Editor Of My Own Page At The Newspaper

The then-publisher of the newspaper where I write a music column thought it would be funny to make me the Religion Editor. So he put my name in the Editor & Publisher yearbook and the mail started coming in.

“Why me?” I asked. “I’m your music columnist, I’ve nothing to contribute and, besides, we don’t have a religion page; it’s just full of small ads for churches.”

“I felt like doing it,” he said. “All you have to do is open the mail addressed to the Religion Editor and throw it away.”

This memory was brought to you by yesterday’s blog about the old lady who died at the age of 108, nurtured by a can of Coors Light every day.

Opposite her story was the religion page, just loaded with church ads. When I looked through the phone book, I became sure of three things: death, taxes and we have at least one of every church that exists. Everything from the omnipresent Roman Catholic Church to the Chapel of Hope in the Family Dollar Plaza.

We have Pastors, Ministers, Reverends, Monsignors (“My Lord”), a couple of places with two pastors, which should be interesting, and others with interpreters for the hearing impaired, nurseries, a motto “Without Sunday We Cannot Live,” and typefaces you can hardly see. But nary an inch for me to be editor of.