LITTLE ROCK — Where to begin? Odds and ends? Random thoughts? Wrapping up? Fond farewells?
How about this?
No, this, my last column, was not written days or weeks in advance. It wasn’t even plotted out before I sat down at the keyboard. A fleeting thought here and there, maybe, but that’s about the size of it. I spent my youth looking ahead and much of middle age learning to appreciate the wisdom in the observation that life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. As what some folks like to call (rather patronizingly, in my opinion) “the senior years” loom, I’m looking for balance between the two.
In short, there are no plans to retire from the work force. Although the economy doesn’t bode well for gainful employment, I intend to pursue some after a little down time during which there is no intention of ruminating over it. A door closes, a window opens, and if it doesn’t just pop up of its own or another’s accord, well, I possess a very sturdy crow bar to help things along.
My old boss and mentor, the late John R. Starr, once chided that loyalty was both my greatest attribute and my greatest fault. He was wrong. If I am anything in great abundance, it is stubborn. I don’t give up or give in easily. Maybe that’s why genealogy has proved to be, overall, such a satisfying pursuit. The higher, broader and thicker the brick wall of which family researchers often speak, the more determined I am, not just to scale it but to shatter it and sift through the rubble for every nugget of information before moving ahead.
So, yes, the genealogical journey will continue, maybe just for my own edification, maybe also for the edification of others. It’s not merely exploring my roots that interests me. Had I known way back when what I know now, I might have chosen some facet of research as a career. Reading and solving puzzles have been favorite diversions for many, many years. Maybe I’ll use some of that down time to become certified in genealogical records and research.
No, writing a book is not on the radar. Been there, done that, although two or three ideas have been kicking around. Just because someone writes for a living doesn’t mean it comes easily. Sometimes it does. Mostly it does not.
Contrary to what some might suspect, and some critics have said it outright, fiction is not my long suit, and following and joining all the threads to produce a coherent tapestry of nonfiction is just about the hardest work I’ve ever undertaken. Well, that and picking peaches for sale at a country market on hot summer days.
Yes, a collection of previous columns might be self-satisfying but for the fact that I’ve written literally thousands of them and most were about current events now grown cold or even forgotten. Then, too, technically they aren’t my property but that of this newspaper. The notion of asking anyone’s permission to use what I will always look upon as my own intellectual property is anathema to me. Nonetheless, there is some satisfaction in knowing that this property, whatever its qualitative and quantitative sum total, is a part of Arkansas newspaper history.
It always made me smile whenever a colleague would remark that, in researching a bit of Arkansas governmental or political history, he or she had come across an old byline of mine. It makes me smile now to consider that someday others may do the same. They won’t know or care who I was, but my name will be there regardless. It’s as close to immortality as I’m ever going to come in this life, but it will suffice.
It would be easy now just to say thanks and let it go at that, but there’s this nagging suspicion that many of you are expecting a bit more than that. Maybe in another place at another time. A few years ago, I agreed to sit in front of a fellow with a note pad and a tape recorder and submit to a cordial grilling for an oral history of the old Arkansas Democrat. After the deed was done, I decided that this had been a mistake. I’d spoken too indelicately about some matters, not indelicately enough about others. As a result, my comments were withdrawn unpublished. But I do still have the tape and the transcript, and tomorrow is another day.
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Associate Editor Meredith Oakley is editor of the Voices page.
Editorial, Pages 83 on 03/20/2011