OPINION SHAPER: Time to say goodbye… Print Email November 21, 2009 12:00 am • By Jerry Smith1 The title of this column also is a song in one of Sarah Brightmans discs - and a favorite of mine. Fitting for this column. After a dozen years of being an Opinion Shaper, Ive decided to move into another stage of retirement. No more columns. A couple of reasons. Mainly Im finding it tough to come up with subject matter. I prefer to write light-hearted stuff. My sense of humor has been seriously damaged by the absurdities moving my country in what I consider to be the wrong direction. But there is another, somewhat tongue-in-cheek reason, which takes more time to explain. I began being a writer in a more than casual way when I was 19. Through a set of odd circumstances, while I was earning my living as a clerk at the Records Center on Goodfellow in St. Louis, I became a writer for a brand-new publication - the Greater St. Louis Sportsman. I first wrote photo captions, then added reports of football games, then added a football column. For which I earned nothing - except a direction for my life. I only did it for one season because it led me to utilize the GI Bill to enroll at the University of Missouri as a journalism major. I aimed to become a sports writer for the Post-Dispatch or Globe-Democrat, back when St. Louis had both. In my sophomore year I joined the staff of the campus humor magazine, Showme, as a writer - and my thought of being a newspaperman slowly drifted away, being replaced by an interest in creative writing. (Little did I realize that, in another generation, news writing would also become creative!) In my junior year I was editor. For two years I flooded the magazine with my output. However, just as with my brief newspaper career, I was never paid. Things changed in my 32 years of doing creative writing in the advertising business. I was paid quite well. And when I retired, I expanded efforts in my model-ship-building hobby and wrote articles for a model ship magazine, for which I was paid modestly. I got even more when the model illustrated the cover. That continued until some five years ago when the eyes and hands could no longer deal with the small-scale work. Soon after we moved to St. Charles County in 1996, I began writing an Opinion Shaper column for the Journal. So Ive been at it for a dozen years or so. And, with what is a footnote for much of my writing experience, I was not paid for it. But that just added to the proof that my love of writing exceeded my desire for money. However, when the Journal decided, last year, to start charging for subscriptions, I was somewhat annoyed. After all, with my no-pay Sportsman and Showme work I got the publications for free. Had I started paying for the Journal in the beginning, the situation wouldnt have been added to the other reasons for ending one of my favorite pastimes. But, in truth, that factor really isnt significant. I just had to get the dig in. (I subscribed.) So farewell to all my readers, especially to those friends who commented favorably on articles, and even to others who let me know what they didnt like. (Sometimes that, too, gives satisfaction.) To all those who have written Opinion Shaper columns, I salute you for the courage you showed in expressing your opinion without hiding your identity, as others sometimes do. And special regards to those who have been entertaining. Finally, thanks to the Journal for the opportunity to say my piece - and especially to editor Dennis Miller, who has been kind, understanding and helpful through these years. And will never get another unbalanced headline from me. This may be the shortest column I ever wrote for the Journal. But that leaves more room for letters, which I may begin writing because you dont get paid for it. But now, sadly, its time to say, Goodbye. Jerry Smith of Weldon Spring is a retired writer and producer for an advertising agency. Opinion Shapers are chosen annually to write five columns on topics of interest to them.
Posted on: Fri, 11 Oct 2013 20:57:04 +0000
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