Back in Fort Worth, the city where Pam and I both grew up, our priorities were simple: Find a place to live and find work. For me, that meant applying for a job at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 

While I still had a year to go to earn my college degree, I had something that at that time was deemed more valuable -- newsroom experience. My work on the copy desk at the Austin American-Statesman gave my resume more credibiity, and earned me an interview with the managing editor of the Star-Telegram's Evening Edition.

In the modern context, when newspapers are sadly facing extinction, it might seem odd that in the 70s, readership was strong, and climbing steadily (newspaper readership nationwide peaked in the late Eighties at 62-plus million paid subscribers). Demand was such the Star-Telegram published two editions, both Morning and Evening. Each had their own staff of reporters and editors. It wasn't unusual for households to have multiple subscriptions, not only to the Star-Telegram, but also to its smaller rival, The Fort Worth Press.

​They had an opening on the Evening copy desk. My work day would start at 6 am and end at 2 pm. That's the thing about newspapers -- it's a 24-hour operation. There are no days when the paper doesn't get delivered, including and especially on holidays. The Thanksgiving edition was typically the largest paper of the year, and you had to feel sorry for the paper carriers who had the task of hand-delivering them to doorsteps.

To say I was ecstatic is an understatement. I was working at the newpaper I grew up with. The columnists I looked forward to reading were sitting literally just a few feet away. Familiar bylines in ink became real, flesh and blood people. It all seemed unreal, yet here I was, surrounded by some of the most recognizable and talented journalists in the state of Texas. 

The Universe had given me a wonderful opportunity. I was determined to make the most of it.

American humorist Dorothy Parker could also apply that to editors.

​There's an old joke among Journalism School graduates: "Four years ago, I couldn't spell 'journalist.' Now I are one."

They also say behind every good writer is a good editor. The two go hand-in-hand. Editors not only fix typos, correct spelling and check for grammar and syntax. but also, in the case of newspapers, are the last line of defense against a possible libel suit. 

I don't know if it was my background in English or just a natural affinity, but I came to enjoy editing almost as much as writing. And since editors also are the ones to write the headlines, I was still able to keep my hand in that arena, too.

There's a fine art to headline writing. The goal is capture the essence of the story and at the same time, make the reader want to read it. News organizations, like Associated Press and the Society of Professional Journalists, held contests for the best headlines. And it wasn't always the flashy, big story headlines that won. That was the case for one of my copy desk colleagues.

Back in the day, newspapers ran what were called "fillers." These were one or two-paragraph, random factoids that were used to fill the spaces left on a page if a story ran short. I rememeber well the mind-numbing job of composing dozens of headlines for fillers that were held in reserve for when they were needed.

The filler in question was about a certain species of mole that had the remarkable ability to burrow 100 miles in a single night. The headline he wrote, which later did win an award, was:

My time at UT-Austin turned out to be eventful in many ways.

I landed a job at the Austin American-Statesman. During the day, I was working at the UT newspaper, the Daily Texan. On the world scene, the Vietnam War was raging, and students were raging against it. Another campus protest erupted when plans were announced to bulldoze trees so they could expand the football stadium. Called the "Battle of Waller Creek," demonstrators resorted to climbing the trees to stymie the effort.

One of those tree-climbers worked in the American-Statesman newsroom, who proudly wore a black armband to show his support of the protest. As any J-School student knows, one of the bedrock tenets of journalism is to be Switzerland -- neutral and impartial. We weren't even allowed to espouse our political affiliation on yard signs. Needless to say, he lost his job, even if his heart was in the right place.

Another event that had earthquake-tsunami implications that year in Austin, and across the state: The beloved Longhorns won the national football championship. Led by legendary coach Darrell Royal, they first won a comeback shootout with their rival, the Arkansas Razorbacks,  in what was called, "The Game of the Century," 15-14, then went on to beat Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl, 21-17. President Richard Nixon presented the trophy to the team.

Pandemonium erupted like you've never seen. The UT Tower was bathed in orange lights and one Austin radio station played the UT fight song for 24 hours straight. Even for football-crazy Texas, it seemed a little over the top.

