I Am Honored

Yesterday, the Botetourt County Historical Society, Inc. held its 16th Founders Day Dinner at Virginia Mountain Vineyards in Fincastle.

A few weeks ago, I received a call from one of the members telling me I should be there, and they were giving me two tickets to the event. I was receiving a recognition, I was told.

Actually, I received The Garland Stevens Award, named after one of the museum's founders. Mr. Stevens, who is no longer with us, was also my husband's cousin, and I knew him. I think I interviewed him at some point, but to be honest I have interviewed so many residents of Botetourt County that without going back through the newspapers I can't be certain of that.

I was greatly honored to receive this for my writing and for my other work to help preserve the historic nature of Botetourt County. Over the many years I wrote for the newspaper, I sounded the alarm on several structures that were up for demolition, and the Historical Society or others sometimes were able to step in and save these buildings. Not always, but not every battle is meant to be won.

Additionally, I served with Historic Fincastle, Inc., on its board for a number years and served as its president for two years. I also wrote the magazine that celebrated the county's 250th anniversary in 2020, and to be honest, because of Covid, that magazine (which is no longer in print) is about all the evidence that there was any notice of the anniversary at all. (My old editor, Ed McCoy, wrote a book called Chronicles of Botetourt that came out that year, and it was a 250th anniversary project, but it was not sponsored by the county.)

The event lasted 3 hours and much to my surprise, my father and stepmother came to see me receive my recognition. I was able to introduce my father to several people I know, including our representative to the Virginia General Assembly in the House of Delegates and the chairman of the county supervisors. I'm not sure my dad knew that I am on a first-name basis with these folks. I don't go around talking about it, after all. But I liked being able to introduce him to these dignitaries.

My close friend Teresa and her husband Robin also came (and they are important people, too, in our community), and I was so glad to be able to spend time with them. I saw many other folks that I haven't seen in at least 4 or 5 years.

The keynote speaker was Dr. Sarah McCartney, Assistant Teaching Professor, NIAHD, from The College of William and Mary. She spoke for about 40 minutes on the Battle of Point Pleasant, which is considered by some historians to be the actual beginning of the American Revolutionary War.

While the battle took place in what is now West Virginia, at the time it occurred in 1774, the land was part of Botetourt County.

We had a very nice time, although I was worn out when we got home. That was a long time for me to be out of my little nest here. 

Happiness - Day 14

 

My fingertips are blackened with ink! 

This makes me very happy.

I have been going through old newspapers, looking at articles I wrote 30 years ago. I doubt I saved every word that was printed, but I saved a lot.

I also saved letters to the editor that spoke highly of my work. There aren't many - people aren't free and easy with compliments - but it was nice to know that for a little bit, I made a difference.

And my goodness, I wrote about everything from the school board to new businesses to zoning to history. I even wrote columns.

I found a picture my nephew drew when he was 7 years old amongst the newspapers. It was featured on the back of an advertisement insert. I didn't remember it, but he had signed his name.

The review is for a personal project I'm contemplating, as well as another with one of the local historic societies that I've sort of agreed to help with when I can. Double duty.

The ink makes me happy. Better times.

______________________

Happy August Happiness Challenge!

 

Each day in August you are to post about something that makes *you* happy. Pretty simple. And, it doesn't even have to be every day if you don't want it to be. It's a great way to remind ourselves that there are positive things going on in our lives, our communities, and the world.

My First Award-Winning Article

The article above, which published on December 3, 1986, was one of my first award-winning articles. I won a Virginia Press Association award for this piece. It was a photos and copy award, so it was multi-faceted. Good pictures, good writing. I couldn't ask for more for a first award.

It is also one of the few first-person articles I've ever published. Most news reporting is not in the first person, it's in third person, and it seldom was about me. I didn't want it to be about me. But this was about my experience taking a ride in a hot air balloon, and as such, I could only write it in first person.

The adventure came about because I'd earlier written a column about watching a small plane appear to buzz a hot air balloon and it had alarmed me. The balloonist, Natalie Haley, had contacted me to tell me the plane was much further away from the balloon than it had appeared from the ground. Then she offered me a ride.

How could I say no?

 

My First Article

I don't know that I've posted this ever before, but I was going through some old papers and found the very first article I ever had published.

Mentions of it have appeared at various times, but here's the actual article as it appeared on November 1, 1984.

I can still remember how excited I was to have published something. I was so excited that I met my mother at the local store where she stopped every day on the way home from work to pick up bread or milk or something so I could show her the article. (I'm guessing my husband was at the firehouse, working.)

After that I knew I would be writing for the rest of my life, even though my mother had told me more than once that it was a dead-end career and I'd never make a living at it. While it did not make me rich, it made me happy, and it allowed me to contribute to the household coffers. It also made me quite knowledgeable about my community and what was going on during the 40 years I've written about it.

In looking through these old papers, I see I wrote about everything from soccer and basketball games to vultures to floods to new business openings to supervisors' meetings and everything in between. In all honesty, I don't remember 80 percent of these articles. But there they are in black and white.

Most days I don't think that what I did amounted to much, but honestly, it was quite a career, and quite an endeavor to keep the public informed.

If only they had actually read it.

Writers I'm Supposed to Love

When I was taking Advanced Placement English in high school (it was, in theory, college level English), I remember a little argument I had with Dr. Shots (she had a Ph.D. and insisted on the title) about the deconstruction of a piece of work.

