Five Years of Column Writing Very Fulfilling

   It was five years ago that I wrote my first GDP column. Since then I've strung together 135,000 words about, well, you name it. These 262 columns have been as diverse as the community about which I write, and I don't mean just ethnic groups. Topics ranged from snakes to unicorns, harps to Harleys, living food to dead bugs.
   The question people most frequently ask me is where I get my column ideas. Actually, I never seek them out. They simply fall into my lap. 
   Two-thirds of them come from chitchats with strangers at stores and gas stations or passing comments at social events. Of the remaining third, about half are my responses to what I read in the GDP, mostly Gwinnett Gab, Must Read or Letters to the Editor. And the rest come from readers who e-mail me suggestions. My column space is usually booked six weeks in advance, including  a backburner or two that I keep shuffling.
   Most I eventually use. My column about recycling GDP's green plastic bags sat around from day one. I finally used it last year for Earth Day. The day it ran J.K.  Murphy e-mailed me to say, You'll be heartbroken to know we're replacing those green bags with clear ones. The real heartbreak would have been in losing the column.
   And sometimes I do lose. Two years ago at a weightlifting meet in Lawrenceville, the teeniest tiniest fourteen-year-old belted out the National Anthem with enough force to echo all over Gwinnett. I took her phone number and told her someday I'd write about her. Well, here I am finally writing about her, but what can I tell you about Diana DiGarmo that you don't already know?
   Sometimes timing works out not because of what I write, but because of what my readers write. Three years ago I wrote about Dale Schonmeyer, the shelf-building handyman at Gwinnett Christian Towers. Sal Albanese of Closets by Design read my column then offered Dale his shelving scraps.
    Now Dale is moving to Phoenix, so he called Sal to say he'd no longer need the shelving. Someone named Gary answered and told Dale that Sal had sold the company with the stipulation that the new owner continued to donate scrap shelving to GCT. So now there was free shelving, but no handyman.
"It will be hard to fill his shoes," GCT resident Mary Thomas said.
   In the meantime, a friend and loyal reader, Phil Reynolds had a change in his work schedule and asked me if I knew a place where he could work as a volunteer handyman for a few hours during the week. After a quick connection in cyberspace, Dale's shoes, in every sense of the word were "Philled."
   "Phil is so wonderful. I can't believe how this all happened," said GCT resident Nell Salmi.
   And it's fulfilling stories like this that make me want to write 262 more.

032404

Archive