As a journalist of nearly 20 years experience, I chased ambulances (sorry to say), crooks and crooked politicians. In between these odysseys I dabbled in a wide assortment of stories that quite simply were about life and the people who live it.
While I came up with many of my own ideas, some of the best came from a crotchety, old editor named Don. Don loved to tell stories, usually while smoking one of his home-rolled cigarettes out on the sidewalk in front of our building. He seemed to have something to add to just about any discussion, and after a while I finally figured out just how he became so smart. One day he was editing a piece I had written about a small-town hardware store. He wanted to add some color to the writing and asked me to describe the inside of the store. "What did it smell like?" he asked. I replied that I couldn't remember. "Was there sawdust on the floor?" "Yeah, there was," I said, almost flabbergasted. "How did you know that." As a younger man Don worked in hardware store where oil and sawdust was used to treat the aged plank floors. On another occasion, Don corrected one of my fellow-writer's use of a nautical term, a nugget gleaned from his days traveling the world on merchant ships.On yet another occasion Don assigned me to write about a retired warden of Washington's toughest prison, the Walla Walla Pennitentiary. He met the warden while installing phones at the prison.
In many ways, I have followed in Don's footsteps. I haven't always been a journalist. I spent a summer loading barges with wheat. I've also sold door hinges and vitamin supplements. Soon I hope to drive a transit bus in the community where I live. Man, what a gold mine for stories that will be.
The bottom line is that I've got my share of things to say on a variety of topics, some of which will be entertaining, while others potentially life altering.
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