Apparently, I had had enough of the "they used yellow here for sickness, green for jealousy, why do you think this lamp is placed here," because I told her I didn't think authors meant for their work to be analyzed in such depth and detail.

"Sometimes a lamp is just a lamp," I said. Or something to that effect.

You'd have thought I'd blasphemed the chin of God the way she came after me. Of course, every word was carefully chosen, every sofa, every lamp, every blade of grass, had a deeper meaning than just being a blade of grass. What was I doing in her class, telling her (with her Ph.D) that writers didn't always mean something else with what they wrote?

"Because I write, and I don't do that," I responded. "Not consciously."

"Then you're not a writer," she snapped, putting an end to the discussion.

She was the only teacher to ever say that to me.

After that, I kept my mouth shut and dutifully turned in my papers or spoke up in class saying that of course the lamp meant that the character had an idea or had seen the light about some issue. It wasn't put there simply so she could read the book in her hand.

Then I went to Hollins College, now Hollins University, which is a women's undergraduate degree school that is well-known for the writers it puts out. Think Margaret Wise Brown and Anne Dillard, just to name two. Or Lee Smith and Jill McCorkle.

There the poetry in particular was analyzed in great detail, even that which was written in the 17th century. I went on to read Virginia Woolf and numerous other writers while taking eight long years to get my bachelors.

And I always found the examination of works tedious, and I stubbornly (and secretly) held on to my conviction that sometimes a lamp is just a lamp. But I wrote the essays about the books secret meanings and dissected the poems as required.

Of course, sometimes imagery has double meaning, and of course sometimes the more literary authors put cute language in their works to add to the character. The book I'm currently listening to has a daughter of a woman who was dying of cancer eat a chicken pot pie with her mother and the hospice worker. What does the chicken pot pie symbolize?

Damn if I know. Dinner table scenes are great for conversation; they had to eat something. Maybe it symbolizes the daughter's fears about her mother's upcoming death (she's chicken, get it?). Maybe it was just there.

Barbara Kingsolver, Ann Patchett, Anne Tyler, Elizabeth Gilbert, and now Ann Beattie (whom I am listening to - maybe it's something to do with the name "Ann"), are among the literary writers that I am supposed to like. They use great turns of phrases and create deep characters. Every word has been carefully chosen. I imagine these writers spend days pouring over one sentence until they are utterly sick of it, trying to make sure they've chosen chicken pot pie instead of Thai food for the correct reason.

And I listen or read their books and find they do not move me. Occasionally they write one that I find intriguing and enjoy, but overall, they are not my favorite authors. They may have a good sentence or two that makes its way into my little "writer's notebook," but the stories seldom stick with me.

Who do I like to read? I like Janet Evanovich, Sue Grafton, Susan Wiggs, Kate DiCamillo, Debbie Macomber, Nora Roberts, Louise Penny, Kristin Hannah, etc. These are not literary giants, but they write well and have interesting stories that move along just fine. Sometimes they make me laugh and sometimes they make me think. I liked The Hunger Games and Harry Potter. I like a lot of fantasy writers, like Neil Gaiman, Tolkien, Ray Bradbury, Phillip Pullman, Ursula K. Le Guin, etc.

I wrote for newspapers. I wrote to educate and inform, not to puzzle people and have them wonder about the significance of someone eating chicken pot pie. I like my fiction to be straight up and to the point, anymore. I read Overstory and while it received rave reviews, I found it incredibly boring. Great concept, but my goodness, couldn't that have been put out into the world in some way that wasn't so long and drawn out?

It is good for me to listen to authors I do not like, to stories I don't always enjoy. I never know what I may find in such tales. I do it now as a part of my life's growth cycle, so I don't get stale. I listen to or read everything from memoir to nonfiction self-help to the aforesaid authors to Catch-22. I seldom listen to or read something a second time (Tolkien being the exception). 

Life is a learning experience. This is part of how I live it. But sometimes it frustrates me, because I still think I'm right. A lamp sometimes is just a lamp.

Local Author Signing

On Saturday, March 23, I went to the Fincastle Library to hear a local author talk about her book, West of Santillane.

The book is about Julia Hancock Clark, who is from here, and in 1807 or thereabouts married William Clark, of the Lewis and Clark expeditions.

The author is about my age, and she teaches music at Greenfield. Her book uses the pen name of Brook Allen.

She talked about Santillane, which I wrote articles about when I worked for the paper, and about Julia Hancock and her relationship to William. She has fictionalized the story, and it sounds interesting. She did a lot of research to get the history correct, including going to St. Louis to the Lewis and Clark Museum there.

An old photo I took of Santillane, around 2006, maybe?

The meeting room at the library was packed, and I sat at the back where the door was cracked open. The local historical society sponsored the event, so there were a lot of those folks in attendance.

The room reeked of perfume and cologne, and at one point I thought I might have an asthma attack from it. Fortunately, about that time a nice breeze blew in and the fresh air saved me.

I'm looking forward to reading the book. I thought about writing fiction about Julia Clark once, but I was going to make her a vampire hunter!

People lined up before and after the lecture to get a signed copy of the book.

The executive director of the local historical society (right), introduced
the author (left) and gave a glowing account of her efforts.

