Paperback Writer

Over the last few days, I have become increasingly convinced that I could possibly die sometime later this year, so please just bear with me for a moment.

Over the last few days, I have spent roughly 17 hours per day in front of my computer. That’s just too much, for anyone.

It wasn’t for work, and it wasn’t for fun.

Instead, I was being driven by thoughts of my upcoming 60th birthday. I was also being driven by the sad fact that I have lost two friends and one family member in just the last 90 days.

One of those people was just 40 when God called her home. The others were in their early 60s.

One day you’re here and the next day you’re not.

I have been thinking a lot about my own death. After all, it’s inevitable, right? Often, you don’t get much warning about your expiration date.

So, I decided I had to get busy.

I am a writer . . . by vocation and also because I am a glutton for punishment and self-loathing. Over the last 40 years, I have written a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff. Tons of stuff.

There are dusty copies of unpublished manuscripts in my office. I routinely tell myself that I will soon take another stab at finishing one of my novels. I look at what I have written and invariably have the same reaction.

Pathetic.

As a young child, I enjoyed writing stories about things like vampires and natural disasters. I had several teachers encouraged me to continue writing. Folks like Peter Flaherty, Peter Scontras and Richard Mullins.

On the other end of the spectrum, I received some valuable criticism, most notably by Bob Melville, the city editor of the Journal Tribune in 1981.

I was an unpaid student intern for a work-study project, and the very first thing I was about to have published was some poor bastard’s obituary.

I took copious notes from the funeral home director and banged it out on my IBM Selectric II typewriter.

Mr. Melville took one look at what I had written and uttered the following words: “What’s the matter, kid? Do they not teach English at Thornton Academy? I strongly suggest you find a different line of work.”

Several years later, when Melville was retired and serving on the Biddeford School Committee, I reminded him of that exchange. He had forgotten the incident, took a sip of his beer and said, ‘You’re welcome. All writers need a good kick in the ass so they can try harder.”

A lifetime of writing

Since the early 1990s, I have worked as a general assignment reporter, as a newspaper columnist and an editor. I also worked briefly as a collaborative research reporter for the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance.

I have written and published in-depth policy reports, including a 19-part series that focused on the former Maine Energy Recovery Company (MERC) and more recently a three-part series regarding the issues of homelessness in my community.

Folks in the Biddeford-Saco area know me primarily as the guy who wrote the All Along The Watchtower column in the Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier between 1999 and 2006.

That satirical column was intended to keep local politicians on their toes and as a way for me to vent my frustration on topics ranging from climate change and gun control to abortion and the absurdity of what happens daily in Washington D.C.

I’ve also been honored with the opportunity to write interviews about several interesting people, including a former senior advisor to Ronald Reagan, a well-know folk singer and the first openly gay Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives.

Some of my favorite writing endeavors include essays such as The Lincoln Tour, a rambling missive I wrote about a hilarious three-week, cross-country adventure with my best friend in 1986.

Most of you already know that I periodically struggle with mental illness that includes bouts of severe depression, extreme anxiety and even psychotic behaviors from paranoia to schizophrenia. Thus, I am perhaps most proud of my regular blog posts regarding mental illness and the stigma that so often surrounds that subject.

Okay, you get the point. I’ve written a lot of stuff. And I’m still writing almost every day.

But what happens when I die? Where will all that stuff go? Will it just be forgotten? My legacy and passion erased?

I am a communications consultant, but I know next to nothing about creating or maintaining a website. That said, I have spent more than 50 hours this week trying to improve the site that I use for both business and fun.

A few years ago, when I first became self-employed, I scrubbed the site and removed all the personal stuff, all the stories about cage fights and city hall, chain-smoking and wandering the streets of downtown Biddeford midnight.

Today, I am essentially retired and very selective about taking on any new clients. So, because I am a cheap bastard, I decided to split the one site between business and pleasure.

It’s nothing fancy. In fact, it’s a rather dull site. But I have made an effort to improve navigation and simplify things.

I wanted one, small place on the world-wide web, where I could archive a lifetime of writing; a place that will hopefully survive for a while long after I have shuffled off my mortal coil.

Here’s a fucking pen

One final story. In 1989, I was working as an industrial tool salesman and lived just outside of Annapolis, Maryland. I was 25, single and didn’t know many people. I often spent Sunday afternoons sitting at a bar, drinking Guiness near the harbor.

It was a quiet place. I often brought a book to read to help pass the time. One afternoon, a disheveled older gentleman walked into the bar and sat down next to me. We began chatting, and he asked me a question. “You don’t seem like a tool salesman. What do you really want to be?”

I was eager with my response. “I want to be a writer.”

He scoffed, reached into his jacket and produced a cheap pen that he slammed down on the bar. “Here’s a pen, go be a fucking writer.”

And with that, he wandered back outside, and I never saw him again. I held onto that pen for many years afterward.

In closing, my ‘improved’ website offers no fancy, slick graphics; very few video clips. Some photos; but mainly just a lot of written content: satire, humor, fiction, policy analysis, local politics . . . all of it one place. Organized, archived and presented with simplicity.

I would appreciate your feedback; positive or negative.