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.

“No Dr. Phil for this kid!”

“Sling together more than five words, and you’ve exceeded the attention-span of the average person.”
I said that to **** *********, who I previously worked with at the Daily Messenger newspaper in nearby Canandaigua. He was a reporter/editor, and I was a “typist” — although I never typed anything. What I did were computer-tricks that generated reams of copy.
Page-editors loved it when I cranked a school honor-roll. That would blow an entire page.
My statement isn’t a complaint; it’s an observation. With TV and now the Internet, instant gratification became more possible. I’m guilty myself. Reading, though pleasant, became too time-consuming.
Yet here I am slinging words. The Messenger somewhat determines how I write. “Keep it short,” an editor used to say. I think the world of her; she could write extremely well, yet wasn’t elitist about it.
I look at some of my long-ago blogs, and shout “enough already!”
I also hew to a retired fellow bus-driver who tells me “you didn’t need to say that.”
“Don’t bore us; get to the chorus,” ********* says.
I’ve also noticed what I write often comes across more curt than originally perceived.
What e-mails I get are usually 25 words or less. Occasionally I get a “War-and-Peace;” what a pleasure to rummage someone else’s brain. Usually I congratulate the author with a word-count: “874 words, you win!”
“What’s the best book you ever read?” ********* asks.
“That would be ‘Moby Dick,’” I always say. “I also read ‘V’ by Thomas Pynchon, then started ‘Gravity’s Rainbow,’ but gave up. ‘Ulysses’ was beyond-the-pale.”
“Most important?” “‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.’ It gave me the confidence to try automotive bodywork, which I did successfully = a ‘quality’ job. First time I reversed my parents’ convincing me I was not only rebellious, but stupid.”
Books like that are history. More important are -1) Don “Big Daddy” Garlits in his Double-A fuel dragster burning rubber the entire quarter-mile, -2) P-51 Mustang “Old Crow” doing 500 mph power-dives and hammerhead stalls at an airshow, and -3) and restored Nickel Plate steam locomotive #765 bursting out of the tunnel atop Allegheny Mountain, throttle-to-the-roof, and whistle screaming!
So where does all that leave me with this pen?
There seem to be 10-20 constant-readers, and slinging words became a way for this retiree to pass time.
No Dr. Phil for this kid!

• Almost 12 years ago I retired from the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (almost 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well]). (“Canandaigua” is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke ended that — I retired on medical-disability. I recovered well enough to return to work at the Messenger newspaper.

“Yer lucky!”

“Yer lucky,” my counselor says. “I get many retired heavy-hitters bored-to-death.” Judge-Judy, Facebook, Dr. Oz, Facebook, Oprah, Facebook, Dr. Phil, Facebook......ad infinitum.
“I don’t have that,” I say. “My problem is every morning when I siddown to eat my breakfast-cereal, I grab my pencil, engage legal-pad, and words start spilling out.”
I never can get my muse to shaddup.  It’s always churning. Blogs get half-written in my head driving or walking my dog.
I worry about running out of craziness — I call it “blog-material.” What will it be today? Cellphone jollies, automobiles (I’m a car-guy), online acrimony, Facebook fulminatin’, GPS madness (“What you been smokin’ girl?”), technical hairballs, and of course trains (I’m a railfan).
Keying in stuff has occasionally gone past midnight.
It began driving bus. I started doing a voluntary newsletter for my bus-union. I did it in Word®.
It had immense powah. For once the union’s viewpoints were getting to the politicos who funded the bus-service. Transit was a gumint endeavor.
That newsletter became a vehicle for my writing. I’d crank bus-stories on the back of blank time-sheets and tiny transfer-slips.
.....At end-of-line layovers, killing time before returning. My stories came driving bus.
My newsletter became successful because I had no time to edit. My wife used to say “Leave it alone! It’s great as is. Edit and you ruin it.”
Politicians loved it; a pleasant read.
Even Transit management loved it; it explained what it was like to drive bus. Granny in her Buick, the NASCAR wannabees, and most-of-all our clientele.
We bus-drivers had an unspoken rule: DON’T GET SHOT!
That was back in the ‘90s before my stroke, which ended my bus-driving.
It also ended my newsletter, but not my writing.
What a joy it was to return from hospital and find I could still sling words.
I lost my ability to play piano (nine years of classical piano-training; Clementi arpeggios through tears), and I could no longer sing. —But I could still write.
Computer keyboarding is a bit sloppy — poor motor control is a stroke detriment. I rely on spellcheck to find my mistypes.
After stroke rehab, I began as an unpaid intern at Messenger newspaper in nearby Canandaigua. That was because of enjoying that bus-union newsletter; no bus-driving for this kid!
“If I were to write anything at all for this newspaper,” I said one day; “it’s that presidents don’t wear hats.”
Instead of reminding me I had a stroke: “So write it!” they suggested. They published it in their newspaper.
So began my weekly column, which they kept publishing for months until I got the flag-police upset.
My brother in northern DE set up a family website, and I started flying stuff on that.
I also began e-mailing much of that family-site stuff to a fellow Messenger employee. She began keeping it in a computer-folder.
One day she told me I should be blogging.
Ergo, this BlogSpot blog.
Eleven years so far; 2,249 entries‚ this makes 2,250.
No TV for me. No one understands. How can anyone be bored by Dr. Phil?
Lawn goes unmowed, a huge stash of cardboard awaits chopping up for recycling, unopened mail piles up (I immediately open bills, which I recognize), only rarely do I get my bed made.
I’d rather sling words.

