Week 43 - Produce a Book (Part 3)

Most items in the photo have a special meaning.

     By now, you all know that "the book" is finished!
     Cheryl and I have been working off and on for more than 11 months to publish a book of some of the columns I wrote during my 38 years at the Times-Courier and Journal Gazette newspapers in Charleston and Mattoon.
     I am glad we could get it done before Christmas. Cheryl and I had a lot of fun finding columns we had mostly forgotten about. There are about 104 columns in the book out of about 3,000 I wrote during my tenure at the two newspapers. If we had know the book was only going to be 261 pages, we would have added a few more.
     Although I was sports editor for six years, I included only one column from that 1973-79 time period. Most of those columns were about local high school and EIU athletes/coaches/teams and I didn't think they would have much family interest. So I included only one, about EIU winning the NCAA Division II national championship in football in 1978 after going 1-10 the year before and not having a winning season in 17 years. That's why the first section of the book is titled "The Eighties (plus one)."
     Notice, too, the photos at the beginning of each section are what my column mug looked like during those 10 years. You can't see it on this page but if you look at the book cover (has everyone found the book title from a line in one of the columns?), I will explain items in the cover photo, clockwise from the top: A photo of Cheryl, always on my work desk; two photos I took from major fires, including one of two firefighters rescuing a 2-year-old girl that earned first place in the Illinois UPI News Contest in 1980; my necktie is a Mickey Mouse newspaper comic strip tie; coffee mug is a Rotary Youth Exchange cup as that program is near and dear to my heart; newspaper tearsheets with the column about what Charleston people should not say at Gov. Jim Edgar's inauguration and the column/photo about Dad protesting at the State Capitol; statuette of a newspaper delivery boy; bobblehead doll of EIU grad Tony Romo/Dallas Cowboys' QB; and a rubber frog on top of the computer next to Cheryl's photo. Frogs are kind of my identity from a dream I had many years ago.
     I'm glad to share with my family. Because the printer did not correct some typos I have some extra copies of the book with extra typos in case anyone else would like one. Hope you enjoy the book.
     Merry Christmas and have a wonderful 2013.