Believe it, yes! Or believe it, no! It’s a fact!
The article on which your eyes now ponder is the first one starting my 30th year as a freelance writer for the Wellington Advertiser, which has free weekly circulation in numbers fringing 40,000 within the borders of the county of Wellington and worldwide on the web.
The first high toss of my soggy sombrero is obviously due to the love of my life, my Little Lady, who had the patience to encourage me each and every week by placing her hand on the shoulder she often looked over, especially each time a deadline was fast approaching.
It was not uncommon for her to interject with a finger tip twist of my ear while suggesting a word more compatible or appropriate, softening a brash statement that perhaps needed toning down just a little.
The second sombrero toss is, of course, due to William H. Adsett, who founded and published the Wellington Advertiser starting in March of 1968, and who, in August of 1984, browsed momentarily over the sample articles I had presented and, looking as though lacking enchantment, quietly grunted, “Go see Alice.”
And the third, highest of all tosses and perhaps a clapping of hands, is due to Alice, and Alice alone, who accepted my first articles with definite phonetic spelling and total punctuation dysfunction. This, believe it or not, in years long prior to computers and typewriters sporting the comforts of spell-check and grammar!
To these and many others who over the many years gave encouraging feedback, I owe a big bundle of thanks. You all know who you are, so consider yourselves hugged and hugged again.
During this same time, I have managed to publish four books. The first is titled Niska, Niska, Niska, (the Cree Indian name for Canada Goose), which I had written 40 long years ago. It is about two young women, age parted by 20 years, under extreme circumstances whom the Little Lady and I had the pleasure of helping out while I was in real estate during the late 1960s. It is a factual book that flows as though totally fiction. But the turbulence of life itself is quite often stranger than fiction.
The next three are titled The Best of Bits & Pieces – Book One, Book Two, and Book Three – each containing 200 previously-published articles. They’re double the size of the average book and are valuable keepsakes of historical memories. They are great gift items. Give one to Grandma or Gramps so they can stir their memory and pass them on to each and every one of their grandkids.
I have said it before, and I’ll say it again: “Books carry the seeds of thought across the deserts of generations yet unborn.”
Sharing what little one learns in the shortness of a life with others gives one similar satisfaction as volunteer work, which can be not better explained than the similarity of standing in a crowd, wearing a black suit, and wetting yourself – you get a warm feeling but nobody notices.
That’s reason enough for me to write, don’t you think?
Take care, ‘cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105