• I see a “counselor” because my beloved wife of 44+ years died — April 17, 2012.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (“Transit”) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.
• Over 11 years ago I retired from the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)
• RE: “got the flag-police upset.....” —I returned home one afternoon and found -a) my dog hung up on the chainlink-fence, and -b) my flag on the ground after its holder pulled out. I took care of the dog first; (so reported = end of column).

Jaundiced eye

While I was at Houghton (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”) in the middle ‘60s, my college about 70-75 miles south of Rochester (NY), the yearbook was done by the junior class, that is, the yearbook-editor was a junior.
And the editor of the student newspaper was a senior.
I don’t recall how the yearbook-editor was named, but it seems to me the newspaper-editor was elected.
That is, during the year previous, proposed newspaper-editors were nominated, and an editor was elected for the following year.
For some strange reason, seniors above me wanted to nominate me. I had no interest at all, mainly because I had no management experience.
I suppose those guys liked the way I thought, that I had a habit for skewering the high-and-mighty pronouncements of others.
That was good for my fragile ego, but not enough to run a newspaper.
If I had been elected — highly unlikely, since I was a sinner, and the college evangelical — I would have been replaced after the newspaper crashed in flames.
Named was a guy named “Harold Baxter,” who despite being in our class, was I think three or four years older.
It was a good choice; at least the newspaper wouldn’t crash in flames.
That newspaper had to reflect the evangelical values of Houghton, and under “Bax” it would.
Bax called me in one day and asked if I could do a report on renovations in the Administration Building.
I went and interviewed various secretaries, wives of heavy-hitters at the college.
I asked one if she liked the profusion of tiny multicolored telephone-wires emanating from her walls.
She said she did (really), so off-I-went writing it up.
Bax was impressed. He was smitten with my deadpan reporting of silliness.
My reporting was laughable.
Bax then asked me to do a humor-column similar to my report.
At that time the newspaper had a humor-column that anchored the edit-page.
It was a tradition started by a guy named Dan Willett, son of a Houghton professor, and second-in-command at the newspaper.
Willett and someone else pointed out some of the silliness that went on around the college.
A similar humor-column ran the next year, and again under Bax.
But by then that humor-column was crashing. The guys doing it weren’t Dan Willett.
I decided to lead my column with “Of Men and Things,” which I think is Biblical.
I wrote up retirement of “Sam the Soda-Machine,” long a fixture on campus outside the old Fine Arts Building.
I was the only one that did; the other guys missed it.
“Of Men and Things” became a biweekly column, running on the back page, even though the official humor-column also ran.
Willett, who had graduated, returned to the newspaper office to weigh in.
“This guy Hughzey is writing the kind of stuff we wrote; the official humor-column falls flat.”
And so it’s been ever since. I call it observing with a “jaundiced eye.”
There’s madness and silliness everywhere. All you hafta do is observe and report it.
And do so in a deadpan fashion, as if it’s normal.

• “Houghton College” in western New York, is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.
• RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. —At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to blog, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”

Henry N. Manney III

Henry N. Manney III.

