As birthdays go, this one wasn’t too terrible. For decades, my birthday was never celbrated. I didn’t have any friends to celebrate and the most I had was my mom calling me at 8:19 a.m., East Coast time to sing “Happy Birthday” to me. Today, was a good one.
With a high of 88°F for the day, temperatures had settled into the mid-70s, promising a cool evening for the fourth of July fireworks. My mom, and technically me, were all set for the show. She settled into her lawn chair, a cool drink in hand when things began to change.
Aunt Julie and I had spent at least 20 minutes daring each other to do stupid things when we decided shoving things up our noses was not only cool, but funny. Julie was six years older than me, so she picked things that were relatively easy, like Q-tips and pencils. Not to be outdone, I went a step too far.
Me and Gram in the late 1970s.
When I was a child, I called her Grammy. All of my cousins did, too. As we grew older, she became Gram. All of our friends called her Gram. She is and will always be the biggest influence on my character.
Eighteen months ago, I was placed on a shelf and watched as humans picked up those around me to take home to their loved ones. I didn’t think anyone was ever going to pick me. Three months later, Irene came along and took me home.
Although I don’t produce the volumes of writing I did when I was a daily reporter, I am still quite pleased with the recognition of my writing from Nebraska Press Women. I entered 13 articles this year, about half what I used to enter. I received 10 awards. All first place awards go on to the National Federation of Press Women contest. I will know those results mid-June.
As a journalist, you need to be as accurate as possible. Most of the time, this is an easy task. It requires simple searches to find documented answers. It get more complicated when you start digging into history.
Before the dawn of the 21st century, sometimes you had to visit the more skeevy portions of the internet in order to find what you wanted. It was fraught with danger, but only if you didn’t know the traps to look out for before you began.
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