On a personal note, as mentioned in the previous chapter, Pam and I set our wedding date for November. Managing being 200 miles apart was a struggle for both of us. Not only did I rack up large, long-distance phone bills, but also put a lot of miles on my car, going back and forth to Fort Worth every chance I got.
​
On one visit, a week before the wedding, we just decided "why wait?" So we rounded up a few friends, a preacher, said our vows and eloped to Austin, where we set up housekeeping and adopted a cat we named "Zhivago."

Between working and school, my social life was limited. So when my brother and his girlfriend invited me on a blind date to meet her girlfriend, Pam, I was all in.

Call it destiny, or the Universe's grand plan, but that fateful night in January brought two soulmates together. I was more than smitten. I was -- madly, deeply, completely -- in love, and over the next weeks and months, my writing reflected it. Cards, letters and poems, using all the words I knew to describe feelings of indescribable joy.

While it became quite a challenge to stay focused on my studies, I was preparing to make the transfer to UT-Austin for the Fall semester, where I would immerse myself in as many journalism courses as possible. Of course, there were still bills to pay, so it was a given I had to find work in Austin as soon as possible after I arrived.

On the personal front, things were moving fast. Three months after that blind date, we got engaged, and soon after were talking about setting a wedding date later that year. 

After saying painful goodbyes, I loaded up my car and started the 200-mile trek to UT, whose campus, which I would be sharing with some 50,000 other students, occupied some 430 acres in downtown Austin -- and I thought getting around UTA was tough. Gone was Mom's home cooking. Now it was catch-as-catch-can in one of the UT dorms. Plus, it was the first time I had ever spent any meaningful time away from home, so there was that.

Along with journalism, I had to take a PE class, plus an elective. Obviously not in my right mind, I thought it would be fun to take Fencing for PE, which started at 8 am. Who did I think I was -- Eroll Flynn playing Captain Blood? And 8 am -- really? Likewise, I chose Astronomy as an elective, thinking how cool it would be to study the planets and stars, which I loved so much as a young man. Wrong. For starters, there were 300 students in that class, and instead of planets and stars, it focused on Doppler shifts and math that made my head spin. Thinking back to previous grade point disasters, I beat a hasty retreat and dropped it like a hot potato.

But, my upper-level journalism classes were everything I had hoped for. On one occasion, I got to meet Clifton Daniel, former managing editor and Moscow Bureau Chief for the New York Times, who was there for an inspiring guest lecture. Better still, I had a chance to work on the UT student paper, The Daily Texan, that functioned more like a regular city newspaper, even to the point of taking on the establishment in their editorials.

The Vietnam War was peaking. Young men were drafted into serving, and any college student not taking at least 12 semester hours was subject to the draft. Thousands of students would gather to protest, and I clearly recall sitting in a classroom and hearing a low rumble that became a roar as hundreds of students marched by the building, all shouting, "One-two-three-four, we don't want your [expletive] war."

​My assignment was rolling tape in the wire services room. Here's how it worked:

The wire room housed the news services machines, such as Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI). These teletypes delivered a  constant, loud, clattering feed of the latest news and features, 24 hours a day. At the same time, each story was transmitted via perforated yellow tape as TTS code, which linotype machines could read and set in type. My job was roll the tape associated with an individual story, secure it with a rubber band, mark it with an identifying number, and have it ready for the editor if it was chosen to appear in the next day's edition.

The day wasn't far off when computers and digital would change this convoluted, labor-intensive process forever, but right now, it was an endless, repetitious and mind-numbing job. But it was a job, at a major and respected Texas paper, and I was only steps away from editors and reporters scurrying to publish the news of the day. I knew one day that would be me.

One day happened sooner than I thought.

The first year of college. An exciting time, right? Taking the final step that would propel you into your chosen career field, into the wide world at large that lay beyond your neighborhood.

Academically, I felt prepared. I had graduated from high school magna cum laude, a member of National Honor Society. My work on the newspaper had won awards. I maintained my keen interest in science, and as a high school junior, even wrote a paper on the effects of traveling at the speed of light that won an award in a local Engineering Society competition.