My writing-style is that of Henry N. Manney III.
“Yrs trly” and “yr fthfl srvnt” are stolen from Manney.
I ain’t Manney, and not as good.
Manney covered Formula One auto racing for Road & Track Magazine back in the ‘60s, which I subscribed to from 1968 on.
He also was an Editor-at-Large for Cycle World Magazine. I never saw anything by him in Cycle World.
What I read was his Formula One race coverage. He was a gentle dude who reported what he saw.
He usually said “practice was the usual shambles,” reducing madness to being comprehensible.
Formula One is a stinkpot of madness, everyone trying to be superior.
Starting grids were determined by qualifying. The fastest qualifier got pole-position, and grid-position worked down from that.
Qualifying might go okay for a short while, until someone slid off-course.
Formula One was held on road circuits, many turns and straights.
The cars are open-wheeled single-seat racecars, essentially a gas-tank with engine and wheels.
Manney would exercise his gentle touch, making it all seem attainable to us ordinary souls.
Sadly, Manney had a stroke in the early ‘80s, which left him in a coma until he died in 1988.
Well, I had a stroke too. It didn’t leave me in a coma, but pretty much my whole left side was paralyzed — what I say is the brain-matter was no longer there to operate things.
I was persnickety about it: “I should be able to tie my shoes.” So by trying I inadvertently rewired my brain to operate my left side.
My speech had also been royally messed up; I was talking too fast — gibberish.
It reduced to a monotone, but then one day I decided to address my dogs just like I had in the past.
“Let us see!”
My dogs were thrilled; the master is back.
So I can now pass for never having had a stroke.
But a stroke can put the lights out. It left Manney in a coma; he eventually died.
Manney would report without drama or histrionics, which is essentially what I do.
Years ago I wrote up walking our Irish-Setters in Rochester’s St. Patrick’s Day parade.
The parade starts on East Ave., Rochester’s ritziest street.
Members of the Brighton Volunteer Fire Department were openly urinating on the manicured lawns of Rochester’s richest — causing fear and loathing.
I reported it, of course, in my usual deadpan Henry N. Manney way.
And that’s how I do it; madness everywhere reported off-handedly as Henry would do it.
Manney was replaced at Road & Track by Rob Walker, an independent Formula One entrant.
He was interesting, but he wasn’t Manney.

• My stroke was October 26th, 1993.

Editing

I have an ad trumpeting “Great Courses. It’s for “Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer’s Craft.”
Sounds like one-a them right-side Facebook ads I never click, but it’s not Facebook.
It’s one-a them junkmail thingies I eventually shred.
Playing on dreamers seeking fame and fortune — essentially recognition.
I wonder if they could show me anything, like how to craft a better sentence.
I have my own ideas — one of which is to reduce wordiness. I would chop “Exploring the Writer’s Craft” off that title.
Copy-writers seem to do that, as if wordiness signifies erudition.
I hear it all the time. Company names followed by a catchy phrase from their mission-statement.
In my humble opinion a mission-statement shouldn’t be written. Who reads it? Only the writer.
During my final year at the Messenger Newspaper in Canandaigua a writers’ group formed.
I wasn’t part of it, despite my slinging words left-and-right.
One day a reporter came over to talk to another in an adjacent cubical. Both were members of the writers’ group.
“I don’t know what’s going on here,” I said; “but when I wanna write I just get out my pen and start slingin’.”
“Easy for you to say,” they said. “You don’t need no writers’ group.”
I ain’t Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, but I do seem to have a talent slinging words.
That is, sentences I write seem to be fine as is, not in need of heavy editing.
I learned to leave well enough alone during my union newsletter at Transit. My wife advised me to leave what I wrote alone, that it was usually good enough.
And I didn’t have time for editing. She also pointed out what editing I did destroyed what I wrote.
I still proof and edit, but not much. Usually what editing I do is word reduction.
I computer-find “that;” all the “thats” in what I wrote.
Usually it reads fine without “that.”
I also get rid of passive voice, unless it absolutely needs it.
I also reduce wordiness; usually I can.
Just slinging words may generate verbiage I can usually take out.
So what makes a “great sentence?”
In my humble opinion it’s to convey in as few words as possible.
And greatness is not the ability to do that.
It’s observing and conveying things the reader doesn’t see.
To tell a story that interests my reader, yet not bollix it so much my reader is turned off.
I’ve also concluded my readers enjoy dialogue, even if it’s made up.
Lots of time I let readers fill in the blanks. Explaining everything is a sure path to boredom.

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. During my final year I produced a voluntary newsletter for my bus-union. It was great fun, although time-consuming. I produced it in Microsoft Word® on our home computer. My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended both. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well. After my stroke I began employ at the Messenger newspaper in nearby Canandaigua.

