So You Want to Write a Column!

Some months ago my Sid Riley, Managing Editor of the *Jackson County Times*, persuaded me to write an occasional column for his newspaper. He has been very lenient in allowing me to vary the content, especially since I encountered a fraternity brother of his at one of my waterways meetings, and learned that he is in debt to several of his buddies from college days. This doesn’t mean that he owes them dollars that he had borrowed; far from it. It means that he owes them “hush” money for not telling about some of the shenanigans that he pulled after lights out in the fraternity house.

As I gained fame with my writings I also garnered comments about the quantity and the quality. I am unable to change the quality; this was ingrained in me by various English teachers throughout the years. I will continue to use proper punctuation and syntax in spite of what the Spelling and Grammar icon tells me when I scan for correctness.

My guru for this is the late William F. Buckley, Jr., author of God and Man at Yale and founding editor of the Weekly Review. Anyone that reads Mr. Buckley’s writings does so with a Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary close at hand. The Collegiate Webster’s edition is not sufficient for this purpose. It also pays to have a list of Latin phrases and French words that seem to have been in common use in the Buckley family. I once had the opportunity to chat with Mr. Buckley. He had branched out into writing fiction and had penned a series of books about a detective named Blackford Oakes.

One day as I was riding to New Orleans in my *Ford Explorer* I tuned into a *National Public Radio* station just as he was being interviewed on *All Things Considered*. After several statements that seemed to stun the host, who obviously did not have a dictionary at hand, the lines were opened for call-ins. Mr. Buckley, being conservative politically, received none from the largely liberal listening audience. I listened as the two made small talk. Finally I called and was put through to the great man. He was very nice and did not make fun of my Southern accent. My question was: “Why has there not been any good novels written about the Korean War?” We chatted about tales from other wars, and we agreed that The Bridges at Toko-Ri came the closest to greatness, but did not quite come up to the level expected. We finally concluded that it was because the “police action” that was declared by the United Nations was not over yet, and there had been no time for retrospection.

On occasion I am asked what it takes to get into the business of column writing. I offer suggestions, but when the questioner finds out that I do not make money from my efforts, there is a sudden silence and a loss of interest. When someone compliments me on something I have written, I often say “That is all the pay I want”. What I really mean is that “That is all the pay I get”. But in case you wish to venture into this profession, here’s what I recommend.

Get a “nom de plume”. (If you don’t know what this means, look it up. This will do you good, and you can use that Webster‘s Unabridged that I mentioned). Mark Twain operated under a nom de plume. His real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemmons, but he changed his name since his mother obviously did not love him very much or she would have given him a much shorter name. With a short name you can get more words in your column, particularly if your editor is picky about lengths.

The way Clemmons got his name is interesting. He was a cub river pilot as a young man, and once got a steamboat in extremis (look this up, too). He avoided running it aground when the man in the bow with the sounding pole yelled back “mark twain”, which meant safe water. He adopted this as his nom de plume (you haven’t looked this up yet, have you?). This would be like my adopting “Drive in the right lane on the Interstate, unless there is an emergency vehicle ahead” as my pen name. Darn, now I have told you what “nom de plume” means.

So when you have the right name, and you have found an editor, you must decide on subjects. I handled my first three easily. Sid wanted river articles, and I am familiar with three rivers, the Apalachicola, the Chattahoochee and the Flint. After that I ran out of rivers, just like Atlanta runs out of drinking water in a drought.

I spent quite a bit of time in the U. S. Navy. When I added it up recently, I came up with 106 years service, man and boy. Actually it was only six years’ duty on ships, but I was seasick for three days once and this made it seem like 106. And as an aside, if you ever even think you will be seasick, eat several bananas. This will not keep you from upchucking, but bananas are the only food that I know of that taste the same coming up as they do going down.

So nautical experiences have contributed greatly to my columns, and this is primarily because of my “wheel” book. A wheel book is a small bound book that every young officer assigned to an oceangoing command maintains. In it he keeps pertinent data that will assist him in everyday life aboard, and it may also supply him with good information for the future, as mine has.

My wheel book’s very first entry was simple: “When you are facing forward on the ship, the port side is on your left”. The second entry was “red, right, returning” and this relates to the position of buoys that mark channels. In other words, red buoys are on the right of the channel when you are returning from the sea. See how simple it is? These are the only two things that you need to know to be a naval officer. The next one did not pertain to ship handling, but was very important. It stated “Mary Lil (the short brunette) at the DesSub Pub Officers Club has gingivitis. The medic says that I will be able to eat normally within a few days and my gums will heal”.

If you keep such a book be careful of what you enter. I did not write about the time I enticed my soon-to-be wife to go to Key West for vacation when my ship would be there. This intimated intimacy, but I would never let my children read this. Children do not want to believe that their parents ever did more than shake hands, and even then for only a brief period of time, and with gloves on. My three probably believe that the reason they were adopted by Theresa and me was that we had never figured out the “real” way to have children. In other things they are quite intelligent and alert.

Back to Mark Twain: he wrote what is called the “First American Masterpiece” : Huckleberry Finn. In it he used the now politically incorrect “n” word. He wrote this story on paper that was called foolscap, with a quill and probably homemade ink. The reason he did not use his computer was that using the “word” would have caused a virus and it would have locked his monitor up, much as mine was locked up when I stayed too long on the “Victoria’s Secret Angels” website.

Now you know all of my methods. You select a nom de plume, you pick interesting subjects (leave the Rivers alone, I may have to return to them and they are mine, all mine!) but be careful that they do not incriminate living persons, particularly yourself, and be sure that you make friends with an editor who will not put your column in among the want ads and try to charge you his “by the inch” fee.

Happy columns to you!