Among Other Things
Paul Fugleberg, guest column
After more than a half-century of writing a newspaper column, I sometimes wonder if the topic well will dry up one of these days. Seldom does a week go by that someone doesn’t ask, “Where do you get the topics for columns?”
The answer is lots of places; that’s why I call this “Among Other Things.” Readers suggest some topics, news events, folks doing unusual things, the weather, fish stories, childhood memories, history, inspirational people, things kids say, updating old columns, stupid ideas that pop into my mind, puns, jokes, etc.
F’rinstance, Jack Wadsworth of Naches, Wash., a former junior high, high school and college chum who retired a few years ago as senior music editor for Disney Studios, sent me this tale:
Try to imagine this happening at Lake Mary Ronan: The game warden stopped a man who was leaving the lake with two buckets of fish. The warden asked him, “Do you have a license to catch those fish?”
“The man replied, “No, sir. These are my pet fish.”
“Pet fish?”
“Yep. Every night I take these here fish down to the lake and let them swim around for a while. I whistle and they jump back into their buckets, and I take ‘em home.”
“That’s a bunch of hooey! Fish can’t do that.”
The man looked at the warden for a moment and then said, “Here, I’ll show you. It really works.”
The warden was curious now. “Okay, I’ve GOT to see this.”
That man poured the fish into the lake and stood and waited. After a few minutes, the game warden turned to the man and asked,
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“When are you going to call them back?”
“Call who back?”
“The fish.”
“What fish?” the man asked.
OK, so I’ve got a warped sense of humor. There are plenty of topics in the idea well. Sometimes it just needs a bit of priming to get the flow going.
On a more serious note, I attended a Christian writers’ conference in Portland in 1980 and came back with a copy of The Writer’s Prayer. I’m grateful to the anonymous author who penned it. A copy is on the wall in my home office, right next to the desk. It reads like this:
Lord, give men an insight and sensitivity to people and events around me that I might always have an abundance of stories to write.
Give me the ability to write wisely and well, to write in a way that will enrich and enlighten the hearts and minds of others.
Help me to make people laugh when they want to cry in self-despair, and to make them cry when they are insensitive to the pain of others.
Give me the courage to write clean and true, regardless of what others around me may be writing.
Help me to remember always that words have the power to destroy — or build; the power to spread ignorance — or dispense knowledge; the power to darken the world with hate — or to light it with love.
Help me to continue writing through those black moments of discouragement when I feel that nothing I write is good or worthwhile or will ever be read by anyone.
And, Lord, daily help me to have faith in my writing and in myself even though no one else may have faith in either. In Jesus’ name, Amen.