Recent News Nuggets

The Final Minutes of President Obama’s Farewell …

Oh the stuff I find around our house when I am looking for something else. Did you ever do that.? The same is true with my computer.

Something happened as I was approaching my ninetieth birthday. I began to look back upon my life as nine decades old so far. The first thought I had was that ten years ago on my birthday I decided to take a comedy classes and that lead to my adventures as Almost Andy.

In 1975 I wrote this poem for a Bicentennial speech I was preparing. It was published in the United State Congressional Record and in Success Unlimited Magazine.

A precious little porcelain doll dressed in a pretty dress and seated in an aged wooden snow sled, a tiny classic car set, a little stuffed pillow saying “You’re A Very Special Neighbor” A Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post Book, A framed print of a Norman Rockwell print, A book celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the city Auburn, Maine published fifty years ago.

Just the other day I asked myself, “What do you want to be when you grow up, Art?”  Here I am almost 90 and I still don’t have a good answer to that question.

What with Memorial Day and D Day recently, my thoughts drifted back to a man named Glen Miller. He had a band in the late 1930;s and early 40’s that was #1 in the nation.

When someone asked Thomas Edison where he got all of his ideas from he replied something like “They are all around us in the ether of the air and all we have to do is capture them.”

Back when we used pay phones every now and then when we stepped into a phone booth we discovered that there was a sign hung over the phone that read “Out of Order”, well,we got rid of the phones and the booths and the signs too, I guess, but every now and then I get the feeling that we ought to have saved those signs so we could take them to Washington, DC and hang them around the neck of some of the folks who are allegedly working for us there.

The first time, in the early seventies, Jim Pickens, a speaker and graphic artist, asked me what my brand was I might have told him “Lucky Strike.” That was a cigarette brand. What Jim was asking was what was my brand as a professional speaker.

Going in for a haircut this morning sure took me back a long ways. My barber was a lady from Thailand and as I sat watching her cut my hair my mind went back sixty nine years and I was in a barber shop in Kobe, Japan fresh out of combat in Korea.

In the fall of 1975 I received a call from the Michigan Petroleum Association. President Gerald Ford had promised when he was a Michigan Senator that he would be their banquet speaker at their upcoming meeting.

When asked for his definition of hell one brilliant, talented, fantastic achiever I encountered said, “Hell is a place where you are shown all of the awesome talents and abilities and opportunities to use what you have in opportunities and then shown your accomplishments. And then you are placed in a spot where can do no more for eternity.”

“I did not come to my fundamental understanding of the universe through my rational mind. I often think in music.” Albert Einstein

Did you ever get just so grateful about something or …

In 1976, fairly early in my creative career I had the honor of making a presentation at Buffalo University’s Creative Problem Solving Institute on the topic “Humor and Creativity.”

I was cleaning out a drawer upstairs in my music room when I came upon two boxes of Swan Safety Pins. ½ Great Gross in each box.

Some people I know collect postage stamps. Others collect rare coins. Baseball players cards were popular when I was a kid and you got them in bubble gum package.

Here’s a message I received just a few days ago. “Comment: It was about 50 years ago in Battle Creek that my mom and I went to one of your creative writing classes.

If you can read the following, you have a strange mind, like mine. Only 55 people out of 100 can.

I have been sitting here this morning asking myself why I have done some things in my lifetime? “Why did I write songs?, for instance. I started examining a booklet I have put together titled A Gathering.

Having a mind that takes you down the main road can be a burden, especially when you share your thinking in the role of the class clown.

I’ve had a couple of teeth extracted in this past year and I have been finding it more and more difficult to chew certain items such as steak.

It was 58 years ago this coming Wednesday that I snuck up the three flights of stairs to that meeting room at 55 1/2 East Michigan Avenue in Battle Creek, Michigan.

I recently found an old newspaper clipping dated February 4, 1969 which is just fifty years ago today.

