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Journalist with spirit moves up
(by Barbara Christian - January 20, 2011)
WINDOW ON MAIN STREET, BY BARBARA CHRISTIAN
Journalist with spirit moves up
To my dear friend Joan Brandon: Remember that time at the newspaper office years ago when you looked across our desks and asked me to write your obituary?
Thought it was a bit ghoulish on your part but jotted down something silly, and it seemed to satisfy you. Not sure why you wanted to read your own obit. Maybe you needed to know how you would be remembered. That was long ago and way too soon to be thinking about such things. You were still living your life and would have years to go.
Well, kid, you finally have your wish. Last week, you made me write your obit. But, you know what? It wasn't as hard or as sad as I feared. Remembering you made me laugh, albeit past a lump in my throat.
By the way, everyone you cared about does remember you fondly and with smiles. They described you with words like "feisty" and "funny" and said you were "a real piece of work," "a character," "a consummate wisecracker." And one person said, and I quote, "I never met a bigger mouth on someone so small."
Bet you are pleased about that, because, while you were indeed very short, you are being remembered larger than life. You were a clever, funny and talented woman, and you did being you so well.
The old newspaper gang still talks about a particular deadline day when you cut the tension by jumping on the desks and dancing from one to the other. And if memory serves, you also left your footprints on the bar at the Raintree one Friday afternoon after work. We won't even go into stories from the Greenville or all those unprintable limericks you committed to memory.
It's just a wonder you weren't arrested for some of the things you did. There was that time we took a walk into town. It was late, and you were out for mischief. Remember how you stole that geranium from a front porch on Bell Street then stuffed it into the nearest mailbox?
Are you mad I told that story? Relax. The U.S. Post Office can't do anything to you posthumously.
Time passed, and we ended up on competing newspapers, covering the same beat. You were a fierce competitor who scooped me a couple of times.
But what is embedded in my brain so indelibly about those days was covering council meetings together. Remember? We sat next to each other, third row back, next to the door. Being near the door was a good thing too, because you would often say something so funny I had to leave the room. Remember how council members would look out at us puzzled, wondering what it was they had done that was so funny? We sure kept them off balance, didn't we, old friend?
You were a cut-up, for sure, profound and profane. But what people didn't know about you and what they might not have seen behind that invisible clown nose you always wore was what a good heart you had.
You would do anything for a friend, and I can say that from firsthand experience as a recipient of your generous spirit. So can many others. You even sent cash anonymously to people in town you knew needed a hand. To add to the words people used to describe you, you were "something else!"
So, my old friend, I hope you are happy wherever you ended up. And I am sure you are up and not down. And if I know you, you are still up to mischief, cracking wise with the angels and dancing on St. Peter's desk.
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