Writing a column

Growing up, I read two newspaper columnists religiously: Bob Burnes, the curmudgeonly old sports columnist for the late, great St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and syndicated humorist Erma Bombeck. I wanted to be either one when I grew up. Or both.

While I come nowhere close to being in the league of either of these talents, I did manage a bit of a sportswriting career and I do have a weekly column in a suburban newspaper. Since July 2003, I have turned out 450-word columns more than 700 times. Can’t say they have all been home runs, but as another great writer and columnist Dave Kindred once told me, “sometimes a double to the gap is just as effective.”

So how do I do it? A little bit of panic, and a lot of prayer. The paper is printed late on Wednesdays and published each Friday. My deadline was originally given to be Monday at noon. Then I shot for Tuesday afternoon. Now, if I get it there before Wednesday at 7 a.m. — in advance of the newspaper’s Wednesday afternoon deadline — I’m doing pretty good.

On more than one occasion, I have set my alarm for 4 a.m. on a Wednesday and opened up the laptop. It’s amazing what deadline pressure does for the creative process. Something always comes to me, but they’re not all doubles to the gap. Some of them, well, a base on balls still gets you in play.

The editors give me pretty much freedom to write what I write, and typically that is right in front of me. My family is a pretty good sport about it; but anytime I write about the boys I will usually tell them. When they were younger I gave them the option of reading it first — and killing it if embarrassed them. By the time they got through high school and into college, they seemed to be nonchalant about it. “Mom, no one I know reads it anyway,” Matt said once. No, but their parents do.

I also get a paycheck once a month, so there’s that. And I do enjoy a tiny bit of notoriety in my little corner of South County. But if I ever get a big head, I just take a walk in my neighborhood and count the number of Times in red plastic sleeves that are still on people’s lawns days and weeks after they were thrown there, some of them reduced to pulp. It’s humbling.

But that’s not stopping me.

How it all began

In the summer of 2003, the South County Times and its sister publication, the Webster-Kirkwood Times, lost a dear friend, columnist Cele Cummiskey, who pulled double-duty in both publications. I used to read her all the time, a funny, warm and endearing woman. I was going to miss her, but I thought I might be able to write some columns worthy of Cele’s standards.

I knew a writer who lived in Webster, Mary Bufe, who had connections with editor Don Corrigan. I asked her if she knew what the plans were for the space. She said she had inquired about it, too, and that she had heard the editors were looking for a Webster Groves resident to write for the Webster-Kirkwood Times and a South County resident for the other.

Having worked as a writer/editor for The Sporting News — including a year or so as the sole editor of the prolific, superb Mr. Kindred —  I wrote a few sample columns and sent my resume.

We both got hired. We’re both still writing. You can read Mary’s column at www.webster-kirkwoodtimes.com. She’s terrific, more Erma Bombeck than Erma sometimes. I’m somewhere in between.