Should newspapers have trigger warnings? Are we that fragile as a society that we have to be warned that something unpleasant may exist? I can watch hours of violence on prime-time television, but when the nightly news comes on, I have to be warned that the report of an auto accident might be disturbing? Another […]
A while back my pal Barb Westerfield told me about an episode of the Independent Lens series on PBS called Storm Lake that I should watch. Barb knows I spent most of my working years publishing small town newspapers, and she said this one was right up my alley. To be honest, I forgot about […]
Anybody who’s ever had to deal with the public on a daily basis can tell you that some people can be very hard to handle. Whether you’re working behind the counter in a retail store, as a service technician, a nurse, a school teacher, a first responder, or anybody else, believe me, they all have […]
Don’t let the title of today’s blog fool you. I didn’t run a 7K marathon or do any other kind of running yesterday. Trust me, if you ever see me running, you had better run, too, because there’s something really big and mean behind me! But I did have kind of a marathon writing day, […]
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (no, actually it was right here, come to think of it), automobiles came with this funny little metal thing called a key that you put into a slot on your car’s dashboard or steering wheel column. You turned it and the engine started, just like […]
From the time I was a kid I always wanted to be a writer, and especially a newspaperman. I consider myself very lucky that for most of my life I’ve made my living with the written word and been able to own and publish quite a few small town newspapers. Over the years I’ve seen […]
As I’ve said before, during my days publishing small town newspapers I always enjoyed a good relationship with the local law enforcement community. At least for the most part. There was one exception that I will talk about some other time. Sometimes this resulted in some wild adventures. I was doing a ride along with […]
Television has taught us that journalists and the police are always at odds with each other, sworn enemies who will never come to any kind of middle ground. The reporters are pushy and don’t care about anything but getting the story, and if they can throw a cop under the bus to get it, even […]
I’m back with more questions from blog readers about RVing, what’s happening in our lives since we hung up the keys, and all kinds of other things. While I try to answer all questions individually, I also share some here occasionally. Q. We are watching the news coverage of Hurricane Eta and are really worried […]
I have done quite a few things to earn a buck in my life, and some of them have been a bit bizarre while others have been rather mundane. I think the shortest job I ever had was about four hours. Right after I got out of the Army a thousand years ago, I got […]
If you were to believe popular fiction or current events, there is a lot of animosity between police and the press. Sometimes that animosity is well-earned on both sides, but at least in fiction, much of it is overblown. With my own background of having been around law enforcement, I always enjoyed a very good […]
In my last newspaper days column, titled Cinderella, I wrote about how small town politicians and bureaucrats always tried to avoid me because they knew I would ask questions they didn’t want to answer and print stories they didn’t want the public to read. I also mentioned that the school superintendent in our little Arizona […]
Publishing small-town newspapers on the Pacific Northwest coast and in Arizona was a lot of fun, and I like to think that sometimes my publications made a difference in the communities they served. I gained a reputation for stepping on toes, and that was all right with me because sometimes those toes really needed to […]
My dad used to always say that some people are so cheap that if you were selling $100 bills for five bucks, they would ask for a discount. I thought that was funny as a kid, but when I grew up and started running my own businesses, I found out that it was all too […]
No, don’t insert the name of your least favorite politician from either side of the aisle, this question is related to an e-mail I got from a gentleman yesterday. He has a very nice 2016 fifth-wheel trailer for sale, and with his ad he included pictures of a Honda generator, a screen room, lawn chairs, […]
As I said in a blog post a couple of days ago, our family has a lot of birthdays in April, and today is my granddaughter Destiny’s. Can you believe this beautiful newborn baby is thirteen today? Destiny is a very intelligent, very loving young lady who makes us proud all the time. But she […]
After reading yesterday’s blog post Stepping On Toes, in which I mentioned receiving death threats and being assaulted during my time publishing small town newspapers, a couple of blog readers said they would like to hear some stories from those days. I’ve definitely got some stories to tell, and they don’t all involve death threats […]
During my long career publishing small town newspapers in both the Pacific Northwest and Arizona, I used to always laugh at the response my editorials would get from people. To half of my readers I was a gun toting, KKK cross burning right wing extremist. To the other half of the readership I was a […]
I’ve met a lot of authors in my time, and I’m always interested in how and where they work. Some of them say they must have their own quiet space with no distractions, while others claim they can write anywhere, including coffee shops, sitting at the kitchen table while the kids and dog are running […]
Here’s another tale from the Nick Happens file. I have always thought of myself as a man of the world. As a kid we moved around a lot and I was exposed to all kinds of people and their peculiarities. A few weeks after I graduated from high school, I was wearing a green uniform […]