When I was in third grade, I decided to become a foreign correspondent. I wrote a story about an archaeologist exploring ancient ruins in Egypt, and then in a professorial tone, I related the lives of the Ancient Egyptians through the lens of my journalistic eye. The teacher thought it was brilliant and read it aloud. I remember thinking it was as if a force greater than I, came through my number 2 pencil onto the yellow composition paper, but from then on, I was hooked on writing. I wish I still had that story, but it disappeared like so many relics of yesteryear.
Recently, a picture of my high school newspaper surfaced on Facebook, and delighted, I absconded the picture of the Panther since this is when I was the newspaper editor. You could say this was the glory days of my journalism career, as I took this responsibility very seriously, redesigned the masthead, the lettering, to resemble the New York Times of course, and was even in the play pictured on the front, the Man who came to Dinner...
I was not a great student but I was an ambitious one, and had tremendous drive to succeed, and of course, become a foreign correspondent just like Peter Jennings who always appeared on the nightly news in a Safari jacket from somewhere in Beirut or Paris or somewhere, and that's who I wanted to be.
I also wanted to be a little bit Brenda Starr, the cartoon character, who also had a fabulous journalism career, and a really mysterious boyfriend with an eyepatch.
Then I went to the University of Maryland where they tossed me out of journalism school for having an overactive imagination. The nerve!
They suggested I try some other kind of writing. I didn't listen to them. I majored in political theory and psychology and wrote for the campus newspaper, the Diamondback, and went on to work for United Press International, the Newark Star Ledger, the Elizabeth Daily Journal, and even a few weekly rags, before getting a job at the New Yorker Magazine, but I will leave that story for another day.
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