Why do I write columns?
Because I can. I mean that literally,
Heaven knows I’ve tried every other form of writing — poems, essays, lectures, research papers, commencement speeches, plays, books, letters, emails, etc. You name it, I’ve tried to express it in some form or another.
Communications in general and writing in particular are just in my blood. My father and both grandfathers were communicators — preachers to be exact. When I want to stay humble I remind myself that one grandfather wrote more than 80 books. I don’t have the talent nor time to come near that many.
I suppose I was destined to be a writer. I scribbled stories on scratch paper before I knew how to spell words correctly. I suppose I can thank my mother for that. She memorized long passages for “dramatic readings” that she gave before groups — and me during long train trips between our Philadelphia home to visit my grandparents in Denver.
When my family moved and I started a new fourth-grade class and missed my old school, my teacher, Miss Garrett, not only encouraged me to write but to share my stories with the class. I still have those now tattered and ink-stained notebook
I once thought I could write the next great American novel. I have at least four half-completed versions sitting in my file, as well as two acts of a play about my family I wouldn’t complete so as not to embarrass them with the inside stories.
I might have become an international journalist stationed in Spain but was blocked from doing an internship there by a dictator who didn’t want correspondents he couldn’t control. Maybe that’s why the talk of dictators these days makes me want to hold up warning signs for anyone who values freedom of speech.
So here I sit now writing one of many hundreds of columns over many decades. It’s what I love doing since fourth grade and what I hope to be doing to the end.
Life is too short these days to write novels or plays, but there’s usually time enough for a column. If this one isn’t the best, maybe next time I’ll do better. After all, isn’t it anyone”s life purpose to do better the next time?
John Morgan has been writing columns since his first one appeared over fifty years ago in an Ohio newspaper.
