Hayter’s article
for Aug 14, 2022?”
"Tubing or not Tubing"
I enjoy looking over the old issues of the Courier “Trends” section of Sunday’s paper. If you turn the page you’ll likely see what I’m talking about. I’d suggest you’d do it now, but I fear you’ll forget to come back.
The pages and the print in the older issues were larger than the current newspaper, so the only way the old articles will fit on a page is to shrink them. I don’t care to go back in time to read the old newspapers, but I do enjoy short visits. Last week, I saw a picture of Barbara Fredricksen, a young, editor/columnist who accepted the first article I ever wrote. The title was “Tubing or not tubing?” She put it on Page One of the “Sunday Plus” section.
I was blown away. The format of “Sunday Plus” was that of a magazine published on newsprint, like the old “Zest” Section of the Chronicle. On the front page of July 6, 1980’s Sunday Plus section was a photo of me sprawled out on an inner-tube, beneath the San Jacinto River Bridge over I-45. The bridge has been widened, heightened, and sturdified so much since 1980. – Beg pardon? “Sturdified?” Oh, yeah, it’s a real word. My dad used it off and on. I don’t know the origin of “off and on”, though.
After the tubing article went to print, I imagined that I was now a full-fledged columnist. No one asked me. So I kept writing and submitting. Barbara Fredricksen accepted the five other articles I submitted. After she received the first of the five, she asked to see me. When I came to her office, she showed me some mistakes I’d made. She pulled my copy off her desk and it had corrections galore. Fredricksen was even more generous with her red ink than my senior English teacher.
My article was an opinion piece about teachers needing a raise. The piece made it into the paper, and I thought it was very well written.
On January 5, 1981, I was a full-fledged columnist for the Courier. I was the Monday columnist. It was the best of things, it was the worst of things. It meant that I had to come up with something to write every week. Back then I had to hand write an article and then type it out. I never thought of actually typing it out first. Typewriters were unforgiving.
I usually finished by three a.m. on the day of my deadline. Then I’d drive to the post office to make a copy, and then drive to the Courier and put it in the mail slot. Then I’d come home, get in bed and end up in my classroom at six. Those were the worst of days.
I never managed to come up with a topic, until the day before my deadline. I never could trust an article written a day ahead of time. I’ve been crazy like that ever since. Lynn Ashby and Leon Hale used to write at least four articles week. It was their job. And, they were better men than me. (Fredricksen would require “I” over me in that sentence. While I know that “I” is proper, it just messes up the sentence for me. Barbara eventually accepted my quirks. There are a bunch.
What made me think of Barbara Fredricksen was the fact that I saw her column in last week’s Trends section. It was on the front page of the August 12, 1977 Conroe Courier. It was in the historical section of Trends.
When I saw the picture of the young lady who was my first newspaper boss, I got the chills. Got something. Without Fredricksen’s help, my writing career would’ve ended with an article about tubing. I take rejection much harder than is healthy. If Barbara had not given me so much encouragement, I would’ve given up.
Let me read you the note that woman put on my first check-stub. “Mark, I have two feelings toward your column. 1) Envy at the style and wit you show. 2) Joy that we have your column on our pages.” -- Besides, Kay, you’re the first I ever shared this with.
Had it not been for Barbara’s acceptance I doubt I ever would’ve tried to write. And, without the urging of my best friend Virginia Pliler I wouldn’t have thought of writing about the Hayter and Pliler’s wild and crazy tubing excursion near New Braunsfels. It was Virginia’s idea that I write about the trip and submit it to the Courier.
Virginia stayed on my case, until I wrote the thing. That’s the reason I wrote it. And a friend of mine, Diane Blake, helped me along the way. Diane worked at the Courier as a reporter and a Jane-of-all-trades. She helped me so much along the way.
Of course, Kay has been a rock through it all. She put up with a lot during the days I wrote through the night. And the many times I climbed on the roof at all hours. hoping to come up with an idea.
The message I see out of this story is that there are people in my life and yours who have done something to help move us along life’s path. Good or bad, we’re a part of what we know and who we’ve known. And each of us has encouraged others and discouraged some along their life’s paths. It can be difficult to know the right time to encourage or discourage someone’s idea. I have family members and friends who have discouraged me away from some ideas that weren’t well thought out.
Yes we’ve each had help from and have offered help to some. Seldom are either of us privy to particular things in this world that helped others. Fortunately, God has helped me keep in mind the names of others who helped me on my journey to today. People like Barbara Fredricksen and the others I have mentioned here and many whom I’ve written about over the years.
I wish God would open my eyes to the many people whose help I never noticed. I imagine you could say the same. It’s a mystery that each of us share.
Happy 47th year to my brother the writer
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