I’m not a neurolinguist, but as the
expression goes, “some of my best friends
are.” They like to remind us that
the human brain is an organizer. As
marvelous as the brain is, it cannot manage random, disassociated data;
therefore, our brains are crafted to sort, classify, categorize, and relate. “STORIES”
exist in all human cultures because human brains use this format to organize
the events of our existence, and give structure and meaning to our lives. For each of us, our lives become stories
linking and defining who and why we are.
With no particular organizational structure, I share a collection of my
stories:
NEWSPAPER SUMMER
On the 29 day of May in the 15-year of my
life, I asked Miss Katherine Gilespie for a summer job working on my hometown, weekly
newspaper. Miss Gilespie (known to all
the adults in town as Kat) wore, what in the 1950’s was considered “manish” clothing, spoke in a gruff,
raspy voice, and had a heart of gold.
She asked me what I could do? And I asked what she needed done? She hired me for the generous salary
(considering my vast experience) of $15.00 a week, and told me I could ride
with her 4 days a week to Mansfield (20 miles from Logansport) where the paper
was actually published.
I had just completed my 9th
year of formal education, knew I wanted to be a writer, and believed I should
get started. The following Monday, I met
the first, and the best professional journalist I would be privileged to
know. His name was James “Jim” Sasser,
and he was the editor/publisher of two small-town weekly newspapers, the
Logansport Interstate Progress
and the Mansfield Enterprise.
The production of the two papers had been
joined for two years, with the print equipment located in Mansfield. Print was set from melted lead by a deaf typesetter,
and laid-out in wooden galleys. We proofread
the galleys before printing galley proofs for final proofing. I still have a lead slug of my name that the
printer produced as a gift when my first by-line ran.
The printing press occupied the largest
space in the back of the building. When
it operated, the clank and creak and smash reverberated. The ink had a special acidic odor, which
combined with the sharp chemical stench of the paper to create a fragrance I
came to think of as “press day perfume.” It took us four days to compile the content
of the paper and lay out the pages; and on the fifth day we went to press. As the printed pages literally rolled off the
press, we folded, rolled, applied mailing labels, and counted and sorted the
papers. On press day, we wore old
clothes, which grew black from smeared ink, and worked until the job was done,
regardless of the hour.
At our first “sit-down” conference, Mr. Sasser explained to me that there were
writers and there were editors. A few
people could do both jobs; but they were different jobs. He expected me to learn both. He said, edit these, and handed me four
letters from the newspaper’ “correspondents,” ladies who wrote weekly
columns about the “happenings” in
their communities. Their news included,
who was sick or under the weather, what the preacher’s sermon was about, who
sang the special, who had out-of-town visitors, or who had a birthday. A party was big news, and a funeral could
constitute a whole column. He gave me
two rules; make each article literate and grammatically correct, but keep the
column in the “voice” of the writer.
He said, “An editor’s job is to make a
writer better; not take over the writing.”
In our second meeting he placed a
galley between us, and told me to read it and find all the errors. Sounds easy?
Unless you consider that a galley is a mirror image of the printed page.
While reading galleys differs from reading normal text upside down, the two
skills are apparently closely related.
Mr. Sasser later made me proof my own work by turning the typed pages
upside down. He said that reading that
way forced me to see what I had actually written; not what I meant to
write. Like reading lips, being able to
read upside down can prove a bit embarrassing.
Standing across a cluttered desk, you inadvertently read what’s lying
there, and learn things people don’t think you know or don’t mean to share.
In our third meeting, my editor went
over the edited version of my first article.
In our fourth, fifth, and sixth meetings we went over the second, third,
and fourth versions of the same article.
By the time the article was published, I hadn’t learned to write, but I
knew most of the cryptic code of strange symbols used for copy editing and
proofreading. I remember Mr. Sassser
telling me; “We don’t know how to teach
anyone to write; the best we can do is teach someone to write better.”
Over the ensuing weeks, Mr. Sasser
found time to give a 10th grader a short-course in journalism. His global advice was simple – “Visualize your reader, and write for him. Use simple, straightforward sentences, never
convoluted or complex. If the reader has
to pause to figure out what a sentence means, you failed. Use the simplest word
that will accurately convey your meaning.
If you use a $5 word, embed it in context, so the reader can infer the
meaning. That makes your reader feel
smart, not dumb.”
He taught me to write a “lead” sentence that conveyed the “who,” “what,” “when,” and “where” of the story. Then the “body”
of the piece, which elaborated on the lead sentence and covered “how” and “why” when appropriate. Then
finally he showed me how to write the final paragraph(s) as “filler.”
The sequence of the story was really
critical in the days of lead type. The typesetter
generally set the entire piece, then the editor set the galleys. The editor made the content fit the available
space by removing final sentences or paragraphs (physical lines of lead
type). If the story was written wrong,
important information could be cut from the end of the article, and Mrs. Jones
would be really angry that her name was omitted.
Beyond these basics, Mr. Sasser taught me
about “embedded” or “implied” messages. He told me not to write a story about how
English teachers are good people, but rather to write about English Teacher,
Jane Doe, and the good things she was accomplishing. Specific messages about real people are
generalized by readers and convey broader, more global messages. This simple principle became the foundation
for my later work in public relations.
One memorable lesson took place at
my desk in the front office. I was
working from notes submitted by the funeral home about a pending funeral. He frowned as I wrote out the piece in long
hand before beginning to type on the old Underwood. “ No,” he said, and covered my longhand copy. “Compose
at the typewriter. It will feel
awkward for awhile,” he said, “but
then your words will flow through the keys.” I looked doubtful. “Trust
me,” he said. I sit here today,
feeling the words flow through the keys, and am glad I trusted all of his
advice.
After that summer the world moved on
for me and for Mr. Jim Sasser. I continued
to write for the paper, but not as an employee.
I knew he sold the papers and moved away, but I totally lost track. Twenty years after that memorable summer, I
was sitting in bed in our apartment in Port Washington, Long Island, watching
the evening news on the NYC, NBC affiliate.
The anchor, in a somber voice, launched into an extended obituary of
their senior news Editor, whom they called “Gentleman
Jim Sasser.” As I sat open-mouthed,
he recounted how Mr. Sasser left his home in the South for a job at the New York Times where he rose to
the position of City Editor before taking a job with the local NBC affiliate. The world turns most strangely sometimes.
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