At a function we attended recently, my husband brought a lady over to me and introduced her as “someone who wants to meet the lady who writes the columns.”
I didn’t know whether to smile and extend my hand or duck and cover.
Being the “lady who writes the columns” has won me some great friends. It has also gotten me into trouble before. It depends on how you take what I say, I guess.
I’ve given myself lots of opportunity to get into trouble with all the columns I’ve written during my 25 years here at the paper.
I began working here as a proofreader in 2000 after I retired from teaching. Shortly after I started the job, I came in one day raving over the Remodeling Project from Hades that we had launched into at our house. My boss yelled out of his office, “Write a column about it!” So I did.
When I turned in that first one, creatively called “Remodeling,” the composer who puts the pages together informed me that once she made a space for me, I had to keep filling it. I thought I could do that for a month or so. That was 1200 columns ago.
Some people who are kind enough to read “Life Lines” regularly ask me where I get my topics. Well, unfortunately, most of what I write about actually happens to me. When I wrote about falling off the deck in a chair, I had fallen off our deck in a chair. I’m sure you were much more amused to read about it than I was to land upside down in the azaleas, soaked with the hot coffee I had been sipping.
When I wrote a column about swallowing a love bug, I had swallowed a love bug. The column about snakes in the house? You guessed it; I’ve had them. I write nothing without researching it personally first.
At this very moment I have a black snake lurking around in my back yard on warm days. Whether or not he becomes material for a future column depends on how up close and personal he lurks. If he keeps his distance, I am willing to let him keep his privacy.
Other ideas come from my observations. Like a column I wrote on watching people on the beach. It was just what I had observed while sitting by the water the week before. You can see why I don’t cook or do windows.. .as a Professional Observer/ Columnist, I have to sit really still most of the time. Cooking and cleaning throw off my concentration on column topics.
I also get ideas from friends. They tell me what makes them mad and they want me to write about it, like some of my political columns during the Biden administration.
One friend said she’d probably go to jail for what she wanted to say. Then she suggested that I write about it. Apparently, she doesn’t care if I do time in the slammer as long as she gets her message out.
Every once in awhile, someone will ask, “How do you get to write a column?” Actually, anybody can do it, but let me give you a few things to consider before you crank up your computer and start handing out business cards that say “Columnist.”
First, remember that I got to write a column just to fill up space. So you can’t be on a ego trip to be a columnist. They could just as easily run the garbage collection schedule in your spot. And sometimes they do.
Second, if you think I’m just sitting here in my plush office with nothing to do but swallow bugs and write columns, you’re wrong. I have to wear many other hats here— coffee maker, cup washer, headline writer.... you have to be good at multitasking, and it helps to know a little journalism.
Third, get ready to embarrass yourself. I’ve bared my personal experiences with getting pooped on by a bird, having to “assume the position” in an ob-gyn exam, burning most of what I cook, and having to take Algebra I twice (an experience I list on my resume as mastering Algebra II).
It can be dangerous to write a column too. There’s always somebody that doesn’t like what you’ve said, no matter what you write, and you may get an angry Letter to the Editor from them. I still stand by everything I said in all those columns, even though I wrote some of them too long ago to remember my exact points. But I’m sure I meant whatever I said.
Even my husband, who is called “he” in my columns, doesn’t always like what I share about him with the reading public— like the time he scattered our new dining room chairs all over I-55 hauling them home from Jackson. “Tied them down just right” my foot.
Even the columnists who just write about birthdays, community events or scriptures probably get ugly responses sometimes for misspelling a name or misquoting the Bible.
I’m telling you, it’s a tough life. But if you like to write and don’t mind swallowing a few bugs, you’re welcome to turn in a sample to us. You won’t get paid, but you may see your ideas in print.
Just get ready to duck.
