Sometimes after a hard-hitting, in-depth report on a serious topic (Is Pickle Ball Your Favorite Sport), I need to take it a little easier the next week for fear I’ll burnout.
When you’re on the close side to 70 you can’t just risk life and limb week after week investigating topics that, well, at the risk of being blunt, sometimes border on dangerous.
I’ve had some close calls. One week after expressing my 1st Amendment rights in a Viewpoint about a president running for re-election, a man came into the newspaper office. He said that he wanted to make sure I was in because he had a present for me.
I affirmed that I was, indeed, present and that it was not one of my body doubles. He went back out to his car and brought me an athletic weight commonly called a ‘dumbbell’.
Being the sharp editorial force that I am, I immediately caught the message he was trying to deliver. He dis agreed with my comments about the president running for re-election. It’s a dangerous world out there.
I’ve had some close calls being on the Colorado City Metro District, as well. I remember on one occasion getting stopped as I was leaving the local grocery store after work. I was informed, in a rather animated way, that Colorado City was being unfair to someone in regard to their water bill.
I don’t make it a habit to turn and run, or walk off, so I listened to the 45-minute lecture on the evils of the water district focused primarily on those of us on the board. Luckily, even though it went for about 45 minutes the person did his best to use very short words, mostly four letters, to express his concerns.
One week, I was having a problem deciding what to write about and I wrote a story on a Books for Bikes promotion in the schools. Safe, right? No, in the Viewpoint I, jokingly, said I didn’t think it was very safe to encourage students to ride bicycles while reading. We got a ‘Letter to the Editor’.
Deciding what to write about some weeks is the most time-consuming part of creating a Viewpoint. To those of you snickering in the background, “hush!” I know some of you have suspected that for the last 13 years. Once I decide, it comes a lot easier and being pretty opinionated on just about everything, the six hundred or so words usually flow. I will admit, and don’t tell anyone, but on a few occasions I have started into a Viewpoint with a definite opinion and changed it when I did research on the issue.
Since the first issue in August 2009, when we bought the paper, there have been only two times that a Viewpoint wasn’t printed. Both were a last-minute editorial decision. One, we decided was too personal and one we decided there were more pressing things that needed to be put in print that week.
We have a Letter to the Editor this week, and I really, really, really do appreciate those. Mini-Viewpoints! This one I agree with completely, but I appreciate them even when I disagree.
The First Amendment is so important. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
So important.
Thanks for relaxing with me this week. If the Supreme Court issues a ruling in the next few days that overturns Roe vs. Wade, I’m pretty sure I’ll have something to say next week. Maybe even if they don’t.