Time after time

This note comes to you from the deep, dark past—that is, last week. Christmas has not arrived, but the next time I’ll write to you will be in 2003. It’s our deadlines. Those prestidigious press guys think they should spend Christmas with their families, so we cram a week’s worth of work into four days. I love it; the stress levels hereabouts rise like rent, and the ghosts in the machines Charleston like rutting flappers. There’s a crazy beauty to it all.

I mention the time warp because this column’s original topic was Trent Lott. Wouldn’t it have been funny if I’d commented on his racist statements and whimpered for his resignation, only to have him quit as Senate majority leader on Monday—four days before this appeared in print? These narrowly averted embarrassments are sometimes the cosmic affirmations that get us through the day.

On to more pressing matters. We’ve a good issue this week. It’s literary-themed, with Deidre Pike’s poignant cover story taking point. On one level, I love doing a short story once a year. On another, I know the mailman will be delivering a bunch unsolicited fiction pieces in January. Be sure to include a SASE. If you don’t know what an SASE is, please submit your manuscript to the features department at the Reno Gazette-Journal. Elsewhere in this paper, look for Miranda Jesch’s story about the Unnamed Writers’ Group. If Deidre’s story inspires you to pick up a pen, you may want to join. On other pages, you’ll see a quick comment by a respected local author and newspaperman and a new take on an old chestnut by our own esteemed columnist Bruce Van Dyke.

Finally, with retrospective aforethought, the staff and I would like to wish you and yours a merry Christmas and a happy and healthy new year.