Brevity, brains and bread

My father can take out a yellow legal pad and write down a page full of short thoughts, gags and opinions, so aphoristic you can almost fit them on bumper stickers. The way his mind works, for better or worse (which depends on the circumstances), is to zero in on the crux of the matter, yielding an opinion or conclusion that has clarity and simplicity. As a radio network anchor who wrote his own scripts, I learned how to tell stories as succinctly as my father does, but for me it is an acquired skill, not a natural talent. Different people's brains work differently, and mine races down countless corridors of side issues. Want an example? We've started a new feature on "Sunrise" called "Ask Howard." We send a cameraman and a producer out into the community and invite people to ask questions. Most, so far, have turned out to be pithy questions about the economy, on matters I have already written and spoken about, so I have answers ready. This morning, however, I got a question out of left field: "What's your favorite bread?" Before punting (withdrawing my wallet and saying that my favorite bread was what was inside it) my brain flooded with the following thoughts:

• My favorite food is bread pudding -- I like it so much I ask for it instead of a birthday cake -- but I hate raisins in bread pudding and prefer no fruit or nuts of any kind.
• I bought some rye a few days ago and it was really dry.
• Hamburger rolls are perfect for sandwiches for which you don't want a lot of bread, and because they're soft they don't squeeze out the innards.
• Fresh-baked whole wheat bread tastes better than fresh-baker white bread, but otherwise I like white bread better.
• Pumpernickel is nice now and then.
• I don't like seeds on rolls because they're messy.
• The heels of a loaf of bread can be useful in prevent leaks from a juicy sandwich.
• If making a grilled cheese sandwich in a waffle iron with reversible grilling surfaces, keep it on the waffle iron side and the parts that get smashed will taste crunchy like Cheese-Its.
• Microwave-melted cheddar on toasted bread actually tastes better than a grilled cheese sandwich without the need for any butter.
• When I was kid and we were briefly poor, an enjoyable snack was a piece of toast covered with butter, cinnamon and sugar.
• One of Ronald Reagan's contributions to American culture was acquainting millions of people with monkeybread. He liked it, so it was served at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the news is so slow on those holidays that White House correspondents always file reports on the dinner menu.

All these thoughts come from someone asking, what's your favorite bread. Can you imagine the difficulty of speaking or writing coherently when you brain is running in all directions at once like this? Maybe you can. I've read that so-called "autism," once considered a rare condition, is in milder form a common alternative wiring of the brain, which may actually be better to have if you work in certain professions. Boy, I hope this is one of them!