week 23 - " produce a book"



Some columns were of a very personal nature.

       OK, Cheryl and I know this topic is not from one of the 52 cards our three children gave us as weekly "adventures" in retirement, but it is something I have wanted to do ever since I thought about retiring. I want to put some of my newspaper columns together into a book or folder for our children and grand children to have. Maybe (??!!?) they will want to look at them sometime.
     I worked at the Times-Courier and Journal Gazette newspapers for almost 38 years -- July 1, 1973, to March 11, 2011. In that time I wrote more than 3,000 columns and editorials. That's a lot of personal opinions to unload on the TC and JG readers. I started the process of selecting the columns to save for family reading this week. It is going to take some time and I probably will devote another week or two of retirement adventure blogging to this topic.
     I wrote columns for a variety of reasons: To give the printed paper some personality, to let readers identify with someone at the paper they could contact and because we had a lot of staff turnover I wanted a face in the paper readers
 could get to know. I also enjoyed it. Some columns were very serious, some were meant to be funny and others kind of poked fun at me or the newspaper.
     I had some success. I won first place in Illinois


When looking for old columns I found this photo of Heather (back).

 UPI papers in 1982, first in Illinois Press Association in 1988 and 1995, first in Southern Illinois Editorial Association in 2000 and a bunch of second and third place awards. Unfortunately, for most of those awards I don't recall what columns were winners.
    I managed to salvage about 1,200 of the columns when the old TC office was sold. I don't know how many I will try to preserve. Mike Royko, the longtime Chicago newspaper columnist, is my favorite columnist. After his death, a book of 110 of his columns was published.
     Most of these columns will involve family -- our children and grandchildren, Cheryl, my parents and siblings (the time we five kids booby-trapped the house after the Starved Rock murders). I won't pick many that are time-specific and hard news like local taxes, EIU funding, water, economic development, blah, blah, blah. I know I will have fun putting it together and hope it will bring a smile to your face as you relive some of these moments. I will keep you informed as I get closer to completing this project.