Quiz #46. Jim McNellis
Monday night, May 4th, Sara and I “went” to a 65th birthday party for our friend Tim. With the pandemic, of course, the party was on Zoom. A virtual get-together for old friends--friends from the old days as well as friends who are, well, old.
Tim with me as featured in Quiz #28. Shakespeare.
Tim and Laurie with Sara and me on a Connecticut hike, August, 2019.
Tim’s wife Laurie had asked the invited guests to “come” to the party prepared to finish the following sentence, “When I think of Tim….”
The answers were perfect. Big Laugh. Great Dancer. Wonderful Story-teller. Chameleon (a world-traveler who felt at home wherever he went).
When it came time for my turn, I said that I had a visual aid--a photo I wanted to share.
Tim and I worked together in local TV in the ‘90s. For 10 years, we shared the same small office (Remember offices?), our desks faced one another and we sat about 6 feet apart. (We were early social distancers).
In the space between our desks, Tim had clipped a picture out of the local newspaper (Remember those?). It was a photo of a guy named Jim McNellis.
When Laurie invited us to Tim’s birthday party, I went in search of that photo of Jim McNellis, hoping I could find it as a birthday present for Tim. I found a great website, newspapers.com It is a searchable collection of archived old newspapers from across the country. The site is connected to Ancestry--and the idea is that you can search for information and images about old relatives, long-lost cousins and a guy whose picture hung on the wall in your office 30 years ago.)
Sure enough, I found the photo. Jim McNellis. Philadelphia Inquirer. January 23, 1990. Page 5-B. Here it is.
Jim McNellis in the Philadelphia Inquirer, January 23, 1990; Photo by Ed Helle.
Jim’s job was to shovel the elephant manure at the Philadelphia Zoo.
Tim had clipped his photo from the newspaper and hung it on the wall in the space between our desks as a constant reminder to me--and him. As bad a day as we thought we were having at the office, it could always be worse. At least, we weren’t shoveling elephant manure to make a living.
Back at the Zoom birthday party, the moment I shared my screen and showed this picture, Tim shouted “Jim McNellis.” We talked--and laughed--about the good old days. Tim explained the meaning of the photo to those “gathered” for the Zoom party. (Sara and Laurie had heard the story before.)
In roughly 2000, Tim and I both left that local TV station. We bounced around separately for a while, before both finding work at the same TV news network in New York. We work in separate departments--and when I find someone I know who is about to work with Tim, I always tell them privately to ask Tim about Jim McNellis when they get a chance. Jim’s become a real ice breaker--and Tim will always tell me when someone has dropped his name.
It turns out my memory about the newspaper clipping was all wrong. For years, I thought the photo had been part of a feature about people with unusual and unpleasant jobs. It was not. When I found the clipping, I discovered the article was actually about the benefits of manure, “Taking a new look at manure” by Tim Detjen. McNellis, beyond his picture, was a small part of the article and only got 2 paragraphs which I shared and read at the Zoom party.
Jim McNellis, 59, a keeper who has cared for the zoo’s elephants for more than 34 years said he cleaned the elephants’ pens five times a day.
“They produce more manure than any other animal at the zoo,” he said last week, while shoveling bocci ball-size lumps into a wheelbarrow. “Geez, I just got done with it and now it’s time to do it all over again.”
The full page from the Philadelphia Inquirer with the picture of Jim McNellis is also revealing. Bottom right, money market accounts that pay 8%. (Remember that?) Middle right, an ad for “Your Cellular Phone Headquarters.” Not with a phone company--but with an auto supply store. The “Totally Portable” phone was $999.99. Try fitting that in your pocket. It was the size--and weight--of a brick.
After the party, Tim texted Sara and me to thank us for being part of the party. I texted him the pictures of Jim. He texted back.
Jim never knew what an impact he had on a couple of thirtysomethings out on City Line Avenue.
