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You deserve to know that it was in the fall of 1952—-60 years ago—that

this column had its start.

Recently married, fresh out of college and ready to plunge into the world of journalism, I applied for a job with the Simpson County newspaper. There were no job openings, but the kind editor offered me the opportunity to write a human interest column if I wished. He often did this for young people who typically moved on to greener fields after a few months.

Not me. I continued turning out columns through diapering babies, honing homemaking skills, baking P.T.A. cookies and working waist deep in another field, librarianship.

When we moved back home to Logan County in 1953, I mailed my weekly contribution to meet the deadline. I often could be seen running down the lane to catch the mail carrier as he was pulling away from the mailbox.

With friends in high places, I was invited to begin submitting a copy of my column to the local paper. So, in the October 13, 1980 issue of The Logan Leader, my column became syndicated! After a decade or so, I decided that my musings had run their course “abroad” and I stopped sharing the column with the Franklin Favorite.

Several interesting responses have come from readers of the column. Once I was severely reprimanded by the Kitty Litter company for not capitalizing the name of their product as I referred to it in a column. How they came across that obscure reference buried in a faraway small-town newspaper I’ll never know.

I was highly honored by a pencil manufacturing company in Tennessee that sent me a box of pencils engraved “Especially made for” me. I had written about the merits of pencils and why they were my preferred writing tool.

How surprised I was to open the Louisville Courier-Journal some fifty years ago and see that one of their field editors had picked up a column for commentary. I had related my experience of getting trapped in the henhouse by a spirited buck sheep who stood his ground between me and the barnyard gate. My dilemma was embellished, complete with cartoon drawings of my head “sheepishly” peeking out the henhouse window at the determined sheep.

The greatest pleasure that this hobby provides me is for a reader to say, “You made me think of something similar that I did.” Thank you for reading.