Writing on deadline is good way to get lost in the weeds.
Every seven days, you stare at a blank page and try to set down what amazed you that week; what exasperated you; what filled you with hope; what filled you with rage.
It’s only at the end of the year, with 51 columns spread out on the desk, and perhaps a glass of leftover egg nog at hand, that you finally take the long view. Rereading the work — some of it better than you thought, some of it cringe-worthy — uncovers hidden themes. Prejudices, preoccupations, obsessions, axes to grind — call them what you like — emerge from the shadows and sheepishly announce themselves, blinking in the light of day. Columns separated by weeks or months reveal themselves to be chapters of a longer story.
For instance, aging. Apparently, I spent a good deal of 2011 feeling like an old fogey. In February, I addressed the issue head-on in a column on the science of longevity, which touched on ancient and modern myths about growing old. But there are hints of gray around the edges of many of the year’s pieces. I cast a wary eye on local crimes. I wrote in detail about the physical mechanism of pain. I talked about crashing into a deer on Warm Springs Road. There’s nothing like ramming a panicked ungulate to make you feel old!
(Except, perhaps, the exercise of casting a critical eye across a year’s work, a sure sign of fogey-dom if there ever was one…)
I spilled a fair amount of ink this year exploring history — and not just my own. The frontier wars of the eighteenth century were of particular interest. I wrote about Indian captivity narratives, which were the big bestsellers of their day, the chronicles of men and women like Perry County’s own Hugh Gibson, who lived among the Indians for five difficult years before making good his escape.
Disasters, both natural and manmade, were another big theme of 2011. This was a year of record-breaking rainfall; a rare and historic earthquake: and a near-miss from a potentially cataclysmic asteroid. Natural disasters, and the social fragilities they exposed, were grist for several columns.
Even more upsetting were the disasters that were completely man-made. Political ones, for instance. This summer, the hyper-partisan atmosphere in Washington brought our country to the brink of financial default. Gridlock, name-calling, blame-shifting, and gerrymandering were the watchwords of the year’s politics.
But everything wasn’t doom and gloom “up at the creek.” Many of my columns were about heroes, American geniuses like Franklin, Edison, Twain, the Wright Brothers, and Steve Jobs, whose death in October triggered an international outpouring of adulation. I wrote about local heroes, friends and neighbors who bailed us out when our septic system went on strike, or when a squirrel knocked out our electrical power, or who hooked us up with delicious morel mushrooms, or otherwise went out of their way to be helpful or kind.
It was a good year to talk about the mixed blessings of technology. The same Internet that brought the wonders of the Google Art Project into our home on a snowbound evening was largely responsible for the demise of Borders, a once-mighty purveyor of great books. The same Facebook that seemed to be wrapping its evil tendrils around our privacy gave us an unforgettable gift: a window into the lives of a loving husband and wife separated by military service.
The natural history of Perry County — and natural history in general — led to some of my favorite columns of the year, including one on a particular species of mud dauber wasp that caused a huge headache for 19th century theologians.
A piece I wrote on the county’s fascinating marine fossils led to an indignant response from at least one reader. Hadn’t I read my Bible? Did the name “Noah” ring a bell?
Here’s hoping the new year will offer some opportunities to explore what I consider to be the false — and over-hyped — opposition between religion and science.
Less controversial were the many columns of quiet, humorous desperation, chronicles of the Olshans’ epic struggles with tactically superior mice, a tick-laden hound, chard-gobbling groundhogs, a rocket-propelled squirrel, and opportunistic head lice.
As always, if you’d like to reread any of the year’s columns or perhaps find one you missed, I invite you to go to my website at www.matthewolshan.com, click on My Op-eds, and peruse the “Op-ed Archive.”
There’s also a way to email me with any thoughts, comments, or ideas you might have.
(Indignant or otherwise.)
Happy New Year, dear readers, and best wishes for a healthy and productive 2012!
This column was published in the Perry Co Times on 29 December 2011
For more information, please contact Mr. Olshan at writing@matthewolshan.com