 

Local Book Authors Sale

On March 16, my husband and I went to Salem to visit a sale of local book authors. I knew several of them and I like to support the local writers.

The event did not look to me to be well attended by the general public. Mostly I saw the authors standing around talking to one another. The event only ran for two hours, from 11 to 1, which I thought were strange hours anyway.

I didn't take a camera, but I did snap a few cellphone photos. (I still have an iPhone 5 (SE). Still works, I don't care if it's old.)

This is Dan Smith. He sold me a book called, "News,"
which is about a news reporter.

This is Bill, who teaches journalism at Radford, and a woman who 
writes true crime. You may have seen her on shows like 20/20 that
delve into these true crime things. I don't read true crime.

The author on the left, Jane Fenton, has a best-selling novel on Amazon called Repo Girl,
which I didn't buy there but I did purchase a copy for my Kindle. The woman on the
right had a book called, "42 Things to Do Before You Go," which is sort of
a bucket list of things to attempt before you off yourself. I bought that book.

Ken Conklin lives not far from me and wrote a book called "Norvel," which is about
a Black Olympic Medal winner from our county.

I didn't speak to this person, I don't know why. I just had the phone out
snapping pictures and this was one of them.

This is Ken Conklin and Amanda Cockrell. Amanda was one of my professors
at Hollins University when I was working on my masters degree. We have
been friends on Facebook a long time, too. She recognized me but I didn't
think she remembered much about me. That made me a little sad. But it has
been 10 years since I saw her, so that's ok.

 

Going Backwards

When I was 5, my father had me and my brother in a vehicle when he stopped at a convenience store on Apperson Drive.

I don't recall what kind of car we had in 1968, but I want to say it was a Dodge Charger. At any rate, he left us both in the car while he went in to fetch whatever he was after.

In 1968 I suppose there were car seats, but we didn't use them. I don't think we used seat belts either, for that matter. Yes, I am of the generation that rode in the bed of the pickup truck, drank from water hoses, and lived to tell about it.

After my father hopped out of the car, my brother climbed into the driver's seat so he could pretend to be driving. I don't remember if the car was running, but I'm guessing my father left it in neutral and put on the parking brake. I think the parking brake was located where today most people would find a cup holder and a console.

Somehow my brother disengaged something, and the car started rolling backwards.

As in, out of a small parking lot and into a busy highway.

My brother seemed oblivious to what he'd done, but as soon as I realized the car was moving, I started to scream. That made him cry. I remember feeling terrified because while I didn't know how to stop the car, I knew we were in trouble and that if the car went into traffic, we would be hurt. I was screaming and crying and trying to get my brother out of the driver's seat while at the same time looking at the store where my father was. 

"Daddy, Daddy!" I screamed, all the while trying to tug my sobbing brother away from the steering wheel. Somehow, I managed to hit the car horn.

I don't know if he heard me, but I saw Dad look up and realize what was happening. He dropped whatever he had in his hands on the store counter and ran toward the car. I was still screaming when my father wrenched the door open and stuck his foot inside and on the brake. I was able to grab my brother then and pull him over to me in the front side passenger's seat.

It was a close call.

My father yelled at me for not stopping the car (like a 5-year-old is going to be anything other than scared to death in this scenario) as he got in the driver's seat, pulled the car back up, put it in park, and went back in to pay for his stuff. I imagine it shook him up a little, we were so close to rolling out into the road.

I'm also pretty sure he told us not to tell our mother what happened. I don't remember if I ever did.

Mostly I remember feeling so angry that he blamed me for something my brother did that the fear went away, to be replaced with a seething darkness. I couldn't tell him how unfair he was being - I did not have those kinds of words yet, or that kind of courage - nor could I take it out on anybody (except maybe my brother, but I was a good girl). Maybe I went home and beat up a Barbie doll. I don't recall. But this incident has always stood out in my mind as a fine example of unfairness tinged with total terror, and it comes back to me when I have the feeling that I'm going backwards in life instead of moving ahead.

I'm not really going backwards. Being sick for a month has set me back. I was doing more physically before I caught this respiratory thing, and now I'm going to have to work to build up my stamina again. I went to Food Lion today and it wiped me out. 

For some reason, though, my life does feel like I'm trapped in an uncontrolled vehicle slowing heading into traffic, with no idea how to hit the gas or the brake pedal because my legs aren't long enough.

Monday Monday

You really can't trust Mondays. One never knows what a Monday will bring.

Today brought me more of the same viral thing that I've had since mid-January, along with a new source of work.

Short term freelancing is always good. Fortunately, it's mostly internet research and I won't have to talk on the phone.

Good thing, because my laryngitis is bad. My half-deaf husband hasn't heard a word I've said for 3 weeks.

He's probably good with that.

Happiness Challenge - Day 21

 

Today I finished up an editing project. It was a lot of work, and I was pleased with the job I did. The manuscript was interesting and that always helps.

It has been a while since I edited a full manuscript for someone. This would be the 12th book I have edited. I have learned a lot since I started editing manuscripts and I think I do a much better job now than I did when I first started. For one thing, I learned that the manuscript needs to be as perfect as I can make it in all ways. Publishing houses do not check for discrepancies or fix things anymore. The first book I edited had mistakes in it because the author told me not to fix them - he said the publishing house would correct things and he didn't want to pay me to do it (mostly the problem was different spellings of the name of the same person). However, after the book published and I received a copy, I saw that the publishing house didn't correct hardly anything, if anything at all. So now even if I'm not being paid to fix something, I do it anyway.

