The great Wallace Tripp says illustrators are just word people who to happen to also draw: “We work with one foot in a book, the other stuck in a paint pot; our shoes are a disgrace.” I think of him here on National Columnists Day, so chosen because April 18th, 1945 was when legendary war correspondent Ernie Pyle was caught in some crossfire on an island off Okinawa. He was a word person if ever the was one, his dispatches going out to over 300 newspapers on the home front. They buried him in his helmet.
Tripp also says “genius is as rare as turtle fangs, but talent is common enough” and I get that completely. For sure I’m no genius and even if I have talent it’s no more than the kind all humans have, born story-tellers that we are – though I will say my pals on the board of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists are the wittiest people I know. I keep wanting to stop and copy down all the funny things that come across my screen during our online board meetings. I’ve been doing a weekly column for 30 years and sometimes boast about how I’ve never missed a deadline. The real pros though? They write three or four or five times a week. Like San Francisco’s Herb Caen did, or Chicago’s Mike Royko. Did Molly Ivins write that often? Even if she wrote only once a week you were glad you were there to see what she said: “The first rule of holes: when you’re in one, stop digging” is one of hers. Also, “As they say around the Texas Legislature, if you can’t drink their whiskey, screw their women, take their money, and vote against ’em anyway, you don’t belong in office.”
All I ever did was stay the same person I was at age two when I set out alone in the big city to find my sister at kindergarten. I still go out each day wide-eyed, eager to see whatever I can see so I can come back and tell you all about it. This blog I’ll keep up for as long as I can but the column I will never stop writing so bury me in my helmet too and say I died in the line of duty.
Tonight I’ll lift a glass to fellow Smithie Molly, gone from us too soon
EXIT ONLY 
Molly Ivins and Barbara Jordan–two great Texas women! Oh, and Ann Richardson, also. Great sense of humor, great understanding of politics and the forces behind it. Thanks, Terry, for an opportunity to toast Molly. Thanks, Terry, for staying open-minded and curious!
Thank You Gloria for taking the time to comment!
Molly Ivins’ humor was so sharp, wonderful political comments. Her comment on right-wing Pat Buchanan’s 1992 speech at the Republican Convention is one example “..it probably sounded better in the original German”.
Yes, I delighted in her column in the Daytona Beach News-Journal, a fine progressive daily until it was taken over recently by a right wing outfit looking to present a “more balanced” perspective.
I am sure that you will die honorably in the line of duty but as for that helmet – I don’t believe that you have ever worn one – I think that your noggin has absorbed everything thrown it’s way and would rather not be protected from this life’s missles.