Personal site of journalist, baker, and storyteller Tony Ganzer.
Material, thoughts, etc. from the metaphysical realm.
I’ve decided to step away from the microphone in Northeast Ohio. Thank you for your kindness as I tried to bring my approach to afternoon radio. I will have more on my future in the coming weeks, but this is my final segment to air 17 December 2021, remembering some of the people who trusted me with their stories over the years. Please stay safe.
Early in my career, just as I was leaving college, a radio program director told me to quit radio, and never look back.
“Your voice,” she said, looking to the side. “It’s just not…you should do something else. Radio’s not for you.”
For nearly 14 years I’ve carried with me an aging reminder that there is value in striving for growth; growth in relationships, the workplace, my faith…and growth in myself.
Before your imagination runs wild I’ll tell you the item is just a bag, and not a particularly impressive one by the modern standards of bags. It’s rectangular and woven from a synthetic blend, with just three pockets with zippers (two outside, and the main one.)
I’ve carried in it my audio recording gear, books, snacks, and more, from Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, to a Ricola herb farm in the Alps, to many coffee shops (just regular coffee shops.)
When I received this bag from a week-long radio reporting seminar from The Poynter Institute, I didn’t realize the symbol it would become, and how much I’d appreciate it.
[An expanded version of this essay is featured in my book Kneading Journalism]
Continue reading “A well-worn bag and a reminder of Icarus”
Her screams cut me deeper than she meant them to, but the facts were clear: I was deficient, and this helplessness was a new layer to my trauma.
To her I’m a constant; one of two people she knows to rescue her from the hunger she can’t yet understand, and the fear of loneliness she knows only by instinct.
But in this state —without use of my arms after a vehicle crash— I could feel the vulnerability of not fully acting as the big, strong daddy my 7-month-old needs me to be; the one who can lift her the highest, and embrace her the tightest.
Or the one who comforts her when she cries.
I maneuvered my fractured left wrist to her one side, and my separated shoulder and damaged right arm to the other, as I bent into her bassinet as deeply as I could.
With every ounce of my strength and coordination, I pulled her small, emotionally-exhausted frame to my chest in a kind of desperate bear hug.
By the time my wife returned to the room my daughter had calmed.
But I had not. Continue reading “Daddy’s not invincible: coping with trauma”
It’s been a while since my last Baking Journalist episode. I had been mulling over the topic of not being perfect, or needing to fail, to make progress in journalism and in bread baking.Â
And then I was hit by a car.
I couldn’t bake, or type, or do many of the things we don’t often think about every day. All of the sudden I had a lot of time to think about those things, and so much more.Â
There is a split-second for your body to prepare for the trauma before the car slams into your left side, and a leisurely ride into work on a sunny day becomes an exhausting and painful day at the hospital.
Your fight-or-flight instinct is sparked by the adrenaline pumping through your vulnerable shell: your heart pounds; your muscles tense; your awareness is heightened, just as the worst of your situation becomes the prime object of your focus.
The hood of the car is, all at once, a white blur streaking toward you, and also a crystal clear threat to your existence.
As the collision strips from you the handlebars–and with them your ability to control your destination–you hold out your hands to catch yourself from a fall that you won’t be able to avoid.
Continue reading “Battered not broken: reflections from a scooter crash”
Kevin McGinty was one of those people whose generosity of spirit cut through the callousness of a world drenched in cynicism.
He could be cynical, like all of us, but I only heard it in the form of his jokes, or anecdotes, or a few words of encouragement.
As I heard of his death today, I wanted to offer an anecdote of him that I remember daily.