Yes, cliches are wonderful things. A few I like that come to mind as appropriate for these difficult economic times are:

1. “Misery loves company.”
2. “It’s always darkest before the dawn.”
3. “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
4. “Every cloud has a silver lining.”

As the press ever reminds us, things are not good on Wall Street and Main Street. And yes, I know the Gazette is part of the press, but at least we don’t have a minute by minute stock ticker, (not yet).

That’s why it was so refreshing to run into a guy having fun making a living.

It was a welcome respite for me to meet Tommy Aquaro (see story page XX) who seemed oblivious to the daily drone of economic doom and gloom.

I think I had just come from the office after sneaking a peak at the stock market on the computer, worrying about by retirement accounts.

So it was great to meet a guy with his own business who is obviously enjoying what he’s doing, and doing pretty good at it.

It made me wonder how many other individuals and families out there are really doing fine, but we just don’t hear about it.

Instead we hear about layoffs, pending and announced. And of course that’s news and must be reported.

It’s just the way it’s reported, with scary teasers along the line of “Is your job safe? Stay tuned after the break to find out.”
There just has to be a cumulative negative effect of constant repetition of that kind of reporting, which is motivated mainly by the need to hook the viewer into staying tuned so they will watch the commercials, so the ad rates don’t fall, so the station can stay in business and so they don’t have to lay off their own workers.

But again, if 6.5 percent of the nation’s workers are unemployed, that means 93.5 percent are working. (Hope my math’s right).

Ain’t that good news?

So, returning to my point, it was a pleasure for me to meet and get to know Aquaro a little bit last week. It reminded me why I like the job I have so much.

I like it because it gives me (and through extension our readers, I hope) the opportunity to learn about stories that may not fit into the current theme.

We get to meet folks in all walks of life, some doing okay, some not so good, and maybe some even doing great.

It occurred to me after that visit with Aquaro that one could say our moods are basically a function of which cliches we allow to bounce around our heads all day as we go about our business.

Times may be tough, but I think I’m going to go with cliches like numbers 2 and 4.

I encourage readers to choose their own cliches, cheerful or depressing and share them with us.

And send us your thoughts on whether you think the media is doing a balanced job of reporting the economic news.