When people would ask how long I intended to keep writing columns, I always replied. “Until I get one right.” I never got there. But what a trip I’ve had trying.
A journey from coast to coast as a sports writer covering the Masters, Super Bowls and the first seven seasons of the Cincinnati Bengals. Then around the world for more than 6,000 columns. From the Berlin Wall to the Great Wall of China. Red Square to Tiananman Square. The Democratic Convention in San Francisco to the National Tattoo Convention in Houston.
It was filled with unique opportunities. Riding the Goodyear blimp over Akron and riding a camel in Egypt. Wrestling a bear in a shopping mall and baring it all at a nudist camp. From a Good Morning America appearance in New York City to a behind-the-scenes visit with Rob Lowe and Allison Janney on the West Wing sound stage in Burbank. Breakfast with Muhammad Ali. Lunch with Red Skelton. Dinner with Gloria Steinem.
But the real rewards were the responses from readers who said they got a laugh, a snicker or a smile from a column I had written. Readers who said they could identify with something I had experienced.
From the readers who said one of my fact-based, but wildly-exaggerated, family columns had reassured them their own families were not that unhinged, after all. Or, at least, weren’t the only ones.
(Admittedly, some of those columns, might have been a bit too personal. Like the one that prompted a letter to the editor declaring, “When D. L. Stewart wrote that column about his vasectomy, he cut his throat.”)
I owe a lot of people a lot of thanks for all those moments. To my editors, who promised to give me free rein to write and generally kept their word. To Erma Bombeck, the patron saint of family columns, who inspired me.
And, of course, to my family, who forgave me. Frequently. Although there was that time when, in the type of outburst not unknown to blended families, a teenage stepson railed, “You don’t even have a real job.”
But the kid was right. What I had wasn’t a real job.
It was a privilege.
Contact this columnist at dlstew_2000@yahoo.com.
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