To ensure I catch everything, I read most of the book aloud as I go through. Generally, I read through a chapter, make changes (using the track changes feature in MS Word), then go back through the chapter again using the "final" view and read that chapter aloud to ensure I didn't miss anything. Then after I have finished, I review the whole book for consistencies in headings, chapter headings, numbers, etc., and pick out chapters or paragraphs to review to make sure things are flowing properly.

I use Chicago Style but most authors also have their own preferences, so I keep a notepad of those to refer to as I go along. I also list names here, characteristics if relevant (you wouldn't want Barbara to show up with green eyes in chapter 10 when they were blue in chapter 2), and things like that.

This project made me happy because it is something I do well and it was enjoyable work, if a bit stressful because of a deadline. I actually like to work when I enjoy what I'm doing.

An Outing

The evening took us away from our house and to an event hall filled with people, many of whom we knew.

The occasion was the celebration of a friend's 25th year in business. She is a massage therapist (with emphasis on the therapist), and now about 64 years old. I saw her for many years, and sent my husband to see her, and gave gift certificates to friends and family to enjoy her services (though I suspect most of those went unused, stuffed in some drawer).

It is unusual for a massage therapist to last so long; they generally wear out, from what I understand. Bing says the average career of a massage therapist is 5 to 8 years. The fact that Karen has worked for long - and kept herself in shape so that she was able to do it - was indeed something to celebrate. Giving a massage is hard work.

Despite the fact that we have 33,000 people in our county, it's really a small community. The event was held at the Kyle House, once known as Bolton's Store, in the county seat. The building is an events venue, and there were easily 50 plus people there when we arrived.

Since the most public places I have been since 2019 are grocery stores, this was a bit much for me; the sweet, cloying scent of perfumes, powders, and colognes, so many people in a smaller space than a massive market.

But I had accepted the invitation knowing that I am trying to claw my way back to civilization, having become almost - but not quite - agoraphobic during the pandemic, seldom leaving the house, only venturing out to purchase food. As for other items, let's just say the UPS man and I are on a first-name basis.

So, this was a personal test, which I passed. I am grateful that I went, happy to have seen so many familiar faces after so many years of seeing only scowls in the supermarket. These people were happy, caring on pleasant conversations, and enjoying themselves.

The people I knew included my physical therapist, whom I hadn't seen since 2019. She suffocated me in an embracing and long hug the moment I walked in the door. I stiffened at first, having determined previously that I didn't want physical contact, but she was so sincere, and I like her so much that it was only a moment of light panic, and then I hugged her back with similar intensity. 

I also saw a former county supervisor, whom I'd really enjoyed working with and was sorry to see retire many years ago, a cousin who said she wants to meet for coffee, my dear friend Leslie (another hug) and her brother, who informed us he had retired as a surveyor that very day, (I also called him by another brother's name, oops), and an ex-husband of another dear friend. I also greeted a former employer and his wife, a contractor and his wife, both of whom have known my husband most of his life, a former high school pal, a former firefighter's wife, and of course Karen, who was throwing herself this bash.

I had a couple of chicken salad sandwiches and a cookie, along with water. A pile of articles about Karen sat on the end of one table, and I only had to flip over a page before I saw my byline, again and again. I've written so much about this county and its people over the last 30 years. Of course I'd written about Karen. In fact, I wrote the first article about Karen's business, I think.

My former employer (a lawyer then, retired now) saw one of the articles and then chased me down to show me. "Here's your name," he said, thrusting the story at me. He pointed it out to someone I didn't know. "She wrote this."

Yes, I wrote that. It was nice to know it meant something to someone, or several someones, even though it was years old.

No one had on masks, including me. Everyone is over that, although I still wear one when I go pick up drugs at the drug counter. If there are going to be germs anywhere, it's in there. I had a mask in my pocket, but I didn't put it on (I admit it was tempting).

Almost everyone was dressed up, in nice work clothes or church clothes, including us (although I had on my sneakers because I can't get my orthotic in any other shoe). I enjoyed myself. My husband enjoyed it. We left after an hour, with things still going full swing, when I finally felt the perfumes and smells seeping into my lungs and felt an asthmatic wheeze coming on.

I guess I'm coming out into the world again.

Why News Media Should Unite for the Greater Good

Way back when in the old days of journalism, the local media fed off of one another. I could see when the local TV station, for example, had read the weekly paper I wrote for, because they'd pick up a story I wrote and make it their own.

While I enjoyed the thrill of breaking a story and "beating the competition," I never enjoyed or endorsed the competitive nature of the media beyond that point. Once I had the "scoop," I was happy to share.

However, other reporters for the "big paper" seldom talked to me, and the TV outlets were even worse. Generally, they acted as if I was not there. Occasionally, a reporter would be friendly, and I never hesitated to offer up background or whatever another writer needed for a story if asked.

But I was seldom asked. I know journalists are supposed to work the room themselves, find their own resources, and do their own follow-up, but I have found that it never hurts to talk to a colleague to get another perspective or to have background information I may not otherwise find. Nothing says I have to use their information. It's like reading Wikipedia - a good place to start but then you go on to do the rest of the research.

