Writing

As a student I viewed writing assignments as the ultimate form of bullying by the teachers.  I would put them off as long as possible (as I imagine most of us did), compounding my misery by having to stay up late working on them the night before they were due.

As an adult, though, I often encountered books, articles and especially opinion pieces I felt strongly about — either for or against — and would sometimes draft a letter to an author or editor as a result.  But in the days before the Internet I could never seem to find where to send my comments so my letters just ended up in the trash.

But when one of our farms was vandalized and swastikas painted on the sides of buildings, I wrote about it to our local paper.  My words must have carried some weight because the community responded and the vandals were soon identified.  This reminded me that words do have power and that while writing because one has to may not be fulfilling, writing because one has something to say is another matter.

Once it became possible to email larger newspapers, I started contributing my personal take on a variety of issues (see Letters to Newspapers).   Over time this evolved into writing a weekly column in the local Albion News and occasional guest editorials in other papers (see Posts).  By now I’ve shared my proverbial “2 cents worth” of thoughts on a range of issues (and 2 cents is about all I’ve ever made from writing).   And though it’s been “prophisized” that my ideas will lead to little (see Introduction),  I’m going ahead and sharing them here.

Because I’ll be adding to them on a regular basis, my columns appear on this site in reverse chronological order as posts.  The rest of my writings are presented on pages under the headings of Introduction, Letters to Newspapers, Essays, Speeches, Interviews, and Ghost Stories.

Thanks for visiting and I hope you find something of value…