I earned my Master’s Degree in Public Affairs Reporting (which would be called Journalism at Columbia U, NY). I have produced newsletters left and right since graduating, written for aviation magazines distributed worldwide and every Springfield news publication published over the past 30 years except The Pure News and The Prairie Flame; served on founding boards of Springfield Air Rendezvous, Air Combat Museum, Heritage In Flight Museum, The American Tanka Society, Central City Neighborhood Association and working boards of many others. Am editorial board member of the American Aviation Historical Society. No, this is not my resume; this is paradox maximus from my comfy office chair on the edge of the world in Springfield’s northeast fringe as I earn my third world wage which I may never see by being a warm body who can maintain the business web site and talk civilly, competently to strangers about natural stone. I am lucky to be here.
It’s been a slow day, essential for folding and mailing the August issue of the Springfield Chapter Illinois Pilots Association newsletter Capital Crosswinds which I also write and edit. I took half a day off Tuesday from Rock City (not my employer’s real name) to produce it because other priorities took precedence Monday night after “work.” Unexpectedly, I also was asked to proofread the AAHS newsletter which came in via e Wednesday. It’s an exceptionally clean issue, and now that I’ve circled the few linguistic anonalies that I could find, 40 minutes spent e-mailing corrections to the editor when I return home 3:30ish this afternoon should put a ribbon on that. Then I have a massive photo and text editing project, details of which I can’t share here. Tonight I will spend at least an hour, maybe two working on that after dinner and at least an hour catching up, maintaining the aviation collection that occupies most of my 2/3s of a two-story duplex with a vacancy upstairs. The pay circumstance (delay in pay) means I can’t advertise the vacancy in the State Journal-Register without bouncing a check and making some good people regret their good-faith transaction with me.
To allow more catching up with LIFE, and to provide an incentive re delayed pay to my employer, I’m cutting back when I can to half days at Rock City. I’d rather work full time, but if you knew how much I am owed TODAY, you wouldn’t blame me for walking away and never coming back — which would mean I’d never see a penny of what I am owed. It also means the “employer” would take back “Black Bear,” the Chevy S-10 pickup truck he’s let me drive for the past three months, which I plan to buy from him in September. He’s generally a nice enough fellow, and I know of no other occupation where I could produce Honey & Quinine and myriad other aviation history and writing projects between activities directed to natural stone which are always my first priority.
“It is a curious paradox” as was said in the immortal musical The Fantastiks and one I don’t enjoy. But I’ll make it work. I’m a writer. If everything were peaches and cream — as my penchant for humor sometimes suggests it is — do you suppose I would be a frikking writer IF I could be a frikking full-time writer?
You bet I would!
Live long . . . . . . and proper.
It’s the writer’s life, a full time writer’s life, that devotes itself to the writing of poems, articles of interest and songs. Our country and the people within need the writer. Salude to the writer, you, and many others.