On the morning of February 14th, 1961 I became a writer. First thing, I answered a want ad offering a used Underwood typewriter for sale. I drove about a mile from my home to a very nice neighborhood. I met an elderly man who was retiring. His price, as I recall, was $25. He explained that he had just retired and that he had written up many wonderful sales on that typewriter and hoped it would treat me as well. I went straight to a stationery store and bought a ream of typing paper and then I went to a print shop and had business cards printed which stated that Arthur J. Fettig was a “Freelance Writer.”
It gave my address and phone number. I then went home and climbed the stairs up to our attic. I had previously bought some wall board and with some help we did a quick job of putting up boards to cover the side walls and then on up to the peaked ceiling. We put in insulation.
I had a fellow in to do some basic wiring. Bought a couple of used lamps and a used electric space heater. Then I set up my typewriter on a stand and lugged a couple of tables upstairs. I opened up the package of paper, set out some carbon paper I’d brought from my work office located in the Grand Trunk Western Railroad Passenger Depot located just two miles from our home.
Nights, after my wife Ruth and I put our four children to bed, I would head on up those narrow stairs to the attic and start turning out submissions for magazines. My goal each night was to write something new and send it out, hopefully to a buyer. When things came back rejected I sent them on to a different prospect until eventually I began getting occasional checks instead of all rejection slips. One day I gathered a stack of humor articles I’d written. I gave them to a visiting book editor as a book and he published it. It was titled “It Only Hurts When I Frown.” I wrote on and on and on and I became a professional speaker in time. I retired from the railroad with 35 years service which included my two years in Military Service. In 1983 I retired to spend full time writing and speaking. I’m working right now on a presentation for Monday.
Now I’m sorting and trying to catalog all the books and booklets I’ve written, sorting them by subject and by dates while a million memories have come flashing through my mind. So many memories. So many joyous memories. And there are sad ones too, and some regrets. They are all there on the shelf now. A seven foot tall bookcase overflowing. Oh, but I left one shelf empty for what is yet to come.
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