Not too long ago, I was asked if I had worked as a journalist. I gave it some thought (not much thought, but some) and came up with this sort of explanation of the sordid beginnings of my wanna-be writing career.
Once’t upon a time, I worked in this here little old bitty satellite newspaper office. We had ourselves a officer in charge, a non-commissioned officer (sergeant) who was really the one in charge, a reporter, a photographer, and a re-write man (me) who, it seemed at the time anyhow, was the one who got to do all the work. Well, most of the work.
The OIC came to the office in the morning, had coffee, signed whatever papers he needed to sign and left early for lunch. He’d come back for a few minutes after lunch, amble around the three rooms we occupied and tell the non-commissioned officer (sergeant) that he could be reached at the Officer’s Club and leave.
The non-commissioned officer (sergeant) followed the OIC’s example but always a few minutes later.
The room I occupied was large and sunny, my desk facing the reporters desk. The photographer had a table in the corner but he had the same kind of chair that the reporter and I had. The other corner had a state of the art Thermo-fax copy machine, which may or may not give you a clue as to how long ago this stuff actually occurred.
Now, the photographer loved taking pictures. He had a great big heavy and, I thought, somewhat clumsy, camera that he carried with him almost every where he went. He loved nothing more than taking and developing pictures. Mostly, it seemed, the same picture over and over because they almost always looked alike. Well, not the one’s he took off-duty, y’understand. Although, they tended to look alike also even though they was of different undressed girls. He always posed the girls in the same way and since they were Japanese girls, they all tended to be short and dark. Oh, and willing to take their clothes off for two hundred yen (about a buck ’n a half at that time).
The reporter, who fancied himself a writer, was red-headed and obnoxious, given to asking rude questions to people who found themselves caught up in an awkward moment. (The more things change, the more they stay the same). He was capable enough to make notes of the answers…the what, when, why, where, and how, whatever it was that happened and I would take his notes and write the story. After, I wrote the story, he’d affix his name, give it to the non-commissioned officer (sergeant) to come up with a title and then the whole kit and caboodle would go in the daily mail to be delivered to the home office where, likely as not, the whole thing got tossed into the daily trash.
