Don't print THAT!
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
It all began, long before we wrote columns for the newspaper. It was the family newsletter, which we call The Ramona Rambles, that Mom was worried about. A cautious woman by nature, she'd be telling us some interesting little story and in mid-sentence she'd stop and give us that certain look, saying, "Now don't put THAT in the Rambles."
"Ah, Mom," we'd protest, "THAT is the very best part!" Furthermore we were only telling this to family.
"What would people think?" she'd say, "You might hurt someone's feelings." And there, right out the window would go our good story.
And then we moved to Ramona and found ourselves writing columns in the Marion County Record. Suddenly our "family" had expanded. "What can we really talk about?" we wondered. "How much do we dare divulge?" we speculated. Bottom line, if folks wouldn't let us print personal highlights, little antidotes, there wouldn't be anything interesting to read!
Shortly after we'd accepted this assignment, we walked into the Ramona Cafe. Upon our entrance, the whole room got deathly quiet. Customers at the table were very busy with their food. No one seemed to want to make eye contact. No one called out a greeting. Finally we worked up nerve to ask someone, "Did it suddenly get quiet in here or are we imagining things?"
"They're all afraid that you might ask them something and then they'll get written up in the paper," came the answer. "About what?" we wondered. "Oh, just anything."
I guess it figures. They didn't know us, then. They weren't sure about our level of discrimination. "What if we said the wrong thing? Would we really honor their wishes if they said, "Now don't write about THAT!" even though it was the very best part? (By now, you know we don't quote people, write stories, or mention names without permission — just thought I'd throw that in again.)
This weekend, my folks had guests. "We love reading your columns," said LuElla but when we asked about the correct spelling of her name she was a little unsure about being IN the column. "Oh, don't print that," she said with genuine humility as she told us how she had met her husband. "We met in high school, but he didn't get around to looking at me for six years after we graduated."
Her 84-year-old husband, Leonard, chuckled at the recollection. "I had this Model T Ford and it seemed to just circle the block and ladies would climb in — there wasn't much I could do about it." He smiles and shrugs innocently. We wanted to hear more.
Tooltime Tim walks into the office, grubby from work. We're busy typing away at the computer to meet our Monday deadline. "So what did you say now?" he wants to know. Being mentioned randomly in our columns has been an exercise in trust for a man who's spent the major portion of his life being incognito.
At this point, I stopped and read these lines to my sister. "Any suggestions?" I asked. "Well, you can tell them that stories about love and romance are our favorites and how much we enjoy people with a fascinating sense of humor — they really get our attention." She paused and looked over at me, "Are you writing all this down? I'm not meaning for this to go in word for word!" Hey, did she say, "Don't write THAT?"
It's another day in the country and I'm scribbling down notes as fast as I can. Aren't you just a little curious as to what stories we hold in our hearts and dare not write until long after you're gone?
