Thanks for Visiting Across the Fence

Across the Fence #313

This brings to a close the sixth year of “Across the Fence.” Next week, Thanksgiving week, we begin the seventh year of this weekly column.

It’s time to thank the papers that run the column, and everyone who spends a few minutes each week reading it. I really do appreciate it. I hope the stories have stirred your own memories about subjects I’ve written about.

Each year I’ve heard from and met many of you. It’s been nice meeting those who have visited with me across the book-signing table. It was interesting to hear that many of you have been clipping the stories and saving them. One reader had been clipping and saving every column and had them in a scrapbook, so she didn’t need a book! “But I have all these great photos in the book,” I said. She still didn’t buy a book. Her scrapbooks with my stories mean a lot to me.

Writer Norbert Blei, who lives in Door County and reads Across the Fence, did a story about my newspaper columns. He received such a good response that he did a follow-up story.

He wrote: “Judging by the number of readers who responded in praise of the last installment of Local Journalism/Local Writing” (an introduction to Wisconsin writer Howard Sherpe), people want local columns of interest in their papers.

“Here’s another test of how meaningful your local paper is: When was the last time you clipped something from the paper ‘to keep’? A piece of writing (other than straight news)…a column, an essay, perhaps even a great photograph that affected you enough to want to keep it, come back to another time, put in a file, slip between the pages of some appropriate book, show to someone else, mail to a friend or relative?

“If your local paper isn’t giving you that kind of writing (at least some of the time) it isn’t doing its job…

“Howard Sherpe’s stories have certainly reached the prominence of ‘clip-able’–as many of his readers will attest to. Writings like his keep the home fires burning, the Midwest aglow in the things that matter between people, and the land that shapes them.”

Those are kind words from Mr. Blei, and they point up the importance of having a weekly column in a local newspaper. If that column can stir people’s emotions and memory, we as writers are doing something right.

A few years ago, my story about windmills stirred memories in Sid from Middleton, Wisconsin. I had never met him, but he sent me an old, tin cup that had hung on his windmill for many years. I treasure that old, weathered cup. It now has a place of honor on a shelf with other treasures. Sid and I began corresponding. We finally met and became friends. He died a couple years ago and I miss his e-mails about my stories.

This past year I also lost a classmate, friend, and faithful reader of Across the Fence in the Linn News-Letter in Central City, Iowa. Ardy was an English and Journalism teacher and often commented on my stories. I got many good ideas for columns from her observations about life. I miss her e-mails too.

I also want to mention Kay down in Mississippi. She wrote: “I always make sure to read your column, as it brings me back to the hills and valleys and people that I so miss. When I read your descriptions and stories, I feel like I’m almost there again. You’ve helped me through many bouts of homesickness.” Thank you Kay!

I want to thank Tom in Viola, who reads this column. He read my recent story about corn husking and how I wished I still had one of the old huskers. He showed up at my book reading at Bramble Books in Viroqua and gave me a corn husker. Tom’s corn husker will join Sid’s cup on that shelf of treasures that mean a lot to me. Thank you Tom!

Thanks to Kathy and Tim in Marion, Iowa for sharing their silo adventures with me. Thank you Tom, Lowell, and Anne in the Madison area for your feedback on many stories. Thank you Bob in Bailey’s Harbor for your insightful observations on life. Thanks to Wayne in Minnesota, Vicki in Indiana, Lou in Colorado, and Ken in California for commenting on stories that stirred your memories.

Thanks also to everyone who has told me about experiences they remembered, while reading something I’d written. As I listened, it reinforced what I’ve always said… everyone has a story that needs to be told. Share it with someone. Don’t take your stories with you when you leave this earth.

The last e-mail message I received from Ardy before she died said: “The new school year is underway. Where did the summer go? I’ll think of your lovely description of July and be reminded that ‘to everything there is a season’ and even some of the stupidity with teaching will wane and a new “field” will emerge. Kind of like you wanting to plant your yard full of wildflowers. And time marches on, doesn't it? But why does it have to march so darn fast??????”

Time does march on. It waits for no one. Thanks again for stopping for a few minutes each week and visiting with me across the fence. Next week, year seven begins.