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Ever since I was chosen for a yearlong stint as one of the twice a month Community Columnists in the Tribune, I have had this doubt in the back of my mind. What if I can’t come up with the desired 24 columns?
I had heard that sometimes there are only so many items of a kind in the creative bucket. What if I scrape the bottom of the bucket way before I come up with all 24?
I had spent most of Tuesday evening, Sept. 23, polishing up what I was going to propose to be a two-part column for the Community Columnist, which was due for submission on Friday for publication today and Oct. 14. It was a comforting feeling to be on top of things – to have something done ahead of time. Here were two more columns that I had taken from the bucket. I hope there are a lot more in there.
I had trouble going to sleep that night, so I got out of bed around 3 a.m. and switched on the TV. Almost at once, there was a news report that James A. Traficant Jr. had been involved in a tractor accident on his farm. Apparently, his tractor had flipped over on him. He was being transferred from Salem Regional Medical Center to the St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown.
This struck a particular chord with me, in that my mother’s brother had died when his tractor had flipped over on him on his farm in Pennsylvania.
There was very little sleep for the balance of the night and I was up quite early so that I could email or telephone the then-Tribune editor, Guy C. Coviello, because I felt that what I had finished writing the night before might be of interest. I had written about my experiences as a juror in the 1983 bribery trial of Jim Traficant in Cleveland Federal District Court.
Mr. Coviello had Ron Selak Jr. give me a call to see what I had. I told Mr. Selak a bit about my experiences as a Traficant juror, and he interviewed me so that he might have a little to add to the planned for articles.
I told him that I already had something written about that Traficant trial. He asked me what kind of time I needed to finish it up. I replied that it was complete, and with just a little bit of fine tuning, could be sent via tribtoday.com to him within the hour.
After receiving the writing, Mr. Selak told me that both columns combined into one was about 54 column inches which would be way too much for the available space. In a subsequent call, he told me that Mr.Coviello had decided to add pages because of the importance of the Traficant tractor accident story, and that my story could be published in total.
I’m not aware of any premonitions I had in writing my story about the Traficant trial. I must admit, however, that I felt chills down my spine after I had submitted my words for the Sept. 25 edition of the Tribune.
Then, Saturday afternoon, when I heard that Jim Traficant had passed away, I couldn’t help but feel that there was some kind of cosmic reason for my preparing that juror story.
So now, even though I still worry a little about reaching the bottom of the creative bucket prematurely, I feel much better about it not happening.
My first column about my paraplegic friend engendered another when a local doctor wrote to me about what happened later. My York Avenue story unlocked memories of several former York Avenue neighbors which engendered my writing about how so many things in my Warren past are gone or in ruin, which in turn, had me write about “Stuck in Warren.”
I wonder what the “First Flights” column will bring?
To add to this, I received a phone call from a local man who, with a producer from the west coast, is reopening a finished documentary that deals with Jim Traficant. He feels that perhaps more can be added to the story. I agreed to be interviewed, for whatever it is worth, late this past Friday – just a few hours after I was to submit this column for its publication today.
I’ll try to let you know how this interview went.
Meanwhile, I’ll keep digging down into that bucket.