Annette, the brains of the family, was scanning her Phi Beta Kappa newsletter and suggested I might enjoy a blog by William Zinsser on the American Scholar website. Take a look for yourself if you like.
In one of his posts, Zinsser writes about his days at the Herald Tribune, and the “vast and grimy city room” where giants of post World War II journalism came daily to work. It made me think of my arrival at the Old Colony Memorial. The newsroom was roomy, if not vast. It was at least disheveled, if not actually grimy; and if the people there weren’t giants, they definitely impressed me.
My publisher was the late Phyllis Hughes, and my editor was Nan Anastasia who I still count as a friend. They delighted in excellence, and I tried to give it to them. In return they taught me, corrected me, and, best of all, allowed me the freedom to work in my own way.
Nan hired me as I was walking down Main Street in Plymouth about two weeks after I sold my insurance agency. I’d been writing a food column for years, but now I felt like part of the staff. I even got to exercise my other craft, which was photography. I had real assignments and came back with usable copy. I learned that people generally love to be interviewed. How often does a person really listen to you and write down what you have to say?
Writing gave me an excuse to make an appointment with a business owner and be shown around. I spent a day with a lobsterman, and rode in a flat-bottomed boat upon the icy waters of a scallop farm in Fairhaven Natick , and the owner of a shop on the Plymouth
All in all, I had so much fun, I wondered if I shouldn’t have started in some vast and grimy city room directly upon my graduation from college. I harbored ill thoughts about the head of the Bates College English Department, who felt I had no aptitude for the subject and suggested I major in something else. If it hadn’t been for him, I might have ended up like Zinsser and have a blog of my own.
Wait a minute…
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