Ten Things That Inspire Me
--James F. Muench, 9/12/13
1. Shakespeare – the
way he weaves a story is awesome.
2. Shakespeare’s
Pizza, Columbia, Mo.’s gift to western civilization. I say that only half in jest.
3. Well-written
movies, plays, TV shows, books and speeches:
I watched MLK’s full “I Have a Dream” speech the other day and was
really moved. I don’t know that I’ve
seen the whole thing before. It is right
up there with Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Churchill’s “Iron Curtain”
speech. And Obama’s speech on Syria this
week wasn’t bad either.
4. Mark Twain (I like
his authenticity and humor) and Ernest Hemingway (I like the mechanics of his
style).
5. Friedrich Muench,
and Georg, his brother. Friedrich was my
great, great, great grandfather – also a writer. Friedrich led the Giessen Immigration Society
to Missouri in 1834. It was an attempt
to build a democratic German colony in the New World. Although it didn’t work out as planned, they
accomplished great things over here, such as helping to keep Missouri in the
Union during the Civil War. The brothers
lived according to their ideals.
Friedrich was the writer and thinker, and Georg was the doer, working
politics behind the scenes and even helping to rescue runaway slaves.
6. History – “There
is nothing new in the world except the history you don’t know.” -- Harry S
Truman. (There’s no period
after the “S” because it didn’t stand for anything. When you look at what Truman accomplished
during his presidency, it’s a staggering list, which is ironic that he was a
guy who came out of the corrupt Pendergast regime in K.C.)
7. Missouri Generals,
especially Will Doniphan, Sterling Price, U.S. Grant, John Pershing and Omar
Bradley, the generals I wrote about in my first book, a work of non-fiction (Five Stars:
Missouri’s Most Famous Generals, Univ. of Mo. Press, 2006). That book needs a home too.
8. Jack LaLanne -- My grandmother had me doing workouts with
him as a little boy visiting her house once or twice, and that juicer he was
peddling at the end had to give him serious indigestion as an old geezer.
But what I really found inspiring was his involvement with
the jumping jack exercise. Black Jack
Pershing invented jumping jacks while serving as a tactical officer at West
Point. The laundry complained that they
couldn’t keep the cadets’ white pants clean because Pershing kept making the
cadets drop and give him twenty. So
Pershing lined them up in rows, with the first row doing the arm movements and
the next doing the legs. So where did
Jack LaLanne come in? He’s the marketing
genius who put the two together and patented them as the “jumping jack movement”
in the 1940s. That’s brilliant
marketing. P.T. Barnum had nothing on
Jack L.
9. Music – Vocal in
church (I’m a singer), 1970s-‘80s vintage rock that gets your blood boiling,
and hot jazz.
10. Good, vetted,
accurate journalism, of the kind we don’t see much of anymore – when accuracy
counted more than speed. I’m talking
about the kind when a grizzled editor would tell the reporter, “We aren’t going
to press with that until we’ve got three credible sources.” Today, as long as any old blog screams it, it
must be right. I hate that.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James F. Muench is an author, free-lance journalist, public
relations consultant and writing instructor.
His first novel, The Teutonic Cross, was published in
May 2013 by Silver Tongue Press of Milwaukee, Wisc. His first book, the non-fiction Five Stars:
Missouri’s Most Famous Generals, was published in 2006 by the
University of Missouri Press.
After working for more than a dozen years as a strategic
communicator with the State of Missouri, Westminster College and the University
of Missouri, Muench launched his second career as a free-lance writer and
consultant in 2001. Muench’s byline has
appeared in such periodicals as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
the Columbia Daily Tribune, the Columbia Business Times, Inside
Columbia, Columbia Home and Lifestyle, Jefferson City Magazine
and Sports Illustrated for Kids.
Before going solo, he served as director of communications
for the Missouri Department of Economic Development, director of public
information for the Missouri Division of Energy, director of publications and
media relations for Westminster College and science writer for the MU News
Bureau.
Muench holds a bachelor’s degree, cum laude, in
English-Creative Writing from Westminster College and a master’s degree in print
journalism from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. In the past, he taught English composition at
MU and Westminster College and public relations at Stephens College. At present, he teaches basic news writing at
Mizzou and developmental English at Columbia College.
Muench and his wife, Fran, will celebrate their 26th wedding anniversary in
July 2013 and live in Columbia, Mo. They have two children: Nolan,
20, and April, 16.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Heinrich Kueter, just returned to the United States from the Filipino
War, moves to the small town of Franklinton, Missouri. Thankful to be
done with the war, he is ready to settle down and resume a peaceful
life. His job as history instructor at the local college should help
him attain this. He even finds love, but life in this small town is not
as peaceful as Heinrich had hoped. Discrimination rears its ugly head,
and as hard as Heinrich tries to remain out of it, circumstances demand
that he become involved and stand up for what is right.
PURCHASE THE BOOK
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