Wordsmith's advice still rings true
Once upon a time, the late Dave Bond and I were part of the same newspaper panel.
It was 1995, and we explained column and opinion writing to an audience of high school journalists at North Idaho College. The forum was part of an annual NIC conference for budding journos throughout the region.
I can’t remember what I said to the teens. But I do recall a piece of advice that Bond gave them.
His presentation could be summed up in one, four-letter word: Read.
Why am I telling you this? In scouring old editions of the Coeur d’Alene Press this week, I found the column that my longtime competitor from the Coeur d’Alene Press wrote after the conference. His advice rings as true today, for any prospective writer, as it did back then.
Also, it reveals what a fine wordsmith Bond was:
"Don't as one sketch artist suggested at Monday's seminar, bother with speed-reading. That's bunk. Read copiously, but slowly, as you would drink a good vintage of Chateaueuf-du-Pape.
“Wrap yourself around a new word, swallow it, sniff it, use it; spit it out and imbibe it again. This is your fuel.
“Read as the writer wrote; give each nuance of his work as much thought as the composer or the vintner did, and you'll find the vinegar quicker than an Evelyn Wood graduate on crank.
“For the heart of every good writer's motivation is not money. It is the immortality he gains in the conquest of your convictions, your faith, your soul, without your knowing that you have been seduced. That is our tradecraft."
It takes a lot of reading and wordsmithing to write a statement like that.
A helping hand
Mayor Steve Widmyer and human-rights leader Tony Stewart have been in the news lately. During the recent 20th anniversary of the demise of the Aryan Nations, Tony was quoted widely. Hizzoner and Pepper Smock of Windermere/Coeur d’Alene Realty made the front page Wednesday with their offer to save the historic Hamilton House from the wrecking ball. You probably know this. But do you know there would be no Tony Stewart today without Steve Widmyer? In spring 1979, Stewart, then an NIC instructor, and two students, Steve and Jeff Moe, were rafting on the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene. All was well until their raft was pushed into fallen trees. The three were thrown into the water. Tony was trapped under the trees. He would have been a goner, if the future mayor hadn’t grabbed the arm poking out of the water. When Steve ran for mayor for the first time in 2013, Tony told Huckleberries about his close escape: “I know I couldn’t have escaped the trap without Steve’s quick action.”
Huckleberries
• Poet’s Corner: “The lovely leaves of red and gold/drop silently when they grow old/and drift down noiseless to the ground/and quiet lay without a sound /until the leaf blower guy shows up” – The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Autumn Tranquility”).
• Did You Know – Former Coeur d’Alene fitness instructor Steve Colwell helped write the original stage show for Up with People in 1965 and co-produced the group’s platinum album 30 years later. His brothers, Ralph and Paul, wrote the familiar Up with People theme song. Up with People was launched to combat the cynicism and unrest of the 1960s. Our divided country could use a good dose of Up with People today.
• Yeah, the bumpersnicker on the red Chevy pickup at Ironwood Drive and Lincoln Way was meant as a putdown: “My Knives Are Sharper Than Your Honor Students.” But it does raise a question: How many honor students are capable of sharpening knives?
• If you enjoy Wilson Casey’s TrivGuy column on Page 1, you may appreciate Huckleberries' attempt at local trivia: How many highway districts were there in Kootenai County before voters in 1970 approved a recommendation for four? Possible answers: a. One. b. Two. c. Eight. d. Twelve. The answer is – Eight (and that doesn’t include the county road operations).
Parting Shot
Duane Rasmussen, a Kootenai County precinct committeeman, is nonpartisan when it comes to rubbing people the wrong way. The Hayden attorney has the uncanny ability to take top-notch, candid photos of political figures. It unnerves some of them. A local GOP Pachyderm club has ordered him to stop it. On the other side of the political divide, organizers of a memorial for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in front of U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo’s office threatened to call the cops on Duane for taking photos. Duane must be doing something right if both sides are mad at him.
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D.F. “Dave” Oliveria can be contacted at dfo@cdapress.com.