Journalists generally attended multiple meetings and saw a project or whatever from various angles, more so than the average person. I appreciated their point of view and their knowledge. I wasn't trying to steal from them, or them from me. But I did want accurate and complete information to pass on to my readers. It helped to know how a project went from point A to point B.

This has never been a thing, having media work together. With democracy on the line, I would argue that now is the time for that to happen. It is time for a national narrative that ignores the dollar bills and instead promotes the will of the majority and the good of the people.

Otherwise, we're going to end up with fascism and the destruction of the Constitution, and the end of our republic and the demise of democracy.

With newspaper readership declining and opinionated "entertainment news" all over the TV, perhaps it is time for a paradigm shift, emphasizing the numerous benefits of collaboration among newspapers, TV stations, and other news media outlets. This, hopefully, would enhance journalistic integrity, accuracy, and the overall impact of news reporting.

Collaboration does not imply compromising individual identities or perspectives but rather harnessing the collective strength of the news industry to fulfill its critical role in society. It's not called The Fourth Estate for nothing.

Collaboration would foster an environment that promotes journalistic integrity. By working together on a story, news media outlets could pool resources, share information, and conduct comprehensive investigations. Such cooperation could reduce the risk of biased or incomplete reporting and enhances fact-checking processes. Moreover, by collaborating, journalists would hold one another accountable and maintain higher ethical standards. Collective scrutiny would ensure that journalists strive for accuracy and objectivity, safeguarding the public's trust in the media. If news media outlets prioritized collaboration, they would send a powerful message about their commitment to the truth and the fundamental principles of journalism. This is especially important now, when so many news outlets are underfunded and understaffed.

Multiple media sources

Coordinated efforts among news media outlets would have the potential to amplify the impact of important stories and increase public awareness. By sharing research, sources, and perspectives, media organizations would be able to construct a more comprehensive narrative, bringing greater attention to crucial issues. This is essentially what the TV media, and some print media, did to ensure the election of #45 and the loss of Hillary Clinton in 2016. He received way more attention (for ratings) and free press than she did.

Collaborative reporting would allow for a deeper exploration of complex topics, reaching a broader audience and inspiring meaningful conversations. Additionally, when multiple news media outlets present a unified front on critical matters, public trust would be reinforced, further emphasizing the significance of the reported stories. By working together, news media could create a collective voice that is louder, more influential, and capable of effecting positive change in society. There would always be dissenters who would see such collaboration as some kind of conspiracy.

In an era where misinformation and disinformation run rampant, collaboration among news media outlets should be indispensable. By sharing resources, cross-referencing facts, and aligning narratives, media organizations could more effectively counter the spread of false information. Collaborative fact-checking initiatives might help distinguish reliable sources from unreliable ones, empowering the public to make informed decisions. Furthermore, joint efforts could expose disinformation campaigns and highlight their deceptive tactics. By presenting a united front against misinformation, news media outlets could collectively protect the integrity of the information ecosystem, fortify public trust, and prevent the erosion of democracy.

Collaboration allows news media outlets to overcome resource limitations, particularly in an era of shrinking newsrooms and financial constraints. By pooling together their expertise, skills, and equipment, media organizations could undertake ambitious investigations and in-depth reporting that might otherwise be unfeasible. Shared resources enable the efficient allocation of limited budgets and personnel, ensuring the coverage of essential stories that may not receive adequate attention otherwise. Collaboration could also facilitate knowledge exchange, fostering professional growth, and expanding the collective capacity of the news industry.

By prioritizing collaboration, news media could enhance journalistic integrity, amplify the impact of stories, combat misinformation, and overcome resource limitations. Collective efforts would send a powerful message about the commitment to truth, while fostering public awareness and trust in most arenas.  Ultimately, by working together, news media outlets could inspire positive change, promote informed citizenship, and uphold the fundamental values of journalism.

It's a shame I fear we're too far gone for this to even be considered by other media.

*ChatGPT assisted with this essay.*

The Craven, the Crazies, and the Rest of Us

Over the weekend, an Oklahoma newspaper with no online presence printed this as its front page of its weekend edition:

You can hear Rachel Maddow discuss this at this link, if you want.

I have written local journalism for 39 years. My first article was published in 1984. I've written for nearly all of the local publications, including many that no longer exist, and for statewide magazines. I estimated once that I've published over 2 million words in multiple publications.

My editor at The Fincastle Herald always told me if I didn't have someone angry at me, I wasn't doing my job.

Suffice to say, I did my job. Over the years, I have been threatened by various and sundry people, including a sheriff in nearby county. He stopped me as I was entering the courtroom to listen to a board meeting. "How do I know that's water you have in there?" he demanded, nodding toward my ever-present water bottle.

I took a drink and held it out to him. "You're welcome to the rest of it. It's just water."

"I could haul you in right now for having liquor and who'd know different?" he said. He banged his hand against his pistol on his thigh for emphasis.

"Everybody knows I don't drink alcohol," I replied, and I walked past him to my seat. I could feel him glaring at the back of my head.

Later that same night, I nearly wrecked my car on the way home as I drove over Caldwell Mountain and the tire went flat. In the shine of a flashlight, I discovered my tire had been slashed with a knife.

