The Kibitzers

By TAD BARTIMUS

They arrive when I'm stuck for a verb, carried away with my own purple prose, struggling to figure out what I really want to say. They hover above me and kibitz:

"Sappy paragraph, isn't it? I could throw a load of whites into the Maytag, mix up a double batch of chocolate chip cookies, shampoo the dog, hunt for that darned lost sock and still write better than that at the same time," scoffs Erma.

"Where have all the muckrakers gone? Why waste a columnist's bully pulpit writing about pregnant whales, teenage hormones and a workaholic octogenarian? Why not take on City Hall, the greedy rich and potholes? What a waste of newsprint!" sniffs Mike.

"Too bad there aren't more columns about kindergartners, the local Methadone program and how to apply for Medicaid," sighs Suzan. "Good columnists must be hard to find since we've been gone."

The Muses are back. They look over my shoulder, whisper in my ear, guide my fingers as I fill up a blank page. Just as flesh-and-blood friends inspire me, so do these ethereal literary angels. Who are they? The smiling faces of Erma Bombeck, Mike Royko, Suzan Nightingale, Adele Rogers St. Johns and other dearly departeds stare down from the bookshelf. Are they the kibitzers? Perhaps. Whoever they are, The Muses soothe my misgivings and challenge my mind to do better.

They are with me on this, the 100^th AMONG FRIENDS column, so I wish to thank you, guardian angels -- living and otherwise – for your contribution to this miracle of solvency and creative survival.

I'm still a rookie at this game. I never intended to switch from street reporting, but a fork in the road took away my day job. I still had to pay the mortgage, buy the car, put food on the table. While wailing "What shall I do?" a wise man reminded me that all I really knew how to do was write: "Get busy," said Jim.

It took two years to find my voice, another year to stop being afraid to use it. When I launched AMONG FRIENDS my friend Barbara inadvertently named the corporation when she said, "Taddie, you're up to MONKEYSHINES." And so I have been.

The title AMONG FRIENDS, however, was no accident. My lawyer Sandi said, "I'll take care of the legal stuff" and I never saw a bill. My banker friend Chris never once turned me down. Friend Troy created the perfect symbol – two Adirondack chairs -- to convey my hopes for a long-term conversation with readers, then he "forgot" to charge me for six months. Paula sent reference books, Carrie and Jay answered the mail, Pat built and maintained www.tadfriends.com and Jean kept the books, did the billing and put me on my first budget – all for nothing but love.

The Big Guys said novice newspaper columnists were a dime a dozen and earned about that much, too. The Big Guys said the market was glutted, there was no room for a new voice, no one would buy it, let alone read it. But the two Missouri Ellens said, "Baloney!" Ditto Big Editors in Orange County, Calif., Phoenix, Denver, San Francisco, Spokane, Tacoma, Portland, Charlotte and a Big Editor's wife in New York. Readers in Billings, Mont., and Lewiston, Idaho, and Newark and lots of other small towns and sprawling 'burbs wrote nice letters. The Big Guys were proved wrong.

Friend Sydney took me shopping for fancy clothes so I'd make a good impression; friends Scott and Andy invented sales pitches; people I didn't even know urged their newspapers to buy AMONG FRIENDS. The boy who mows the lawn and the lady who feeds the cats when I'm on the road had no doubts: "You go girl!."

As our savings poured into creating AMONG FRIENDS my husband never wavered; like a bungee jumper, I was saved from crashing to the bottom when the column took off and a cash flow kicked in.

The Muses wrote many, many more columns than I have, but 100 is a start; each AMONG FRIENDS is published proof that becoming a columnist was not a dream deferred, a dream denied. Muse Erma – first among equals, the best of the best -- understood what it meant to be a writer when she wrote:

"It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to hold them up and say, 'How good or how bad am I?' That's where courage comes in."

The Muses are my role models, my friends are my cheerleaders, but its my editors who have the courage to put AMONG FRIENDS in their newspaper. Above all, it’s the readers who've made my dream come true. Thank you.

Now, Muses, please go kibitz somewhere else, I've got work to do.

© Copyright 1998-2000 The Women Syndicate. The content on these pages is the property of The Women Syndicate and may not be used without express written permission. Contact friends@tadbartimus.com