The school counselors at Poly had done a good job of making sure we took the right classes and obtained a sufficient number of credits for the college of our choice, which for me was the University of Texas at Arlington (see Chapter 4). While known as one of the finest Engineering schools in the state, it still offered a decent Liberal Arts program. In fact, one of the esteemed English teachers there was Emory Estes, husband to my high school journalism mentor, Dorothy Estes.

While I was firmly committed to the pursuit of journalism, I made the decision to go for a BA in English, with a minor in journalism. Two reasons: English was always one of my favorite subjects in school, and two, I had a longterm plan to transfer to UT-Austin and enroll in their excellent Journalism School.

Arranging my schedule was complicated by the ongoing necessity of having a job. By this time, I had moved on from working at grocery stores. Or it moved on from me. This was the Sixties, and The Beatles were all the rage. Throughout most of my life, i wore my hair close-cut, burr-style. But like my friends had already done, I was ready to grow it out. The store manager, Mr. Cozart, stopped me one day and said hair couldn't touch the ears -- it was store policy. So get a haircut. The next day, I turned in my nametag and quit. My next job was unloading trucks on a loading dock at a department store, where long hair didn't matter.

Along with the standard "must take" classes, I chose some electives that were of particular interest to me: Journalism, of course, and Philosophy, into whose various rabbit holes I was a frequent visitor through high school.

Let's get this party started. Except, it was anything but a party. It was more like a rude awakening.

Unlike high school, the professors didn't seem to care if you showed up for class or not. If you wanted to throw away your money, so be it. And some of the freshman classes were large -- not 20 or 30 students, but 75, 80, a 100 or more. And the UTA campus was huge. You might literally have to run to not be late, or get a bicycle.

And classes like Philosophy, which I eagerly looked forward to, was one of the most excruciating. My slovenly-dressed professor spoke in a continuous monotone, and by the end of that semester, effectively killed all my interest in the subject.

The Foreign Language requirement ,was also a problem. At Poly, I had two years of Latin, which, as the basis for the Romance languages like French, Italian, Spanish and Portugese, I figured would be valuable. So I enrolled in Portugese. That lasted a hot minute. After two weeks,  I quickly switched to French, where I didn't fare much better.

As my high school years progressed, my enthusiam for journalism only grew stronger. And by 1966, my senior year, I was named co-editor of The Parakeet. While it broadened my responsibilties, it still allowed me to continue writing columns, report on  sports and pen editorials.

But maybe the most important contribution to my budding newspaper career happened after my sophomore year, when the teacher advising  the journalism department resigned and a new teacher took over. Her name was Dorothy Estes.

Mrs. Estes was kind and caring, but all business and demanding when it came to  instilling in us the principles of good journalism. We learned about the "Five Ws" -- Who, What, When, Where and Why, paired with How -- the  guideposts every reporter uses to write their story. How important accuracy is; sourcing facts; remaining impartial and taking accountability.

She built a classroom environment where creativity flourished, but she could also be stern when called for, which I experienced first hand. One day in class, probably as a deadline approached to "put the paper to bed" (have it ready to go to the printer), for whatever reason I was in a funk. Mrs. Estes could see I wasn't pulling my weight and asked me to step out in the hall, where she reminded me I had students who were relying on me to do my job.

​Some of the best advice I ever got about what to do if you want to be a better writer: Write.

It seeems simple, but it's true. In fact, many famous writers say write something every day, no matter what the topic or format. It could even be a diary. Some, like Ernest Hemingway, had a daily routine. For him, he liked to start at sunrise (maybe the inspiration for "The Sun Also Rises"? -- probably not.)

As I got more and more serious about writing, I traded my "Science Digest" subscription for one to "Writer's Digest." I spent a lot of time at the Fort Worth Public Library, searching the shelves for biographies of famous writers, so I could learn what motivated them, what influenced their work.

For instance, I discovered that Jack London, who wrote "Call of the Wild" and "White Fang," had a system for expanding his vocabulary. Every time he encountered a word he didn't know, he wrote it on a piece of paper and hung it on a clothesline in his room. That inspired me to do the same with index cards.

