly -- a reluctant revelation. 

More Excerpts To Come.... Keep Checking In ....