Youth Speaks Out (again)

Hunting certainly is not a sport in which I'd take part. It's absolutely not my style. But earlier today, I felt the urge to take a break from college football watching and hurricane preparation.

A hunting I will go, I decided.

I was motivated by the words of a former colleague, who read my initial blog post yesterday in which I mentioned my first-ever newspaper published piece. He said, “Made me wish I could read the early article you wrote . . . do you still have it?” (Thanks, Dave!).

Indeed. Somewhere. So I decided to go hunting.

It was a frustrating search, and I fought off the occasional voracious dust bunnies. There were several paper cuts. But at last, success!

There, buried in a pile of papers beneath one of my family's classic Bibles, I found the old clipping. My mother had set it aside for safekeeping when I was a 15-year-old fledgling writer, and I discovered it in the same, but yellow, plastic cover.

With the help of modern technology, I am able to share with you this image of the original from 1968 in the Beaver Falls (Pa.) News-Tribune. As a retired editor, I'm not sure what I'd say about this. So I will leave this to stand alone for your enjoyment, amusement and commentary.

Peace!