I Should Keep a Diary
by Ken Graham
Following are excerpts from diary entries about preparing this month's issue of Blue Mountain News that I would have written if I actually kept a diary (which I don't):
August 19: Today I interviewed Jill Ingram and Monica Stobie about their art careers for the feature story in the October Issue. I asked each of them to list the countries throughout the world where their artwork is currently hanging. In her list Jill included the names "Kamazastan" and "Inglooistia". I think she was just having a little fun with me . . . but I'm not totally sure.
August 31: I drove to Walla Walla today to attend the wind project appeal hearing. It turns out that court rooms there have dress codes. News boys wearing shorts aren't allowed in. I mentioned this to a friend and she suggested that perhaps it was time I became a grownup newspaper person. I'll give it some thought.
September 4: I stopped by the Brew Pub this afternoon for a pint of the new IPA. It was heavenly. Just as my beer was being delivered, three fire trucks raced down Main Street with their sirens at full wail. Mike McQuary, the pub's proprietor, made the comment that a good news reporter would be running out to his car right now to follow the fire trucks. What, and leave a full glass of beer sitting on the table? Is he nuts?
September 12: With Dad running for mayor again, I've been thinking about how I could sneak in a subtle endorsement without anyone thinking the newspaper had lost credibility. (And yes, I care.) Maybe I could mention the time, when we were teenagers, that my brothers and I begged him and begged him to buy us a motorcycle. And he actually did! What a great dad he was. Of course I've often wondered since then if maybe he was really trying to kill us. Better leave it alone.
September 18: I'm learning that the newspaper business can be fraught with controversy. Here at Blue Mountain News we've been having spirited discussions (heated arguments, really) about whether a quote mark at the end of a sentence should come before or after the period. I say flip a coin. But my mother and chief proof-reader, Julia, is appalled at what she considers my cavalier attitude toward punctuation. One time I put a comma before "and" and you'd have thought I had defaced the Statue of Liberty. The expletives, scratched in big red letters across the proof copy that came back, were shocking – even to me.
September 22: I just remembered that today my cousin Maureen in Indianapolis is having a birthday. She sends me a birthday card every year, without fail. Once again I've forgotten to send her one. And now it's too late. Maybe she'll forgive me if I wish her happy birthday right in the newspaper. I'll make sure to send her a copy, and we'll see if she reads it.
September 24: Well, the deadline to send this thing to the printer has arrived. Once more, here I am at the last minute, ripping around like a jackrabbit at Starbucks. It's almost done, but I've got one spot left for a short news item and nothing to put there. Oh, what the heck – I'll just make something up. I wonder if they do that at the New York Times.
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