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By BILL THOMPSON
About 22 years ago, I approached Thom Billington, then editor of The News Reporter in Whiteville, about writing a weekly column for that paper. I was working at a television station at the time and kept getting ideas for stories that didn’t necessarily fit a video format. He agreed to let me write the column. Through the years, other papers have been gracious enough to run my stuff as well.
Sometimes the column had a name, “Dateline: Redbug,” and sometimes it had just a byline. The topics were wide-ranging. Sometimes they were intended to be humorous and sometimes they may have been unintentionally humorous. Sometimes they were serious commentaries.
Most often they were nostalgic, commenting on a time long past but fondly remembered.
I figure that in the past 22 years I have written more than a thousand columns and an average of about 600 words per column.
That’s about 600,000 words, most of them of little significance, but I had a good time writing them.
In recent months the amount of time I have had available to devote to writing the column has diminished as my duties at Boys and Girls Homes have increased. What has always been fun has now become a task and, as a result, the quality (my judgment of quality anyway) of the product has deteriorated.
So it is with some regret that I have asked the editors of the various papers who carry my column if I might reduce my submissions to an irregular schedule. Since I will continue to do a lot of traveling around the state, I expect to see more of those people and places similar to those which have been the subject of my columns.
Back in those early days, an editor of another newspaper who was considering carrying my column asked Thom Billington what he thought of my writing. Thom said, “He writes an above average column.”
I have always thought that was a tremendous compliment. I hope I can continue to justify such a compliment as I reduce the number of columns.