With the new Mary Poppins playing in a nearby theatre my memory kicked in on one of my favorite memories.

I was having a burger at a counter and a young man with mud all over his boots sat down next to me and we had a great conversation.

Synergy is that awesome, magical force that is somehow created when two people get together for a joint endeavor. I first encountered it when I met G. Herbert True, Ph.D.

Sometimes it is a small world. Jean and I were getting our recommended weekly fish at a Seafood Restaurant in Durham and a gent sitting across the way smiled, got up and came walking over to our table.

Unless my math is on the fritz, (and this late in the year it could well be) this should be our 52nd Monday Morning Memo of 2018.

Many say Lincoln was a poet. He wrote “Four score and seventy years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the principle that all men were created equal.”

Have you ever discovered coincidences in your life? 77 years ago last Friday I was 12 years old and already a successful independent businessman.

Whenever I suspect that my creativity is ebbing I go back to what other masters of creativity have written about their own thoughts on this topic.

I was just sitting here in my swivel chair looking at the stuff in my office. Some might call it clutter but to me it is a display of my best stuff and oh, the wonderful memories it brings back to me. I have five book cases in my office all stuffed with books and things.

I ordered some new business cards recently and they arrived in the mail yesterday and they sure brought back memories of long ago. It was in February, 1961 in Battle Creek, Michigan and I’d given up alcohol and purchased an old Underwood Typewriter.

Lately I have noticed a lot of people walking around with sour faces and what they need is Dis Surgery.

This is a song I wrote in 1999 and I just listened to my muse, that little creative spark which was spinning around in my head from 1997 thru 2001.

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.

There’s one thing that unites everyone who works at PetSmart: we all love pets. Cats, dogs, goldfish, parakeets, hamsters – you name it, we love them. Every day, we bring our passion together to create something amazing: a place for our many best friends to be healthy, happy and to keep those tails wagging!

Over 45 years ago when I first began my career as a professional speaker I felt good when many of the members of my audiences laughed at my jokes and were moved by some of my stories. Then I learned about standing ovations and I was thrilled when I received my first one.

I had purchased postage stamps at our local Post Office counter and was waiting to pick up my back mail when I overheard a dedicated Afro-American postal service clerk as he displayed a new Commemorative Stamps Group…

Recently I watched a T.V interview with Lou Holtz, legandary football coach at Notre Dame and many other Universities by Joe Buck. It was a truly inspiring show for me. Lou Holtz said many thought provoking things but the one that stuck in my mind was when he talked about the two most important days in your life.

When I went out on the road speaking as a professional I worked hard on my introduction with whomever was given the job of introducing me to an audience.

The possibilities are endless. While dining out with …

When I retired from the Grand Trunk Western Railroad one of my fellow workers asked me who would be filling my vacancy. I told him I didn’t leave any. I figured I had done my job. Here’s a poem that’s a favorite of mine.

Art Fettig – I have a big oak book case in my office and two twenty eight inch long shelves hold copies of all of the books and booklets that I’ve written in my lifetime to date. 

Art Fettig – Here is a headline on a story I found on my computer this morning.  “New tick species spreads in the U.S. – Here’s what you should worry about” Man that really ticks me off!

Art Fettig – I was cleaning out a desk drawer the other day and found a very little book titled Pocket Rhyming Dictionary.  Over 30,000 words, Eee Gads!

Art Fettig – Back in 1992 I was speaking at a Realtors Conference at a Casino in Las Vegas and I went into our conference room.

Art Fettig – I was strolling down memory lane the other day, which is where I do most of my pondering, and asked myself, “Art, since you just barely snuck out of high school with a diploma by the skin of your teeth and quite likely the help of many novenas made by your mom and sister, with no formal higher education, why did so many major corporations pay you nice fees to come in and make presentations?

Art Fettig – Yes, is has been seventy years since I began work with the Grand Trunk Western Railroad. In July of 1983, after 35 years of service to the Grand Trunk, I retired from my position of Corporate Communications Officer.

