I entered journalism in 1976 at Southern Illinois University. I read a book by Woodward and Bernstein and another by Tom Wolfe and decided this was my calling. Democracy needed me. Literacy itself needed me. Plus, a lot of cool chicks worked at The Daily Egyptian.

     We were blessed with a faculty advisor named Bill Harmon, a cranky, hunched-over guy with glasses at the end of his nose and a real hip grey vandyke.

     "You're making it harder than it really is. Write the fucking headline."

     "There may be a story in this mess, but damned if I can find it."

     "You're not writing. Why aren't you writing?"

     Yesterday's newspaper went up on the wall every morning. Red ink adorned our failings. Now and again, something I did would be circled and described, "Good."

     I would hang around by the red-ink edition and wait for the cool chicks to walk over.

     "Harmon said something nice about you."

     "Really?"

     I worked in small-town journalism less than four years before discovering my true calling, alcoholism. There weren't enough hours in the day to work and drink, so I sought out careers which allowed me to combine the two. I was the youngest daily newspaper editor in Illinois. Two years later I served microwaved Mexican food for under $5.00 a plate. It was almost edible if one consumed the $3.00 margarita. The concoction which produced these drinks looked like it belonged in a Dairy Queen.

     I kept my Illinois Press Association awards handy, just in case Woodward and Bernstein were seated at my station.

     I stayed alive, but I left behind something more important than a career. I left behind the way I think. I learned under Bill Harmon that I didn't write very well. But I re-wrote very well. I became a popular editor because I punched up copy turned in by the writers.

     I wrote by blasting through my notes getting everything I could think of written down. Then I went to work. Cut here. Drop that whole mess. What's this? Move it down here. This should be over there. Cut. Cut. Rewrite the whole thing. Better. Wait. What the fuck is this? Why is a meat loaf recipe in here? Cut. Start over. Rewriterewriterewrite. Over and over until I could look at it and say, Good.

     Imagine an artist carelessly tossing colors against a pallet before arranging them to form a house, a tree, a dog or all three.

     Soon enough I forgot about all this. It made no sense to serve the wrong flavor Dairy Queen margarita if I was going to have to go back and get the right one. So I did what we all do, I guess. I guarded my thoughts. I stopped worrying about being right and started worrying about not being wrong.

     Restaurants came and went, as did other careers and eventually, drinking. But until recently I was guided by negative energies. Don't do it wrong. Don't make a mistake. Don't be dumb.

     Now I tap away here at Open Salon writing horrible sentences and taking indescribable delight in fixing them. Here's an example of my inverted, backward natural writing style:

     "He hadn't really hurt the dog, who was bigger, and the dog didn't seem to care as she ran down the driveway and he hid under the porch."

     I blow it up and put it back together and it looks like this:

     "The dog ran happily down the driveway, oblivious to the assault delivered by the skinny four-year-old under the porch. She was much larger than he."

     I head into everything backward.

     "Carlos was supposed to have been at the bank by noon and he wasn't going to make it because it was noon already, so he hopped into the Mustang and tore down down the street, a very leafy one which made it slippery so of course he didn't see the yellow sign warning him to "Beware Deaf Child."

     Blow this shit up and put it back together.

     "A Mustang can't grip a wet track. Autumn leaves made it worse. Carlos missed the sign: Beware Deaf Child. He saw the child, cut and spun the Mustang into a tree. He was already late. Frankie would not be pleased." 

     I can't do it right the first time for love or money. So I sit here hour after hour, dropping eggs on the floor and putting them back into each other's shells, yolks intact.

     My sister sent me an e-mail. Been watching your blog, she says. It must be very gratifying for you to do this after all these years.

     I missed the meaning the first time and responded yeah, yeah, thanks. Then I thought. And tried again.

     "Happiness as we all know comes in many forms not the least of which..."

     "There are (scratch that) have been times I have been happy perhaps, but..."

     "You are most kind, as always, perhaps I take for granted..."

     Blow it up and start over.

     "You have a point of course. The act of putting words together to make sense of, to find meaning in that which blah blah blah...

     I thought of Bill Harmon. You're making it harder than it really is. Just tell the fucking story. I settled for this.

      I have never been so happy.