This site will offer a sampling of my work as a news writer, feature writer, columnist, and editor, as well as an advertising copy writer, publicist, and newsletter designer/writer/editor.
As long as this sentence appears, it is a work in progress ...
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Columns
"Bruce" Published in the Tribune Chronicle
It was an insidious enemy, creeping up virtually unnoticed, to attack when his guard was down -- when he was confident and strong and could meet it as a casual friend.
The cleverest of captors, it eventually enslaved him -- made him learn to rely on it and need it even in the face of his hate for it. There were many who tried to rescue him: doctors, friends, family. Alcohol, they told him, would cost him everything. Unless he strengthened himself against its lure, they told him, he would lose everything he held dear -- wife, family, home, friends.
He lost none of those.
Instead, he lost his life.
That, too, was one of the things the doctors told him would happen. Never mind that he had never exhibited the usual signs of alcoholism. ``Maybe you can't drink enough to get drunk,'' they cautioned. ``Maybe you can only drink enough to kill yourself.''
Veins and arteries in his throat and stomach, already at risk because of congenital weaknesses, were being hammered away at. Not only alcohol, but the wrong food and bad eating habits, were wearing away the coverings to those blood vessels. Even if he didn't drink, they said, his life span would probably not be as long as most people's. If he continued to drink, he would certainly die before his time.
For a while, he tried. For a while, it was easy to leave the stuff alone, because he really didn't like the taste of it. In fact, he said, he hated it.
But the enemy was persistent. And it was everywhere. At parties, in restaurants, at sporting events and concerts, at the grocery store across the street and the convenience store around the corner -- everywhere he turned, it was there. Waiting.
And it seemed to know when to press its advantage. Like the most seductive of mistresses, it held itself out as a sanctuary from life's problems. It promised escape from the harshness of reality; it promised peace and love.
It lied.
Instead, it gave him more problems, with health and money and relationships. It made the reality of his life harsh beyond anything he had ever experienced, leaving him with a ruined body, a series of hospital stays and run-ins with the law, a vision of hopelessness where once the dreams for a future danced. Instead of the peace it promised, his enemy gave him war. Instead of love, it brought self-hate.
It was impossible for others to hate him, although that's what he was prepared to expect. His family and friends, angered, saddened and frightened by his decline, nevertheless kept up the fight to rescue the man they had once known ― handsome, intelligent, talented, sensitive ― from the grip of the terrorist.
They tried every way they knew, from reasoning to pleading, from threatening him to bargaining with him to ignoring him. He said he wanted their help, but he pushed it away, denied it, found ways around it.
They sought aid from doctors, from rehabilitation programs and Alcoholics Anonymous, from the courts ― and the help was forthcoming. No one denied him; everyone put their talents toward saving him.
And all along, they were reminded that this was not their battle to fight. Give up, they were urged. Let go. Let him wake up in the gutter ― it'll teach him a lesson. Save yourself; don't let him take you with him.
Undaunted, they persisted.
They were not strong enough. Had they been a hundredfold more, they would not have been strong enough, because he himself had gone over to the enemy's side. But in winning, the enemy lost. In taking away the troubled man it had created, it left his family and friends with the remembrance of what they had had in the beginning ― a whole person, one who had cared about music and literature, about animals, travel and art; one whose wit and charm could capture the hearts of young and old alike.
That person will live, safe in the haven of our hearts, as long as memory lasts.
It was an insidious enemy, creeping up virtually unnoticed, to attack when his guard was down -- when he was confident and strong and could meet it as a casual friend.
The cleverest of captors, it eventually enslaved him -- made him learn to rely on it and need it even in the face of his hate for it. There were many who tried to rescue him: doctors, friends, family. Alcohol, they told him, would cost him everything. Unless he strengthened himself against its lure, they told him, he would lose everything he held dear -- wife, family, home, friends.
He lost none of those.
Instead, he lost his life.
That, too, was one of the things the doctors told him would happen. Never mind that he had never exhibited the usual signs of alcoholism. ``Maybe you can't drink enough to get drunk,'' they cautioned. ``Maybe you can only drink enough to kill yourself.''
Veins and arteries in his throat and stomach, already at risk because of congenital weaknesses, were being hammered away at. Not only alcohol, but the wrong food and bad eating habits, were wearing away the coverings to those blood vessels. Even if he didn't drink, they said, his life span would probably not be as long as most people's. If he continued to drink, he would certainly die before his time.
For a while, he tried. For a while, it was easy to leave the stuff alone, because he really didn't like the taste of it. In fact, he said, he hated it.
But the enemy was persistent. And it was everywhere. At parties, in restaurants, at sporting events and concerts, at the grocery store across the street and the convenience store around the corner -- everywhere he turned, it was there. Waiting.
And it seemed to know when to press its advantage. Like the most seductive of mistresses, it held itself out as a sanctuary from life's problems. It promised escape from the harshness of reality; it promised peace and love.
It lied.
Instead, it gave him more problems, with health and money and relationships. It made the reality of his life harsh beyond anything he had ever experienced, leaving him with a ruined body, a series of hospital stays and run-ins with the law, a vision of hopelessness where once the dreams for a future danced. Instead of the peace it promised, his enemy gave him war. Instead of love, it brought self-hate.
It was impossible for others to hate him, although that's what he was prepared to expect. His family and friends, angered, saddened and frightened by his decline, nevertheless kept up the fight to rescue the man they had once known ― handsome, intelligent, talented, sensitive ― from the grip of the terrorist.
They tried every way they knew, from reasoning to pleading, from threatening him to bargaining with him to ignoring him. He said he wanted their help, but he pushed it away, denied it, found ways around it.
They sought aid from doctors, from rehabilitation programs and Alcoholics Anonymous, from the courts ― and the help was forthcoming. No one denied him; everyone put their talents toward saving him.
And all along, they were reminded that this was not their battle to fight. Give up, they were urged. Let go. Let him wake up in the gutter ― it'll teach him a lesson. Save yourself; don't let him take you with him.
Undaunted, they persisted.
They were not strong enough. Had they been a hundredfold more, they would not have been strong enough, because he himself had gone over to the enemy's side. But in winning, the enemy lost. In taking away the troubled man it had created, it left his family and friends with the remembrance of what they had had in the beginning ― a whole person, one who had cared about music and literature, about animals, travel and art; one whose wit and charm could capture the hearts of young and old alike.
That person will live, safe in the haven of our hearts, as long as memory lasts.
**
"Word Play," published in Warren Tribune Chronicle
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'InciDENTALS,' the newsletter of the Corydon Palmer Dental Society ...
'Angels' Herald,' the newsletter of Trumbull New Theatre ....
(printed 2 up on 81/"x 11" stock; this is the printer's file)
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