Is Anyone Listening?

My son Chris is a writer and works for a division of Time, Inc. in NYC. I write this thinking..."where did that writer gene come from?" I was never interested in writing as a child or a younger person but as the years past and life pours wonderful memories on you, you feel that urge, that need to put 'something on paper?'

Why? I don't really know why? I worked in a sales job for decades and soon found myself in our corporate office writing of all things, a newsletter for the company. They knew nothing about how this was done and neither did I. But they gave me a new Macintosh computer with the earliest of "newsletter" programs and my writings began.

It is interesting how this works. You have so many experiences in your professional and personal life,that soon the stories of the people and our interaction soon found it's way onto the printed page. It was truly a revelation to me to see the first printed or published letter that went out not only to our employees but also to the selective customers I had written about.

Stories are funny how they come together and I had so much input from other managers and employees as well as customers that soon I had files of stories I had yet to publish. I had legal pads up the kazoo (whatever a kazoo is) and these were my constant companion in a leather binder I treated myself to. Oh, it got on the expense account, but not as a personal leather binder...another story.

But time went by, and the companies interest in a bi-monthly newsletter waned. I publish the newsletter for over 2 years and was, in my opinion, just beginning to get the hang of it. But the thrust of the business took a new direction and my assets were needed to build an in-house marketing division which we currently outsourced back then. I did this for a number of years and trained two, no three assistants in the department. Oh, I still used my writing skills in this capacity but the newsletter went away.

I have a file cabinet downstairs that has copies of each of the newsletter I wrote and the company published back in late 1985 through early 1988. They are fun to read and bring back lots of memories. Some of the memories are sad as the people I wrote about have passed away. In truth though, this is a small window of the history of Jeff's writings that I would not have had the president of the company not called me back almost 20 years ago. Thanks Lackey for the wonderful chance to express myself and polish my writing skills that I enjoy today....Thanks Again.
Jeff Nutter, Jr.