13 years of slingin’ words

Yr Fthfl Srvnt has been blogging 13 years. And that’s only BlogSpot. Add one or two more years before that on my long-ago family website.
My bereavement-counselor tells me I’m lucky to possess the writing-jones. Most retirees my age are bored silly.
Years ago a coworker at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper was reading my family-website blogs. “Grady,” she said (explanation at right); “you gotta start blogging.”
I recently fired up my very first BlogSpot blog, and things sure have changed.
“Bluster-Boy” (the Almighty Bluster-King), my younger brother from near Boston, became a favorite sibling — although not by much; only four of us remain; I’m the first-born of seven.
Back then that brother was noisily badmouthing everything I said or did.
My wife died in 2012, and I had to give up on my dog five years later.
I also am no longer the person I was while married. It’s a shame my wife can’t experience the new me. She had to die for me to get there.
I also think my writing has improved. “Keep it short,” an ex-Messenger editor tells me. Cut-cut-cut! “You don’t need to say that,” advises a fellow retiree. “Let the reader fill in the blanks;” that’s me.
Eons ago my 12th-grade high-school English-teacher told me I wrote really well. Convinced by my hyper-religious parents I was stupid and abominable, I thought him joking.
“All it is is slinging words,” I told him.
Perhaps 30 years later I realized I could write pretty well. That was during my employ at Regional Transit Service (RTS), the supplier of transit bus-service in the Rochester (NY) area.
I was a bus-driver, and therefore a union employee. A friend advocated a union newsletter, and enlisted me to do it.
I’d be up until 3 a.m. crafting that newsletter in my computer. Most enjoyable were my “bus-stories,” written on tiny scraps of paper at bus layovers.
No time for editing, which usually ruined what I wrote. “Leave it alone,” my wife told me. “It’s good enough as is.”
In the ‘70s I did motorsport coverage for a small weekly Rochester newspaper. What I’m most proud of for them is my expository stuff much like blogging.
Once in a while I witnessed racing-action that got the muse cooking.
I started looking for a job as a writer. Public-relations, advertising, whatever. I interviewed a few places, but nothing availed itself. My Facebook calls me a “failed writer.”
My Rochester neighbor back then, an RTS bus-driver, told me Transit needed bus-drivers. I went with that; it was supposed to be temporary. It paid well, so I kept at it 16&1/2 years — despite upper-management posturing, and a rancorous clientele.
Then I had a stroke. That was over 25 years ago, and made me a mess. It ended my bus-driving, which I was tiring of anyway. It was caused by an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired.
I run on what’s left; it killed part of my brain. When I was released I found I could still write.
Stroke-rehab wanted to get me a job as an unpaid intern. I suggested my union-newsletter was so much fun they find me a position at a paragraph factory.
They lined me up with the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, who hired me as I recovered.
It ended up being the BEST job I ever had. I did anything-and-everything, and was always encouraged.
When the Messenger finally computerized, I got eagerly involved.
Stroke-rehab wanted to get my job back as a bus-driver. “Not interested,” I told them.
“You’d make a lot more money,” they told me.
“But it wouldn’t be fun,” I said.
Long ago “If I were to write anything for this newspaper, the first thing I’d write about is presidents don’t wear hats.”
“So write it,” an editor said.
And they published it, beginning my weekly column. No pay; just slingin’ words. That column lasted a few months until I upset the flag-police. Long story; all I’ll say is I wrote my dog was more alive than my flag.
I worked at that newspaper almost 10 years. They even doubled my pay during a wage-freeze, so I could get off Social-Security-Disability, which limited my income, and therefore hours.
Suddenly I was full-time, but I could do it. Stroke-defects were minimal, and I kept getting better. Apparently sufficient marbles remained to do pretty well.
In the end I was doing that newspaper’s website. I was involved in the three earliest iterations. I’m sure quite a few more versions occurred since I retired.
Retirement was early at age-62 because I was getting unexplained “episodes” where it seemed my heart had stopped. They never dropped me to the floor— my heart would restart.
After 89 bazilyun tests a neurologist noted my “episodes” sounded like a blood-pressure medication side-effect. So I stopped taking the medication; no episodes since.
But stopping that medication was after I retired, which I did just in time. The Messenger shortly changed owners; I woulda been laid off.
Earlier a Messenger vice-president wanted to lay me off, but those first owners interceded. I was too valuable, and cheap as a stroke-survivor. That guy eventually got fired.
My job-title was “typist,” but I never typed anything. What they valued most were my computer-tricks. “How did you do that?” they’d ask. “That’s amazing!”
I’m sure that first blog was written while I was still at the Messenger. BlogSpot came after I retired. That first BlogSpot blog is one of many I posted at the same time.
“Is that a novel you’re writing?” people ask. “You should write a book.”
Perhaps; like to publish some of my blogs in a book. I have followers, and I also Facebook my blogs.
But how does one choose the best of 2,621 blogs? (2,622 with this one.) Beyond that, how does one stop a muse that won’t shut up?
I also have a viewpoint twisted by my tortured childhood. I’m first-born of holier-than-thou parents, who convinced me I was stupid and disgusting because I couldn’t worship my father.
Reams of material remain, and apparently I have a fabulous memory. I sling words well, but writing a novel wouldn’t be the fun blogging is.
Every morning as I eat breakfast, the pencil and legal-pad come out and I start slingin’ words. “What do I write about today?” I ask myself. The muse starts cookin’. Maybe it already did walking my dog. Often things happen that elicit a blog. I call ‘em blog-material.
I’m not bored, and I’m not lonely. I have the writing-jones.