Kindly put on your Tom Terrific Thinking Caps.
Some of you may be able to remember Doris Day, a popular singer in the ‘40s and ‘50s. If you remember Doris, please do not drive at night. Also, be warned that Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z wish you were dead so they could get your stuff. I digress, back to Doris Day.
Miss Day (who was around before Ms. Day would be the appropriate honorific) sang a popular ditty called “Sentimental Journey” in which she warbled: “Gonna take a sentimental journey/ Gonna set my heart at ease/ Gonna make a sentimental journey/ To renew old memories.” This column is going to take on the changing meaning of the word journey.
In the middle of the 20th Century, a journey was something that involved actual travel across geography. Now a journey is something that Madison Avenue uses to try to get you to buy something. As Julius in “Pulp Fiction” would say: “Allow me to retort.”
A journey should only be considered travel across physical space. Not everything is a journey. Admittedly, people my age tend to shout: “Hey you kids, get off of my lawn.”
No less an authority than the New York Times produced a column by Lisa Miller in May 2024 opining that now everything was a journey. I had personally noticed that TV commercials had jumped on board the Journey Train even before the Times pronounced “journey” to be an experience rather than just covering physical miles. Journeys are now physical, metaphysical, and First World Problems.
Folks can pack up their troubles in their old kit bags and go on menopause journeys, fertility journeys, cancer journeys, faith journeys, divorce journeys, adoption journeys, hair loss journeys, reclaiming sobriety journeys, Lyme disease journeys, surviving toxic relationship journeys, unsuccessful folding of fitted sheets journeys, ring around the collar journeys, inattentive restaurant waitress journeys, inability to parallel park journeys, intermittent WIFI journeys, lost remote control journeys, bad haircut journeys, self-checkout grocery stores journeys, lack of likes on Facebook journeys, all my friends turned out to be insurance salesmen journeys, lost shaker of salt journeys, cold French fry journeys, rejected credit card journeys, excessive mold on cheese journeys, and expired gift card journeys.
You get the picture.
For example, people who are overweight and diabetic are now experiencing weight loss and diabetic journeys. These conditions can be alleviated by taking a Magic Drug. Just so you understand.
Strong men with tears in their eyes come up to me and say: “Sir, the Magic Drug ad is tremendously wonderful as it glorifies diabetes and minimizes its consequences. No one has ever seen anything like it. It is so incredible. No one could believe how quickly and easily it cures overweight and manages diabetes. It is now such an honor to get diabetes.”
Consider the manic big-boned lady in the ad who dances frenetically around while singing: “I’ve got Type 2 diabetes but I manage it well/ It’s a little pill with a big story to tell.” Like Doris Day, the Diabetes lady is beyond perky. She is at the hyperspace level of the Zeta Reticuli Star System of perkiness. If she were any perkier, she would be a coffee pot. There is a hysterical smile in every word she sings on her Sachrinereligious hymn to the Drug. She is surrounded by dancing overweight people all happily enjoying the Magic Drug. After her exuberant song ends, a male voice comes on to remind the viewer that, “the Magic Drug may cause serious side effects that include ketoacidosis that may be fatal, dehydration that may lead to sudden worsening of kidney function, and genital yeast and urinary tract infections.” Curiously, we only see the happy peppy people dancing around for whom the Magic Pills work. None of the patients enduring the ugly side effects are ever shown. Perhaps they are in the ICU and don’t feel like dancing. We will never know. The Perky Lady finishes the ad by maniacally belting out “The Magic Drug is really swell/ The little pill with the big story to tell.”
Have we learned anything today? Once again, nope. Complete your “wish I could get my 3 minutes of reading drivel journey” by considering the closing lines of Miss Day’s song: “Never thought my heart could be so yearny/ Why did I decide to roam? / Gotta take a sentimental journey/ Sentimental journey home.”
Enjoy the finest example of the use of the word “Yearny” ever written.

(Illustration by Pitt Dickey)