It also seemed important for writers not to have a thin skin. So many of the greats probably could have papered their walls with rejection notices. I recall the first one I got, and it had nothing to do with writing.
Let me explain.

As what you might call a geeky kid, I was painfully shy. One of the ways I tried to overcome my shyness was with humor. I discovered early on I could make people laugh with some clever remark or joke I had heard. So humor became one of tools in my writer's toolbox.

Like many in my generation, I was hooked on "Mad Magazine." Their spoofs of TV, movies and the culture at large I thought were brilliant. So I got this idea for a six-panel cartoon strip, based on the popular Japanese monster movie, "Rodan." There's a scene where this giant egg hatches in a cave and Rodan emerges to startled onlookers. In my cartoon -- which of course I drew by hand -- the egg in the cave starts to crack, and cracks, and cracks some more, until finally in the last panel a giant yolk emerges and covers the onlookers.

I thought it was pretty darn clever, and promptly mailed to if off to the Mad Magazine editors. After frantically checking the mailbox for weeks, a letter finally arrived from Mad, with their "mascot," Alfred E. Newman embossed on the letterhead. Breathlessly, I opened it and read:

"You've been rejected." Well, they didn't sugarcoat it, did they? 

Okay, maybe my artwork was crude, but you have to admit, it was pretty funny.

With my cartoon career on hold, I had visions of someday writing the Great American Novel, no doubt the same dream of every aspiring writer. But there was something else that stood out as I read about the great novelists: Many lead troubled lives, filled with personal tragedy, prone to bouts of depression, bedeviled by drinking and drugs. I thought to myself, "Is pain and suffering the price you have to pay to achieve greatness?"

In a sense, that may be true. Writers tend to write what they know, what they experience. To truly understand the depths of sadness or the heights of joy, maybe you have to have been there. It was a sobering thought. But then I realized you don't start out to pen the next great masterpiece. You simply write, and see where it goes.

​My paternal grandfather, who worked as a commercial printer until his retirement at 75, used to tell me people who worked in the newspaper/printing business had "ink in their blood." He was right.

My long career in newspapers started, believe it or not, in the sixth grade at Eastland Elementary in Fort Worth, TX.  That year, my teacher championed a project to launch a school newspaper, printed on a mimeograph machine. I quickly volunteered to join it.

We named it the "Eastland Eagle," and my first job was hand-draw an eagle that would be on the paper's masthead. Even though one of my other early aspirations was art, this eagle was not going to win any prizes. But I did get to contribute stories about what was going on at the school, and really enjoyed the whole process, especially seeing my name in print for the first time. Hey Mom and Dad, look what your son did!

Little did that teacher know he had planted the seeds for what would become a life-long pursuit.
​
My first efforts at creative writing was poetry. English was always my favorite class, especially literature. In junior high, we were sometimes tasked with memorizing a poem which we then had to recite in front of the class -- a frightening experience that could easily leave one scarred for life.

But as I was introduced to the great poets, there was something about that form of writing that drew me in. It could so beautifully and powerfully capture feelings and emotions in rhyme and cadence that was akin to composing music. A great poem could stir the soul. For a young, would-be writer, it seemed the perfect vehicle for distilling all the joy and angst that comes with those early years.

I vividly recall my teacher reading aloud Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," and listening with rapt attention to the plight of sailors on a becalmed sea:

I think very few kids decide at an early age to be writers. I didn't.

There are the rare child prodigies who sit down at a piano at age two and start playing Mozart. But how many times have you heard about a kid who grabs a computer keyword and pounds out "War and Peace?"

No -- I was just happy being  -- as comedian/actor Robert Klein so brillantly evoked in his album, "Child of the Fifties" -- a child of the Fifties and Sixties. When the highlight of your day was watching "Superman" on a 19-inch, black and white TV and begging your mother to tie a dish towel around your neck so you and your brother could play "Superman" in the backyard.

Thinking back, probably the earliest precursor to my love of writing was my love of reading. Starting at an early age with the "Golden Books" that taught me the "A,B,Cs," reading books was like taking a magic carpet ride to the past, present or future, where knowledge, adventure, mysteries and wisdom were waiting to be discovered.