Hardships can't dampen smile
Freedom but also, maybe, obscurity. In Utah, the place he and his son eventually were brought to as refugees in late 2000, Bill Wager has tried unsuccessfully for more than three years to get a job as a broadcast journalist. Instead he works as a salesclerk at Smith's Marketplace, selling paint and hardware and pots and pans.
When the Deseret News interviewed Wager three years ago, he was desperate to find a job in journalism. Now he seems to have decided that the important thing is to be cheerful. "It's good to be learning something new," he says about his sales job. "I've never been in commerce before." And besides, he's not discouraged. "I have thousands of doors in front of me and I'm in the process of knocking on each and every one," he says. "Maybe when I get to the right door I'll be recognized for who I am."
Sometimes he chuckles on the air, as if he and his listeners are sharing a good joke. "If you sound down, you'll turn the listeners off," he explains to a visitor. Sometimes maybe his listeners may have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, he says, in which case they're looking for something to cheer them up.
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