Yes, someone in the next county over had tried to kill me. Caldwell Mountain is a dangerous drive, over twisting, winding roads. My car could have gone off the pavement and down the mountainside, not to be found for possibly years.

That happened about 25 years ago. So, while this is nothing new, the rhetoric now has been taken to a whole other level.

It was not unusual for me to receive phone calls from people complaining about stories I wrote. "I didn't say that" was the usual complaint. I carried a tape recorder and I'd play it back to them, if I had to.

They backed down then.

Sometimes, though, the complaint was not that I wrote what they said, but that I didn't write what they said.

Sometimes people simply sound so stupid to me that I paraphrase or leave it out completely if it's not relevant to the main part of the article. It is my job to tell a story that is truthful, but that doesn't mean I have to use ignorant, racist, homophobic, fascist, or antisemitic language. Paraphrasing is allowed.

But some people want their words - no matter how ignorant they sound - in print. They want their opinions, word for word, stated. That's how sure they are that they're right. That's how sure they are that their closed-minded world view is the one that should rule the day.

So it was that last week I found myself listening to someone rant about how I hadn't printed exactly what this person had said at a supervisors meeting. 

The person threatened me. I hung up on this person, and I called the police and reported the phone call. I also blocked the number.

Twenty years ago, I would not have done that. I'd have ignored the call. But these are different times, and people feel mean and emboldened, and being a bully is now in fashion. 

I was taken aback by the phone call because it was literally over nothing, as far as I was concerned.

These are the times we live in. People feel emboldened in their fascism and narrow-minded thoughts. They have no room in their brains for open-minded thinking. My way or the highway, as my parents used to tell me.

However, we are all adults, not children in need of being sent to our rooms. And if someone can't have an adult conversation with me that doesn't involve threats, screaming, or insults, then that is not someone I care to talk with.

And as for the report above, it just shows how low people can be. To call these people snakes would be an injustice to snakes. The people in the article/photo above are lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut. They're so low, there is no bottom for them.

I hope they all lose their jobs.

Every Time We Go Away

 

I found this amusing, but also sad. Subscriptions to newspapers are dying - we're dinosaurs, my husband and me, who subscribe still to the print editions.

But without the journalists watching the town, ensuring the local government doesn't slide its way into fascism or some other unwanted form of governing, who will keep the officials on their toes? Citizen journalists with blogs? 

The local officials aren't scared of citizen journalists with blogs. They aren't scared by online newspapers, either. Online copy is ephemeral. It can be easily changed, removed, deleted. It's easy to say it didn't happen, even if the online article states it did.

Print, though - that's permanent. When the print articles say something happened, it happened.

I am part of the local news media, even though I do not write as much as I did. My medium now is an online one, where I write government stories. The print paper that I used to write for still exists but does little in the way of real journalism. There are no hard-hitting news stories there, no small bomb-drops of information that make the public take note.

The online paper is free; the print paper is also online but behind a paywall. I don't know how many digital subscribers it has. The online paper I write for says it sometimes gets 20,000 hits on an article. Other times, not so much.

My work in the online paper sometimes aggravates the local officials because I pull no punches. I don't sugar coat, but neither do I offer opinion. I simply state what happened at a meeting. If someone says something outlandish that I think the public needs to know about, I report it. If the local officials are doing things that I think the public needs to know about, I report it. I don't exaggerate or minimize; I leave it to the reader to decide if this issue is important or not.

Most of my long-time readers know if I report on something, I think it is important and something they should know about.

I am the one who watches the local officials for Freedom of Information Act violations; the one who questions the number of closed sessions they take, the information that comes out of those sessions, and any number of other things. Even when I was writing for the print paper, many times I questioned but the public never knew I was making inquiries, protecting their interests to the best of my ability.

As best I can tell, the less drama for the print paper, the better.

My inquiries with government officials are taken seriously, in part because I've been doing it for so long, but not as seriously as they once were (or so it seems). 

Without a good newspaper, a community suffers from lack of information. As the comic strip notes, where do the people who fuss about things on social media sites actually get their information? From local news reporters, whether that's print or TV media. 

Or an online community journalist.

Subscribe to a paper, even if it's digital. It supports democracy, and we all know that needs all the help it can get.

*Edited

Seeing A Stroke

Many years ago, perhaps around 2003, I went to interview an older woman named Emily. She was in charge of the local historic society and ran the museum.

I had worked for her about 15 years prior, spending time at the museum cataloging items. She and I had a falling out because I wanted to set up a database on the computer for the items; she wanted everything written on a yellow legal pad. I threw up my hands and quit; it was a part-time job, and I could do without the hassle. 

She didn't speak to me for years after that. I became involved in a different historic society and perhaps that helped her come around.

Anyway, since we were on speaking terms again, I went to Emily's house to interview her for the newspaper about changes in the museum (which by now was computerized, etc.) and her efforts to catalogue every school that once existed in the county.

She greeted me cordially and offered me a glass of tea. I admired her house, which was one of the older ones in town, and then proceeded to move on with the interview, asking pertinent questions about what the historical group was doing, her research, etc.

Suddenly, she began slurring her words. She looked funny to me as well, almost like she was drunk and falling over. I stopped the interview and asked her if she was ok.

She said she was diabetic and probably needed some orange juice; would I get her a glass out of the refrigerator?

This I promptly did, and then waited anxiously while she drank it.