I told Tim that I hoped that Jim would be happy--and not insulted--and that I guessed he had a sense of humor about his job if he agreed to be photographed and interviewed about it.
A photo from 30 years ago. Inspiring thirtysomethings. “thirtysomething” was the name of a TV show based in Philadelphia which aired on that same local TV station where Tim and I worked at the same time that Jim McNellis photo was taken. At the time, it was must-see TV for, well, thirtysomethings. I even went to Hollywood and produced a behind-the-scenes series on the show which was based in Philadelphia and filled with Philadelphia references.
“thirtysomething” Cast in 1987.
This morning, Tuesday, May 5th, I talked with Sara about this memory lane phase of my life which seems especially pronounced with the pandemic. Staying at home, I find myself looking back and trading old stories with old friends like Tim as well as with my siblings. Comparing notes and swapping memories in the rear-view mirror about our shared lives now fading into the distance. I told Sara that I was enjoying this time, contemplating the end of life--and before she could call the suicide help line, I explained a little further.
As I mentioned in Quiz #35. Odd, I like odd numbers--and especially the rule of thirds. Composing a photo. Three words in descriptive text. Three things in a list. I think the rule of thirds works for life.
There’s your first 30 years when you’re first formed. Growing up. Surviving high school. Getting a job.
Then, you’re thirtysomething. At age 30, you feel like you’ve arrived. You’re living your life. Maybe raising your children. Carving out your career. You become yourself.
And yet, here comes sixtysomething. At age 60, you realize you’re going to be leaving. You savor every moment. Work to put aside the bull shit of the past. Focus on squeezing every drop out of life from a body that wears out with every passing day.
Of course, all this assumes you’re lucky--and you somehow manage to make it this far. If you’re lucky--if you’re very lucky--you make it to 90 to fill out that final third of life. When my father died just days before his 90th birthday, I found the scrapbook my family made for him when he turned 60. At the time, I was 30. It was the first time I thought about the rule of thirds for life.
At the Zoom party, Tim told a story of how he first started out in journalism. He rode a campaign bus with grizzled old news veterans in the state of Virginia. They’d file their stories and gather in bars at night to trade stories of the good old days. Tim said he decided then that he wanted to be one of them. Fast forward 45 years later, Tim said he was out on the road with a network TV crew (Remember that?) when they went to a bar at night and traded old stories. He told his Virginia campaign bus story when a younger guy observed that Tim had gotten his wish. He was one of them--the old guy who remembered the good old days.
Thank you Jim McNellis, wherever you are.
What did NOT happen?
A. When I produced the series on “thirtysomething,” I remember that I told the prop guy, Bud Shelton, that they’d put the Pennsylvania inspection stickers in the wrong place on the windshields of the cars seen in the TV show;
B. Our reporter asked actor Ken Olin (Michael Steadman) if the show was like real life. I remember he said, “Well, we don’t curse--so how real can it be?”
C. I don’t know what it was, but I remember that Melanie Mayron, the actress who played Michael’s cousin Melissa, did not like me;
D. At Christmas, Ted and Erica revealed that they had binge-watched “thirtysomething” during Erica’s time off for maternity leave after Marin was born in September, 2019;
E. In looking up facts about the show on Tuesday, May 5th, I found a Deadline article from January, 2020. The article reported that a revival of the show had been picked up by ABC with the original creators, Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, plus the core 4 stars: Olin (Michael Steadman), Mel Harris (Hope Murdoch), Timothy Busfield (Elliot Weston) and Patty Wettig (Nancy Weston). Maybe they’ll call it “sixtysomething.”
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Answer #46. Jim McNellis, May 5, 2020
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Here’s the next quiz in the series: Quiz #47. Hungry.
Here’s the previous quiz in the series: Quiz #45. Strange Condition.
Here’s the first quiz in the series: Quiz #1. Stella and Social Distancing, March 13, 2020
Here is an archive of all the quizzes.
The quiz is explained here: Steve’s Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz.
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