Someone plucked my sleeve as I was exiting a store. I turned toward a bright smile, and a woman said to me, “I like your stories.” She told me that she had recently seen me at a community event and added, “Congratulations on your award.”
My picture sits atop the column that I write for this publication, a picture taken when I was a “foreign correspondent,” filing columns from St. Louis Missouri. I don’t think that I look much like that photo, but when I was visiting the original Coal Yard Coffee location on Bona Avenue in Irvington, some people would approach to ask if I was, well — me. When I agreed that I was “CJ Woods,” they would tell me of reading the Weekly View and say that they enjoyed reading my columns. When I was sitting in the Irving Theater at an event that featured the columnist Al Hunter, Rick Bryant told me that he was a “faithful reader” of my column; at a Heartland Film Festival showing, a woman named Cindy sat next to me and asked about my sick brother, about whom I had written.
I wrote of having become an “Accidental Columnist” (Weekly View, March 12, 2010.) My first and accidental submissions to the Eastside Voice were posts that I had written for a social media site; my friend and co-owner of this publication, Paula Nicewanger, mistook my profane and humorous parody of “Fight Club” as columns for publication and demanded more. I complied, and the rest, as the cliché goes, is history. When I was in St. Louis, my writing was toward a larger audience, but when I moved back to Indiana (and to Irvington in 2013) my subjects became more topical. But I continue to learn and grow by reading what has already been published. As an artist, I am almost never satisfied with what I have created when I submit it, but will often read it later and think, “I got it done,” and believe that the “600” (Weekly View, August 15, 2013) words that I set down on paper will satisfy the reader. I write about people and events that interest and affect me, and hope that the stories resonate with readers. I have found that, for the most part, they do. Many of my columns have some reference to books, poetry, and music, the things that I have read, written, and sung. My e-mail is at the bottom of each column, and I have gotten notes from readers. I respond to each of them with a grateful, “Thanks for your readership.” And when a reader contends against my word usage in a column, I am always up for “A Word Fight,” (Weekly View, September 23, 2021.)
The woman who plucked my sleeve at the shopkeeper’s door introduced herself as Lori; I thanked her for reading this paper. When I returned to the shop, the counterman told me that he had been unaware that I wrote for the paper that was available each week on one of the shelves in the store. He said that Lori had pointed out that she knew me through these “Words From Woods.”
Thanks for plucking my sleeve, Lori, and noting my Founders Award from the Irvington Community Council; and thanks, Rick, and Cindy, whom I have also met in person. And to those who have sent me e-mails with notes of appreciation — Laura, Ralph, James, Melinda, Mary Lou, Mike, Kari, Daniel, Tom, Jeremy, Stephanie, David, Ken, Douglas, Phil, Jack, Beth and Jeff — I give you:
Thanks, for reading.
cjon3acd@att.net