SpeakOut 3/4

Tuesday, March 4, 2003

Call 471-6636

What happened to Bryant Gumbel on the Early Morning Show and the black guy who used to do the weather?

Bryant Gumbel left the The Early Show after anchoring the CBS morning broadcast for two and a half years. Gumbel said it's time for him to move on and do something else. He didn't say what he'll be doing. The 53-year-old recently went through a messy divorce and is engaged to marry Hilary Quinlan, a former research analyst at Goldman Sachs. "As I prepare to begin a new chapter in my personal life, it makes sense to me to turn the page on my professional life as well," he said. Gumbel, who is also host of "Real Sports" on HBO, didn't detail his other plans. Mark McEwen left The Morning Show for "new challenges," according to the CBS Website. McEwen was weather and entertainment reporter for the show for the past two years and was on the morning television news for CBS since 1987.

Hello, highway department. AB Highway is disintegrating and is becoming dangerous to drive on. A word of advice for future repaving, add some tar to the mixture. Loose gravel signs are currently displayed. "Loose gravel." Is that why my windshield resembles a road map, due to rocks hitting it daily?

In answer to "Not all who serve are vets," you are 100 percent right. It is so unfair to the combat veterans. One example in my town is that a boy was drafted, his mother could not go with him and he stayed in three months and was discharged with a pension. He went to work and retired from a good government job, with a pension. He is worth big money and is entitled to all veteran benefits at no charge. This is just one example. I survived the landing at bloody Omaha Beach and the frozen hell of the Ardennes; not to mention the terrible North Atlantic Crossing. And, apparently because I survived, I am not entitled to any benefits. How wrong. There needs to be some changes made. Because you were drafted and got no farther than the induction center, you are not a vet and you are not entitled.

I agree with Jack Stapleton's Feb. 20 column. Our politicians are better at spending than budgeting. Furthermore, I don't understand why we feed, clothe and supply medical needs to thousands of prisoners in our criminal justice system, who could be working, who could help on our highways or roads, or how about them raising acreage for food for starving families, starving children in the United States? They could be doing something worthwhile.

I would like to SpeakOut about the new governor of Illinois. I live in Southeast Missouri, but I just want to put in a good word for this young man. From what I'm hearing and seeing on TV, he's going to make the people of Illinois one heck of a governor. When he's working up there in the State House in Springfield, or wherever he goes in the state of Illinois, he's going to stay right on top of this railroad thing (the bad wreck they had up there), I think he's going to get more of you coal miners back to work, more power plants built. I think he's really going to be a governor of the 21st century for Illinois. And Paul Simon, I hope you keep wearing that bow tie. It will never go out of style and, especially on you, it looks great.

I'm looking for someone who raises cocker spaniels. Please leave your number in SpeakOut and I will call you back.

I'm old enough to remember when you went to the doctor, you would go into his office, sit down with the doctor and discuss your health problems. Now, usually most doctors are at a clinic. You go and they put you in a stall and the doctors don't give you enough time to discuss your health problems. Doctors used to make house calls. Now if you have an emergency, you go to the emergency room and they have very few qualified doctors to treat you at the ER department.Then when you leave the hospital and check out of the ER, they tell you to go see your doctor the next day. I'm sure there's not a doctor, even your family doctor that you may have had for 20 or 30 years, that if you needed him to come to your house to treat you at night or in an emergency, they wouldn't come because there's not enough money involved. I wish we could go back to the good old days where you could sit down and explain your health problems. But those days are gone.