The two heavy hitters for the Weekly View — Editor-in-Chief Ethel Winslow and Creative Director Paula Nicewanger — granted me the opportunity to attend a play at the Indiana Repertory Theater. I had been envious of their attendance at another play that had been written by my homie, and I whined enough to get them to wrangle a media pass for me to see Fences. On Friday, January 30th, I was seated at a table with my bosses, waiting to see another of August Wilson’s plays, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.
Shortly after we sat down, we were joined at the table by a couple; we introduced ourselves and Brad and Heidi did so, also. As we settled into the enjoyment of the offerings of food and drink, we started to chat. We three, led by Paula, the Chief Chatterbox, told the story of our association and the publication that Ethel and Paula craft. Paula noted that I was a columnist for the paper, (though she omitted the story of how she kidnapped me and held me locked in a closet to force me to write 600 words. See “The Writer’s Art, 10/31/2019.) After hearing “newspaper,” and “columnist,” Heidi looked at me and made the query that I often get: “What do you write about?”
That question has been posed to me before, and each time I hear it, I fumble and stumble and mumble, but I still do not have a clear and concise answer for it. “Stuff…” doesn’t seem to be sufficient. I have my e-mail address at the bottom of each column, and I hear from readers. The general tenor of the communications tends to be complimentary, and the writers often have similar experiences to those that I have recorded. But what do I write about?
I write about my passage through life, the experiences, and the people I have encountered. My three kids get information about me from the columns I have submitted to this newspaper. My eldest child called me some time ago after having read one of my columns, and said to me, “Wait? You were engaged to someone before my mom?” I wrote about my work as a psychiatric attendant at the hospital that would later help my youngest brother; I wrote about my mother who, dragging 5 children, climbed from welfare to become a nurse. I wrote about my sister, a high school dropout who went on to become an award-winning writer and producer for TV and radio, and who was a workplace neighbor in Pittsburgh to Mr. Fred Rogers.
I cannot give you a precise description of what I write about, Heidi. I write about the joy and sorrows we have in our passage through life; I write about the music that I hear, and the musicians who deliver it. I write about the poetry that I read, and the poetry that I write, and the professors at Indiana University Southeast who introduced me to that art form. I wrote about the bandit who climbed through my window and how I mounted a motorcycle to chase him down. I wrote about the birth of my first child and the death of my mother. And I wrote about the veterinarian who came to my second bride’s home to gently put down Roxanne, the sweet dog; she told me that it was “the dream of (her) heart” to provide that gentle release.
When asked, “what’s it all about, CJ,” I think of the song sung by Dionne Warwick; I have no answer. I just keep typing for faithful reader Susie, hoping that she will approve.
cjon3acd@att.net