For decades, Battle Creek writer Art Fettig has called himself “Mr. Lucky.”  He’s been dubbed “the confidence man” whose positive thinking and motivational speeches have taken him across the country and even abroad.

Did you ever ask yourself “What have I done to deserve to live in this country, America?” (You readers in Canada and China and Australia might ask yourselves the same of your own countries.)

Art Fettig – I have just begun reading a book by former President Jimmy Carter titled “A Full Life. Reflections at Ninety.”

Tomorrow morning I will be wearing shorts to the V.A Hospital.  I’ve never worn summer shorts in my life.

I can remember the day I heard my first professional speaker giving a talk for our railroad group in Battle Creek, Michigan. His name was Herb True Ph.D. and that same day he put me on his team as a humor writer.

Art Fettig – Early in my career as a professional speaker I talked with a fellow speaker about my career and he said that I’d need some way to set myself apart from other speakers.

Art Fettig – I’ve been writing since graduating from the eighth grade. I wrote a serious poem for a pretty girl and she laughed.

Yes, “Ya Done Good!” That is the name of a song I wrote some twenty plus years ago. I wrote it as the sound track for a Audio Visual presentation and the visual part of it was a series of pictures of workers who were doing their jobs in a safe and proper manner.

Art Fettig – Bread and water would be easy to do without.  My AOL Connection is something else. It has been five days and nights now since I could just click on my little orange AOL  dot and get on with the business of communicating.

Art Fettig – Today is the Anniversary of something. It took me a while to figure it out but 67 years ago today, April 10th, I had the worst breakfast any human being has ever endured.

Art Fettig – I have a book titled “1st Cavalry Division, Korea, June 1950 to January 1952.” When the 1st Cav was pulled out of Korea at the end of 1951 they moved the entire Division to Camp Crawford at Sapparo, Japan, on the Island of Hokkaido.

Leonard Hamilton led Florida State University through an interesting battle with Michigan University all the way up to the final eleven seconds, was it? I guess then he started thinking about the $800,000 in bonus money he had accumulated. – Art Fettig

Art Fettig – With all that’s going on here in America I thought it might be a good time for us all to just go fishin’. I wrote this song when visiting Wyoming speaking for the U.S. Air Force and it was a joyous trip.

Art Fettig – “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?” Satchel Paige a legend in baseball as a relief pitcher said that and it gets a man a thinking. Satchel’s career went on and on and on and on.

Art Fettig – I just phoned my sister and some say that she has a bad memory.  I don’t see her that way.

Art Fettig – Years ago, a friend of mine, a locomotive fireman-engineer was killed, in Chicago, when he was hit in the head by a bottle thrown  as he was moving his train out enroute Battle Creek.

Art Fettig – In 1971 I was named to the Michigan Governor’s Commision on Railroad Crossing Safety and since I’d been working at Grand Trunk Western Railroad since 1948 as a Claim Agent I already had a load of experience on the subject.

Art Fettig – We drove over to the Smithfield’s Bar BQ & Chicken outside Mebane, NC and as we were at the counter ordering  I asked the cashier, “What is that white stuff they give you with fish?” and she said, “Tartar Sauce?”

Art Fettig – I’ve been using CD’s with the songs I have written in the past in live presentations with Senior groups recently. . Most of these songs were taped by a musical genius named Greg Brayton.

Art Fettig and Terry Pochert – During one of our many trips, Connert Media followed Art Fettig, humorist and motivational speaker, to many wonderful spots on this globe. Newfoundland inspired Art Fettig to write this wonderful poem about the people and culture we found while visiting.

Art Fettig – The old Sears Roebuck Catalog used in so many outhouses in the 1930’s often had three different models of products listed in price as Good, Better and Best.