My grandmother was diabetic and had what she called "sugar drops," but they were nothing like this. This did not seem to me to be a diabetic issue. This was scary, whatever was going on.

However, I am not a qualified health care person. When I suggested that I should take her to the doctor, who at that time was about four blocks away, she grew angry. She told me the interview was over and I should leave.

Having been tossed out of the house, there was nothing I could do but go. However, I came home and called the only people I knew who were related to her and left a message on their answering machine asking if they could check on her.

They never called me back, so the next morning I called Emily to see if she alright. I was quite anxious about her.

She told me that after I'd left, she'd driven herself to the doctor who thought she'd had a TIA.

A TIA is a transient ischemic attack, also known as a mini-stroke.

I'd never witnessed anyone having a stroke, and while I had some clue as to what to look for, having it happen in front of me was terrifying.

There are more than 200,000 TIAs in the United States annually, so this happens a lot.

The symptoms include:

• Slurred speech and difficulty in understanding others
• Vision problems
• Weakness, numbness or paralysis on one side of the body
• Loss of balance
• Dizziness
• Sudden and severe headache

She experienced the slurred speech and loss of balance. I'm not sure about the other symptoms but those I could see for myself.

I don't know why, but for some reason I woke up with this on my mind, so I thought I'd write about it. I hadn't thought about this person, who died long ago, or this interview, in many years but it was on my brain first thing this morning.

Musings on Three Pines

In the past year, I found Louise Penny's books about Armand Gamache, Chief Inspector of Homicide for the police force in Quebec.

(There may be spoilers here, so if you haven't read all the books, you may want to stop reading this.)

There are 17 of the books, and I have listened to all but three of them.

I enjoy the books and like the characters.

My one complaint is that several of Penny's characters have head injuries from which they completely recover. (If I have names wrong it's because I listen to the audiobooks so I haven't the names spelled out on a page.)

Gamache is shot in the head and makes a full recovery, aside from a slight tremor in his hand.

Isabelle LaCost, one of his investigators, has a head injury, and makes a full recovery, except for a slight limp that appears to have disappeared, but I'll know more as I finish up book #17.

Stephen somebody, the 93-year-old godfather of Gamache, (he shows up later in the series) is run over by a van and has a head injury. He lies in a coma for most of the book - and makes a full recovery. (This one in particular I found quite difficult. He's 93. Really?)

I know this is fiction, and in a fictional world I suppose anyone can be shot in the head and make a full recovery. I also know that in real life, such things do not happen. If people do recover from a head trauma, they generally are greatly changed, either in personality or in body or both, because recovery can take not weeks, but months and/or years. 

I would very much like for Penny to find another place for a main character to be injured besides in the head. A shot in the knee, perhaps. 

The head injuries and subsequent quick recoveries pull me from the world of the book. My rational mind jumps in and says, "This cannot be." Anything that distracts a reader from the world of the book is something that needs to be reexamined.

That this has happened at least three times (there may be others that I'm not recalling), makes me think that a head wound is this author's go-to injury. And that would be fine, I suppose, if I hadn't lost a friend to a head trauma after she was run over by a truck, if I hadn't watched an older person have a TIA right in front of me during a newspaper interview, if a friend from college hadn't been in a car wreck and then spent years in therapy relearning how to live her life, if someone else I know hadn't had a head injury and then gone berserk and tried to murder his family a long time ago.

But I know these things, and have some experience with head trauma, however slight, and I don't think my knowledge is anything special. However, it's enough to pull me from the story when the head trauma injuries miraculously heal without much time passing.

This is mostly a note for me to remind myself that, if I ever do find my voice for fiction, that I need to be sure not to pull the reader from the world of the book by using an inappropriate prop for authorial purposes, instead of reaching for a harder or more prudent incident that would keep the reader in the story.

Book Writing Question

A very long time ago, a writer friend of mine . . . stopped writing. She'd been a columnist for The Roanoke Times for a very long time, but she wanted to write novels.

She was an excellent writer, and I'd taken a few non-credit classes from her. She was also a cousin, many times removed, but a cousin, nevertheless. I admired her work for the newspaper. I admired her spirit, and her ability to be who she was.

But, she confided to me, she could not write a novel that she thought would sell. She wrote five novels, none of them published. She blamed Hollins College, now Hollins University, the place where we both went to college, she graduating in 1973, me in 1993. Twenty years apart, though we were only 12 years apart in age.

The college had, she decided, beat the writing out of her with the professors' proclamations that one must write literary for it to count. Writing something like, say, a Nancy Drew book wasn't writing. Writing something like Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek was writing. Everything else was banal, unworthy, and unwelcome. They were still teaching that message, more or less, when I graduated college there, too, so many years later.

But the college has produced its fair share of good, if not great writers. Lee Smith, Jill McCorkle, Dillard, Margaret Wise Brown, and so many more. These authors are listed on the university website. But someone like me, who has published thousands of articles, is not listed there. Nor is my friend who wrote for The Roanoke Times.

So having tried, and in her mind, failing, my friend quit writing. "The world doesn't need another book," she told me, and turned her creativity to making handbags and other sewing and needlework projects.

Yet when she passed away unexpectedly several years ago, her husband noted her writing in her obituary, stating that she had written five novels. He did not mention that they were unpublished. Only that she had indeed made this accomplishment.

