Today’s children are enamored of Harry Potter, yesterday’s by Charlotte and her web, and before by Dorothy and her fearful, brainless, heartless trio – but I, as a child, owned no books. Maybe that’s why my lifelong enchantment with newspapers began, instigated by the 1927-’28 Post vs. News circulation wars.
Where I waited for the No. 14 trolley, the news hawks gave everybody (even kids) a free copy of each paper’s evening editions. I carried them home. Both of my parents read them; so did I. As the battle escalated, each publication offered inducements to new subscribers, beginning with free want-ads and movie tickets and increasing to one that my frugal mom could not resist: a ton of coal. She quickly subscribed to both papers. Not only did we have an overflowing coal room, I had lots to read.
Whenever I was downtown, I stood outside The Post’s building at 15th and Champa, watching the giant presses spinning out thousands of pages. The machines’ reverberations were so strong that I could feel them through the thick glass.
A few years later, when I was a student at Morey Junior High in Denver, the faculty adviser for the student newspaper, called More about Morey, asked me to take stories written by the staff to the dailies – not because I was a good reporter, but because I knew my way around town.
The big, noisy room at the top of the stairs at the Rocky Mountain News building looked just like the one from the movie “The Front Page” – lots of reporters talking on their phones or clickety-clacking on big, black typewriters.
The switchboard operator erroneously assumed that I was my school’s representative for the new weekly page, the Junior News Page, which was written by and for high schoolers – but there hadn’t been one appointed. She pointed me toward Ben Blumberg, one of the men sitting at a large semicircular table. “The copy desk,” she said. Ben took my articles, told me I’d missed “the meeting,” and said to return on Wednesday.
Of course, despite the case of mistaken identity, I did just that.
Students wrote articles and headlines, did paste-ups under the tutelage of our genius teenage editor, Leroy Kyffin. Little by little, I learned from him, but more so from Ben. He critiqued the last week’s page, suggesting improvements, pointing out errors, sometimes offering praise. He taught us newspaper ethics, especially objectivity and accuracy. He believed that there was never an excuse for garbling the facts. Under no circumstances, he said, should anyone lie – ever.
Trying to make him recant, his young listeners bedevilled him for weeks with what-ifs.
“What if your girlfriend asked how you liked her new hat – and it was horrible?” From Ben, I learned that he would praise something about it that he truly liked, maybe the orange stripes or the rhinestones.
“What if your latest boyfriend wrote a romantic poem for you that was trite and corny?” The poem of little merit, he said, merited a response like, “It was thoughtful of you to write it,” perhaps adding, “So few people write poetry anymore.”
“What if your gourmet friend asked what you thought of her fried eel pie?” was another question. I can’t recall what Ben’s response was. And though that pie never materialized, years later, when I was a teacher at St. Mary’s Academy, a large jalapeño bread did – so hot that it destroyed tastebuds and brought tears to the eyes. Rather than eat it and weep or trash it, I took it to the faculty room. An hour later, only crumbs remained and several teachers wanted the recipe. I thought of Ben when I truthfully told my friend how much her bread had been liked.
Even though advanced age doesn’t mean increased knowledge, it’s terribly flattering to be asked for one’s opinion about a plethora of subjects: college options, selecting china or Oriental rugs, growing roses, housebreaking dogs or kids, choosing a restaurant, finding a capable handyman, ad infinitum. And, of course, there are the really difficult personal questions about errant children, quarreling friends, troublesome in-laws, and divorce. Usually Ben’s words still guide me. I try to tell the truth, for I feel terrible guilt when I prevaricate. I’m never afraid to say “I don’t know” or to answer a question with a question, so that the questioner can find her own truth – particularly about painful, emotional issues.
I realize I’ve forgotten a lot. As I age, I know more and more about less and less. I call it “old-timer’s disease” … but I still remember Ben.
Louise Turnbull, a Denver native and retired teacher who has written commercial film scripts and an animated television special, dotes on her garden, her four children and eight grandchildren.