Plaintiffs Attending the Wedding of Suzanne Cummins and Holly Mitchell

“I personally think eventually this will be very positive for the state of Arizona,” Pochert said. “If we win this case, I think our real work begins, and that’s that process of healing. I think it’s going to take a couple of years or even longer for people to realize the impact of the decision. I think people will realize nothing has really changed. We’ve created another layer in society that’s a little more stable.”

Art Fettig – I ran into a lady at Walmart’s I hadn’t seen for a while and she said to me, “What do you think, Art, do you think we will survive 2018?”

Art Fettig – As I typed out “January 1st, 2018” I had a sort of historic feeling. I began my job with the Grand Trunk Western Railroad early in 1948 and worked for them until 1983.

Art Fettig – As I typed out “January 1st, 2018” I had a sort of historic feeling. I began my job with the Grand Trunk Western Railroad early in 1948 and worked for them until 1983.

Art Fettig – “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”  I keep thinking about how I prayed for peace when I was on the front lines in Korea.

Art Fettig – “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”  I keep thinking about how I prayed for peace when I was on the front lines in Korea.

Art Fettig – As I look out my office window here in Hillsborough, North Carolina I see a Winter Weather Land. It is beautiful.

Art Fettig – Did you ever look back on your life and ask yourself, “What if I had done things differently?” I just looked at what I had written and started snickering to myself.

Art Fettig – I guess you could say that Father Skiffington, S.J. was my first Mentor. He was my English teacher in my junior year at the University of Detroit High School. 

Art Fettig – One of my fondest memories as a speaker was the time I was called in by General Foods Management Club to substitute for Ewell Gibbons, a natural food TV celebrity. I lived right there In Battle Creek, Michigan where the meeting was to be held.

A 1950 black  Ford Tudor, loaded with extras. A radio, heater and white wall tires. I bought it on my 21st  birthday, July 5, 1950 and paid cash for it, $1,200.

“America’s worst poet” – that’s how Hillsborough’s Art Fettig once heard himself reviewed on a radio show with Earl Nightingale.

Art Fettig – When I was in my Junior year as a student at the University of Detroit High school, I was the Staff Poet for our student newspaper called The Cub.

Art Fettig – We live about where Interstate 40 joins Interstate 85 and they move along together for a bit.

Did you ever dip into the meaning of the word “Synergism” synergism (noun) the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.  Ever so often when I encounter that word I have a flood of good memories gushing into my mind.

Art Fettig – Hymn sing. Yes, at our little church on a recent Sunday Morning we celebrated a good old fashioned Hymn Sing. No sermon. No preachin’.

Art Fettig – We’d experienced a memorable cruise of the Caribbean and we were spending a few days in San Juan.

Greg Brayton – Talk about synergism!-the act of taking two elements and creating something else-, it was like my teaming up with Greg in a joint effort and doing magic math.

Art Fettig – You can say a lot about occupations and their worth but some days I’d trade you five lawyers, three doctors, forty seven psychiatrists and at least one nuclear scientist for just one strong, seasoned plumber.

Art Fettig – Sitting here in our peaceful home located in Hillsborough, North Carolina half way between the Blue Ridge mountains and the Atlantic Ocean watching weather reports recently as I have gone through varying degrees of interest

Art Fettig – Once again there seems to be a whole lot of anger and hatred traveling around this nation of ours.

Art Fettig’s Monday Morning Memo  August …

Once again there seems to be a whole lot of anger and …

On February 17, 1998 I was a guest speaker at the Florence Crane Women’s Facility, A Maximum Security Prison. This story that follows is about that day.

Art Fettig – I saw it listed in a senior’s programs booklet. “Share Your Songs”. I drove over to Chapel Hill to their Senior Center and met two young (by my standards but old by most’s,) gentlemen with guitars.

Art Fettig – In 1973 I had my first book published.  I went to church one morning and they had a guest speaker who was endeavoring to sell us subscriptions to Liguorian Magazine.

Although not currently available on the Arizona Department of Transportation’s website, there are nine cameras that now monitor traffic along the critical route into the City of Maricopa.