I took a picture not that long ago of a homeless man in London, walking downtown with his cane in early spring. As you can see, he had no idea I was behind him snapping away. I'd seen him while I was walking around taking shots to try and capture spring in the city, and as I kept coming across him, I began to wonder what his story was like.
Being curious like that has always been one of my more enduring traits. And once I began writing for a living, I found that you could tell stories along that line and other people were just as curious about them as I was.
As I've gotten older, I find it harder to find those really good stories.
I don't think there's any danger of me going full Pollyanna here, but what ever happened to good human interest stories? In a world where interest in humans for what they do right doesn't have the appreciation it should, I think it's time we celebrate it when you find someone that does it right.
When I figured out this is what I wanted to write about for this post, I had to look up where and when human interest stories became popular. According to Wikipedia, they first rose to prominence in the early 20th century when women journalists (referred to as sob sisters) usually penned stories that painted their subjects in a sympathetic light.
Media still uses the human interest angle, but not all that often and sometimes to little effect. I won't openly criticize another writer's choice of subject matter for this kind of story because what some find interesting is not always what I was choose to spend time on and vice versa.
And while I fully acknowledge the need to present news in its unbiased form, I find myself craving a balance. For every story about political inquiries, election deniers and global pandemics, I want to know about the person taking home-made meals to homeless people on the subway, or the kid daring to dream big and the Italian singing icon who I had no idea was blind (probably because opera music doesn't feature heavily on my Spotify playlist).
Yes, it's all about how much money can be made from telling these stories and a five-minute clip about a young Michigan boy dreaming of leading the marching band into the University of Michigan's 'Big House' might not push a lot of merchandise ... but for those five minutes, I felt good. I saw a kid daring to have a dream, and I saw a school reach out to tell that kid that his dream matters and to keep pushing to make his dream come true.
A story about Andrea Bocelli followed. He's recorded a holiday album with his son, Matteo, and daughter, Virginia, and they talk about how he passed down his passion for music. The reporter got a chance to visit Bocelli and his family in Italy back in the summer, and I remarked to my wife how anyone passing by his home must have wondered why he was inside singing Christmas songs.
I'm sure some of you by now have guessed that I saw both of these stories featured on the program 'CBS Sunday Morning' (I've included the link to this episode here), and I don't mind saying here that I usually find myself in admiration for the work this group does on their human interest reporting. This episode in particular had a lot of interesting stories being told, and it helped restore my spirit a little bit (the whole idea of the human interest story).
A Tribute To An Icon
With November 26 now in the rear view mirror, I want to take a moment to honour the memory and the work of Charles M. Schultz - the man they called 'Sparky'.
The man who gave us a bit of himself when he created 'Peanuts' probably had no idea that his little gang of children with whom we could all relate to in some way would still be going strong on what would have been Schultz's 100th birthday. I was able to take a stroll around the internet and enjoy a lot of the tributes to the man and his work, and I found some of them rather amusing.
The San Francisco Chronicle took time to point out that 'Peanuts' continues to be a force to be reckoned with while Twitter and Facebook struggle to keep headed in the right direction. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette point out that as of last year, Schultz ranked third on the Forbes list of the world's highest paid deceased celebrities.
But what I found most interest was on the NBC4 Washington website in a story by Mark Kennedy; it detailed how more than 75 syndicated cartoonists had included a tribute, Easter Egg, or a reference to 'Peanuts' in their work for November 26. That so many of his fellow cartoonists took the time to remember Schultz by including him speaks to the influence he had on them years ago and still has on the genre today.
The best tribute, in my opinion, came from 'Mutts' creator Patrick McDonnell; Schultz had one of his strips showing a character of his looking at a museum painting of Earl the dog from 'Mutts', so McDonnell repaid the tribute by having Earl wagging his tail as he looked up at a framed image of Snoopy.
The Schultz Museum as collected and posted the tributes - you can find them here.
A fitting nod to the man who made it possible for a cartoon canine to be a star. And not for nothing, a pretty good human interest story as well. To you, Mr. Schultz, all I can say is thank you.
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