So I have rambled incessantly over the weeks and months -- especially since I became the Editorial Page Editor and started producing daily opinion/editorial pieces for my daily -- about how everyone seems to thrive off phoning or writing me to let me know I live in a blood red state. Each concerned citizen feels the need to either convince me of the error of my ways or attempt to convert me or, most often it seems, just wants to let me know the extent of their vocab skills.
The last occurs maybe 60 percent of the work week, the middle from every other drone -- or readers, as they so wish they were -- and the first, each and every person.
It does not go unappreciated or unnoticed. With each instance, a certain glow is provided to my day. Every time it happens, it makes me happy to be alive.
Mind you, I am wrong, even when what I write is an agreeable piece with said concerned citizen. There is a certain, as it was said to me Tuesday afternoon, subconscious, between-the-lines way in which I write, it seems. Never straight-forward and to the point, just my attempt to lead the sheep astray.
The four-letter words, the venom, the hate spewed forth by these mouth-breathers, brings a smile to my face. As my friend, Kevin, told me when I took this job, "When your voicemail is running over and your inbox crammed full, you know you have done your job when you are being attacked on all sides."
It did not take long for me to understand exactly what he meant by that.
I am a little more than two months into this job. Before that I was privy to this knowledge from the former Editorial-Opinion Writer/Editorial Page Editor and I got different, while hateful all the same, input from readers/subscribers as a former Sports Editor (hey it was all that was available -- sports -- when I first applied out of college). I took the job, because I needed the job, and rather quickly moved up the newsroom's food chain into management. But I never wanted to stay in sports long and when I was approached about transferring to the dark side of news, I leaped. I hurled myself in my current direction because of several reasons.
First, I have wanted to try my hand at opinion/editorial almost as long as I have wanted to work in print journalism (specifically, since I was about 12 or 13 years old).
Second, it was the best avenue for future advancement -- I was not moving up directly from my Sports Editor desk.
Third, the hours are much better. In sports, it is a seven-day-a-week gig. For us being an a.m. paper, it also meant working from about 2 or 3 p.m. to anywhere from midnight to 2 or 3 a.m. Seven-days-a-week, 10 hours a *night* will burn your light out rapidly. Now, I work Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The new hours allow me to actually have a life, letting me spend that life with my 4-year-old son. I have witnessed more in his life -- every other weekend -- the last three or so months than I had in the previous three-plus years combined. I truly do believe that.
For those three primary reasons, I allow myself to be attacked -- not in a physical nature, so far. ... I am subjected to violent phone conversations; twisted, violent e-mails; and bi-polar, schizophrenic letters delivered by the postal service. I do all of this, not with dread or fear, but most times with a smile on my face. Ninety-nine percent of these kind souls do not realize the sad insanity in which they spew. The contradictions and preschool logic have moved me to tears before. Not because I am frightened or properly put in my place, but because I am laughing so hard, my tummy hurts.
So as I sit here at my home computer, researching future edits, I look forward to Wednesday.
I just wonder how many four-letter words and names I will be called? The funny thing is with it being Wednesday, some of these kind folks will attend their house of worship.
Where I live, it seems, red state equals the opposite of family values and compassion. It equals hypocrisy.
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