Word-Slinger

Over a week ago I viewed an ad on TV.
I don’t remember what it was for, but they were interviewing people, actors I suppose, who had been pigeon-holed.
I only remember one, some flaccid gray-haired dude they labeled an “art-supporter.”
It’s just like the bachelorette shows, dudes pigeon-holed as a graphic-designer from Los Angeles, or a masseuse from Simi Valley.
To me this is a cheap shot, or I’d like to think people are far more complex than the pigeon-hole assigned to them.
But I wondered how they’d pigeon-hole me. My preference was “word-slinger.”
This “word-slinger” bit goes back a long way; to my 12th-grade English class in 1962.
My English-teacher told me I could write really well.
“But Dr. Zink,” I said — his name was Zink; “it’s only slinging words.”
“But Hughes,” he said; “you do that way better than most.”
I thought him joking, but now that I look back, it was my ability to sling words that got me that job at a boys summer-camp while I was in high-school.
I carried this talent through college. What I remember is acing freshman Physics-lab because I could assemble a great lab-report.
This was despite my usually mucking up experiments.
I also wrote a small humor-column senior year for the college newspaper.
After college I fell into motorsports reporting, mainly because I was trying to freelance motorsports photography.
I started doing photographs for a small weekly newspaper in Rochester (NY) called “City/East.”
Their business-manager, a car-guy like me, asked if I knew anyone who could write motorsports coverage.
“Well, maybe I could do it,” I said.
So began my four-year career covering motorsports for City/East.
The hardest part was cranking my report. Typing and retyping when errors piled up.
Once in a while a flash would occur. At Lime Rock Park in Connecticut I was given trackside credentials, a rare event, so I stationed myself outside a sharp hairpin corner.
A 427-Camaro was trying to stay ahead of a turbocharged 911 Porsche (“poor-SHA”), but it couldn’t corner as well.
The Camaro would blast the corner at insane speeds, its driver sawing the wheel to correct slides.
The Porsche would strafe the corner getting one/two then three wheels in the air.
Eventually the Porsche won, and my report reflected what I saw. It was exciting to watch.
It was the finest story I turned in, and that was after at first just reporting the race results. Finally I just let ‘er rip!
There were others, like on hot-rodding, dune-buggies, and off-road rallying. Expository stuff.
City/East was during a down-time. I had been “laid off” — I always say fired — from my earlier job at a bank. Mainly because I wasn’t a viper, obsessed with ripping people off to make money.
For seven years I wandered around in the wilderness wondering what to do with myself. During that time I was trying to become a freelance motorsport photographer, and I wrote for City/East.
There was no money in it; they were essentially a tax-dodge. I’d depreciate my camera equipment against what little income I had.
I remember interviewing for Motor Trend Magazine. They were interviewing off-the-wall, not even employment agencies.
They were somewhat interested, but I wasn’t interested in moving to Los Angeles. The guy they hired lasted a year.
I gave up the freelance photography, deciding I’d interview as a copy-writer at local ad agencies.
I interviewed at quite a few, and some were interested. I’d present City/East articles as my portfolio.
But no one would, or could, hire me. Ad agencies were already adequately staffed, or so said those interested.
Our next-door neighbor, who drove transit-bus for Regional Transit Service, the supplier of transit bus-service in Rochester and environs, suggested I apply as a bus-driver for RTS. It would be temporary employment, while I tried to find permanent employ as a copy-writer.
“Temporary” turned out to be 16 & 1/2 years. It paid well, so I stayed at it.
During that time I joined Division 282 of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union, our bus-union.
I became somewhat involved in union activities.
Copy-writing was forgotten until a fellow union-employee suggested we do a union newsletter.
This piqued my interest, so I gave it a shot using Microsoft Word® on our humble PC at that time.
Off and running! I’d write giant articles to put in the newsletter, and my friend circulated my newsletter to local politicos who funded Transit.
I followed my wife’s advice to just sling, baby. Forget editing; I didn’t have time for it, and what I wrote was usually good enough.
Transit management was aghast, although some told me they loved it.
Particularly aghast was their highly-paid Public-Relations honcho. At long last the union’s story was getting out — plus what it was like to drive bus.
Local politicians would call up the Public-Relations guy saying “What’s going on down there, Howard? You told me everything was hunky-dory, yet I have this union newsletter reporting a bus fell off a lift.”
“Don’t read that stuff!” Howard would scream. “That thing was written by union activists!”
Beyond that the PR guy was supposed to publish a bimonthly house-organ, but usually failed.
Yet here was I, a full-time bus-driver, publishing an unpaid monthly newsletter.
My newsletter became fun. I was slinging words with gay abandon.
My particular joy was getting that overpaid PR guy all bent outta shape. He refused to talk to me, running into a bathroom at a Transit Christmas-party.
“Just keep it positive!” he screamed.
I began to realize that long ago Zink was right. I ain’t Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, but I do have a talent slinging words.
I had a stroke about one year into my newsletter. It ended my career driving bus, but it wasn’t because of my newsletter, despite long hours and lack of sleep. It was a heart-defect, a PFO.
Perhaps my greatest joy following my stroke, was finding I could still sling words, and it was much easier with a word-processor.
My post-stroke rehabilitation wanted to get my job back driving bus.
I wasn’t interested.
Slinging words was much more fun; I joined a newspaper.
So now, 50-some years after Zink told me I could write, I see he wasn’t joking.

• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.