I’ve been writing since graduating from the eighth grade. I wrote a serious poem for a pretty girl and she laughed. Then in 1946 I was named “Staff Poet” on the Cub News At the University of Detroit High School not because of any literary merit. I was just the only one in sight at the time who wasn’t busy playing football or basketball or running on the track team. When the folks putting the school paper together had gaps of blank space to fill they would wedge one of my sorry offerings in to fill the page.I felt like I was turning in putty, not literature.
I wrote one poem that wasn’t very complimentary about our Principal and I zoomed up on his hit list and I paid for that little attempt at humor dearly. I wrote the lyrics for a song in 1946. On the ship coming home from Korea I wrote another song and we formed a quartet and performed the song for the troops several times. The other members of the quartet taught me to lip sync. I also wrote one long poem while in the army. It might not have been all that long, it just seemed long when I read it to others.
I wrote some articles for an Association of American Railroads publication and won a couple of Annual Best Article Awards. One got me a trip for my wife and me to an annual convention in Houston, all expenses paid. The second time I won it our General Counsel took himself and his wife to California to pick up my award. He reasoned that it wouldn’t be fair for me to go to two conventions. He was very strong on fairness.
When I was transferred to Battle Creek, Michigan in 1961 I went on a binge writing and I guess I’m still on it. Writing led to speaking and it opened up doors I’d never have dreamed of approaching. What’s your hobby?
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