And it is an accomplishment, even if the novels only saw the inside the inside of a drawer.

I spoke about this memory to my friend's sister-in-law last year, a woman also a close and much-loved friend, but not a writer. She told me she agreed that the world did not need another book. It did not need, nor want, my book, she said, only months before she too passed away.

Was she trying to comfort me for my own frustration at failed efforts to put forth words that seem to stop where my head and heart cannot find common ground? Was she making a dig at me for even trying? Or simply agreeing with her sister-in-law as we discussed a memory I'd dredged up from the deep well of my mind as we tried to come to terms, her with dying, me with the knowledge that she would soon be gone?

My husband, upon learning of this conversation, said my friend was not really a friend if she told me that. It was not a supportive thing to say, he said. I remain undecided. She was ill, after all. And she was basically agreeing with someone she, too, had admired.

However, I find it a good question. Does the world need another book, when one can go to Amazon to see the world drowning in books, books that will never be read or studied, a book that may or may not make whoever wrote it even $1,000, if anything at all? Books given away for free for publicity's sake, books selling for 99 cents, books that someone spent 10 years writing only to see it on the remainder rack at the Green Valley Book Fair, if it makes it into a hard copy at all?

Does that time spent writing a book matter? Is it worth it? Who determines the value? Who determines the need?

How the hell does anyone answer such questions, especially when they become bound up with the images of dead people I loved?

Help Wanted

A very long time ago, back in the dark ages of the 1980s and 1990s, I knew how to find a job.

I opened the newspaper and I read the "help wanted" advertisements. There would be three or four pages of job listings. I'd circle the ones I was interested in. They were usually "blind box" advertisements, which meant I was sending in a resume without knowing what the company was. The newspaper rerouted the resumes through some service.

When it was time for me to change jobs, I'd perform this ritual, dropping the resumes in the mail. In about a week, the phone would start ringing. I'd go on a few interviews, and then I'd have a job.

Now the newspaper has very few advertisements for jobs (although I've noticed more lately). And I don't know how to find a job. I'm not really looking for one, especially not with Covid running rampant, but even if I was, I wouldn't know how to find one.

As best I can tell, today one goes to the place where one would like to work and fills out a job application. So, if I wanted to work for say, Bank of America, then I'd go their site and fill out the application and hope for the best. I'm guessing at this, since I've not done it.

The other way to find a job is to look at places like Indeed.com or jobs.roanoke.com.

I've thought about some kind of online work. I have DSL for my internet connection. This works for most things. Uploads are bad, though. It takes me over two hours to upload a three-minute music video to my youtube channel. I also don't know how to find online work that is legitimate. I've read so many stories about scammers using work ploys that I simply dread trying to figure out what is real and what isn't.

Freelancing remains an option, but the local markets don't pay that well, and to be perfectly honest, after doing it for so long, I'm tired of it. I don't want to have to listen to multiple editors or try to write words in a fake voice that suits some suit, something that isn't my own. I don't want to write about topics in which I have little interest. I also don't want to write 300 words for $5. My time is worth more than that.

So, while I don't know what I want to do, I would like to know how to find it when the time comes to go do something.

I miss the help wanted advertisements. That seemed much easier than the flux of today.

Thursday Thirteen #725

These quotes are from Zen in the Art of Writing, by Ray Bradbury.

1. To try to know beforehand is to freeze and kill.

2. Self-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it acting, writing, painting, or living itself, which is the great art of all.

3. We writers "build tensions toward laughter, then give permission, and laughter comes."

4. We writers "build tensions toward sorrow, and at last say cry, and hope to see our audience in tears."

5. We writers "build tensions toward violence, light the fuse, and run."

6. We writers "build the strange tensions of love, where so many of the other tensions mix to be modified and transcended, and allow that fruition in the mind of the audience."

7. "We build tensions, especially today, toward sickness and then, if we are good enough, talented enough, observant enough, allow our audiences to be sick."

8. No tensions . . . must be built which remains unreleased. Without this, any art ends incomplete, halfway to its goal. And in real life, as we know, the failure to relax a particular tension can lead to madness."

9. Again and again my stories and my plays teach me, remind me, that I must never doubt myself, my gut, my ganglion, or my Ouija subconscious again.

10. It is a lie to write in such a way as to be rewarded by money in the commercial market.

11. It is a lie to write in such a way as to be rewarded by fame offered you by some snobbish quasi-literary group in the intellectual gazettes.

12. Each of you, curious about creativity, wants to make contact with that thing in yourself that is truly original. You want fame and fortune, yes, but only as rewards for work well and truly done.

13. What is the greatest reward a writer can have? Isn't it that day when someone rushes up to you, his face bursting with honesty, his eyes afire with admiration and cries, "That new story of yours was fine, really wonderful!" Then and only then is writing worthwhile.

Just an FYI, this is one of the few books on writing that I didn't really care for. The other was Stephen King's book, On Writing, which I know receives many oohs and ahhs from writers but I found it very male oriented and patronizing. Bradbury's book is simply out of date and reads dated, unlike say, Bird by Bird, by Ann Lamont, or Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg. I have an entire shelf full of books on writing, and there are only a few that I did not find particularly useful. This Bradbury book had a few nuggets in it, but not enough that I want to keep the book, and nothing I'd not read elsewhere.

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 725th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.