It was almost like a bomb had dropped inside the closet of my grandparents’ home that rainy morning. But there was no need to take cover for I was on my own private mission, determined to secure a victory.
A few days earlier, I had discovered an old typewriter behind a bag of winter coats in the bottom of my Maw Maw’s closet. Praying for a miracle, I was shocked to find that the vintage, metal antique still worked. But it did make the most horrible racket whenever I pounded on its keys. Unable to pick the typewriter up to carry it to another room, I was limited to the small space in the closet where I found it. Running an extension cord, I had created my own office in that closet. With its tight walls, every sound seemed to vibrate the entire house that morning.
Regardless, I had a job to do. I was busy typing away several copies of the homemade newspaper I was working on to sell to my neighbors on Nobles Road in Monticello. As soon as I pulled the coats off of the typewriter, I began to hunt for paper, any paper, to create a newspaper. I wasn’t concerned about typing tests for my makeshift classroom in my bedroom. I was not the least bit interested in creating myself a fancy diary or journal.
The moment my fingers rubbed across those metal keys, I knew that I wanted to make a newspaper.
Granted, my first edition was not that exicting. The headlines included my Paw Paw’s missing tobacco and pipe. My neighbor Mr. Mack had his granddaughters visiting for the summer. The mean Chow dog that lived down the road was on the roam, striking fear of all my friends on their bicycles. And the Sunday lunch special at Jay’s Restaurant down the road was country fried steak. But held together with paperclips, I went door to door down my road, selling my newspaper for a quarter.
A week later, I bumped the price up to a dollar when I started including cartoons I colored with Archie comics I cut and glued on the back page.
I even got my first rejection when Mrs. Johnson at the end of the road told me that a buck for a newspaper was “highway robbery,” and she refused to buy it. I left a copy rolled up in a rubber band with a note that read “you’re missing all the good news.” I refused to be discouraged.
Time marched on, and the dust began to gather upon that old typewriter. School work, sports and a cute new boy in my class soon stole my attention.
But the fire was ignited inside me to become a reporter. I continued to write notes and poems inside tattered notebooks all through school. I insisted on asking too many questions. I would often get in trouble for talking to strangers just because I was sure they had a story to share. I would join my high school, and later college, newspaper. And I eventually earned my degree in journalism.
Today, I sit in front of my computer keyboard typing away just as I did when I was six years old in front of that old typewriter.
I have exchanged my cup of fruit punch for a hot cup of coffee. I hunt down more serious stories other than out-of-town visitors and missing cans of Prince Albert. I still try to sell my product, hopeful that the community sees the value in it.
Oddly enough, I still charge a dollar for it. Maybe Mrs. Johnson was right...a buck for a paper may have been too high in 1988.
I truly believe that the good Lord gives us all a gift, and it is up to us how we use it. I honestly think God pushed me to dig around the closet that day. I don’t think it was sheer luck that I found that dusty, old typewriter.
I say that with confidence because I just knew I could make something once I pressed down on those keys.
And as I sit down to type on a more modern keyboard, those keys still seem to vibrate the walls of my office.
