Bruce Taylor-One of a kind!

 

    This corner of the cyber world, the old blogosphere, has lost one of its longtime creators, and one of the truly gentle places in the world, ODDBALL OBSERVATIONS, curated by the Catalyst. The world itself has lost a wit, and one of the best old school broadcast journalists. This writer has lost one of his oldest friends, a mentor, Bruce Taylor.

   His granddaughters left a goodbye on his old blog. The pictures are worth the visit, even if you never read him.

Oddball Observations, the final post, here.

    We met in 1969 when he was assigned to "break me in" to the competitive radio news wars in Indianapolis. I had been hired to the staff of WIBC "THE VOICE OF NEWS" a 50 thousand watt powerhouse legacy radio station. Bruce had been a television news anchor and news director and one of the fastest writers and editors in the biz. He was an old pro, I was a new kid from Muncie where there were only two radio stations. 

Cris Conner, Tom, Bruce with feet up

    No matter the pressure, or demands of a story or location he never lost his cool or his wise cracking. We became friends for 57 years.

    Two things to know about him. He loved music, all kinds, and he had a knack for for getting himself to the right place at the right time.

      In college he fell in love with jazz and one of his favorites was Dave Brubeck featuring Paul Desmond. 

         That's a young tv reporter Bruce on the far right, with Desmond and Brubeck.

He had a way of getting a story with an angle or fact, or something that others did not or had missed.

 

         He was not only fast, he was a terrific writer. Here's an exchange of letters with Jane Pauley.

        

           

The greatest thing about Indianapolis for Bruce was meeting Judy, the love and the light of his life. 

In the early 70's they moved to Arizona and he returned to television news and a great career. Over the decades we made plenty of visits. For several years they were ex-pats living in Mexico before returning to his beloved Arizona.

Born in North Dakota, Phoenix became too warm for him so they ended up in the highlands of Prescott Valley, that he chronicled so lovingly over the years in his posts. 

Aside from vacation trips, Bruce and I connected at major political events and conventions. Those stories could fill a book. Let me tease you with one; his late night attempt to get Governor George Wallace to whistle Dixie.

Bruce was a raconteur and voluminous reader. He and Judy were gourmets, widely traveled. When they landed back in Prescott Valley they had a used book store, the perfect venue for the reading couple and their beloved cats. 

A few years ago a few of us, who worked with Bruce and had met over the years surprised him for a major birthday.

    Lana and I were lucky to explore Arizona with Bruce and Judy and endlessly

discuss politics and ideas, books and film and always the wry smile and bonhomie.

It wasn't that he didn't take things seriously, but it never seemed to get under his skin. Maybe it was the Viking heritage, or the years of seeing what life delivers from the view of a journalist, seeing it all, whatever, he could and would crack wise, no matter what. But, as he might caution, you never know what comes next.

He lost his beloved Judy in January. A light went out.

     Bruce carried on, though I could hear in his voice he was stunned, the motions seemed empty. 

    He remained committed to his blog. For most of his life he had been writing and communicating and it was what he did. He thought of Oddball Observations as a place to share his take on life, his own piece of the action. It was a kind of everyman's retort to the increasingly less civil conversation, the brutality and hustle and pomposity of the modern world. In an age of slick social media influencers he gave his readers moments of beauty and grace, the continuing adventures of his baking and inventing food creations, or Judy's beautiful culinary presentations. He accented the highlights of a joyful life, a contemplative place. And there were his Friday Funnies, old school, corny, sight and word gags, and always the cats. His or others. Cats were king creatures and he found them fascinating. 

    He had what he called a slight stroke. He told me he didn't think he was long for this world, but he puttered and baked and cared for his readers, until it all stopped. 

    The road ran out on a big life, a big love. I told Gayle, who he called the BAD, (beautiful, artistic daughter,) when he was under hospice care that if he had a lucid moment to tell him "Tom thought he was going to extremes to avoid buying him a drink." I think he would have appreciated the wise crack.

     God bless you old buddy!  Slainte' 

     Please visit his old Blog.  It was one of a kind.

     See you down the trail.