This week marked a big milestone as Past Deadline #1,000 was printed in The Perth Courier! Kinda hard to believe! The text of the column is printed here, along with a little gem featuring a fresh-faced, not-tired-looking young thing who had just published her first column. It’s an image of Past Deadline #1 from Nov. 22, 1995. I wrote #1,000 before tracking down and reading #1, and it’s kind of neat to see what I thought Past Deadline would be. Seems like a kazillion years ago.
One thousand
I used to keep a journal, but life got busy and it fizzled. When the kids were born, I kept records of firsts because my recall capacity is unreliable, but that waned, too. Their baby books are crammed with mementos, but it’s an unorganized compilation, to say the least.
I often admired the clever, organized moms who did scrapbooking – recording milestones with photos and labels and keeping it all together. I was not (am not) that mom.
At least there is this column, and you are currently reading number 1,000. That calls for some celebratory chocolate, I think!
Past Deadline began in The Perth Courier on Nov. 22, 1995 and I have written a column almost every week ever since. Over those 19 years the word count has been adjusted from time to time, but I figure it amounts to some 600,000 words. That’s longer than War and Peace! (You’re saying: “Yes, we noticed.”)
It took a long time for me to settle in to some sort of rhythm with Past Deadline and, arguably, it will always be a work in progress. For a while the column suffered a bit of an identity crisis and ping-ponged between politics (I sure had a heyday with George Dubya), local issues (waste management made me swoon), general interest and humour. Now I at least define it as “trying to be a humour column.”
What I have come to realize, though, is that once you sort through the hyberbole and occasional exaggeration, I’ve managed to maintain a nice little journal. I hope you don’t mind that I shared it.
I think, maybe, I was always a bit of a closet columnist/blogger. I used to keep diaries when I was a kid and I would wax rhapsodic about the trials, tribulations and angst that beset my young life. Oh, the woe and drama of being a teenager! I would show my writing to my friends because I thought it was pretty darned poetic. Then I would say to myself, “Why did I show that to my friends? That was pretty darned personal!”
At least it prepared me for the hazards of oversharing by the time the Interwebs came along. Not that I never overshare, but (believe it or not) I’m much smarter about what gets left out, for sure.
That became more and more relevant when my kids and their friends learned to read – not to mention their friends’ parents talking about “hahaha what your mom said in the paper.” Although I assumed my short people would find it as hilarious as I did, that wasn’t always the case. Now whenever anything related to family events gets written, it is first vetted by The Committee.
What a lot of milestones have been covered!
Fairly early on in this column’s existence there was a wedding, and during that series of missives about planning for “The Wedding Monster,” the term “Groom-boy” was coined. Some love it, some hate it – but it stuck. (Those Wedding Monster columns earned me a provincial humour column award back in the day.)
Readers have become acquainted with the pets – including Oreo the Rabbit, Myrtle the Turtle and the cats: MacGregor, Filibuster and, most recently, Ramsey. You have experienced the fun times, the messy times and some sad goodbyes.
When we decided to get tropical fish, you read about “The Fish Tank of Doom.” I know a lot more about aquarium water chemistry now, and we’ve had a much more successful time of it since those early days.
You learned of my foray into running and the resulting Stupid Foot issues, and you have endured my ongoing self-improvement activities (or lack thereof).
And, of course, you have read about my parenting experiences with Boychild (newly 13) and Girlchild (9) – from pregnancy through infancy and toddlerhood and going to school and all that comes with it.
I can’t tell you how much I have appreciated your comments over the years. I have readers of all ages, which I take as a huge compliment. So many times, especially when I have written about parenting young children, I have been thanked for saying things that people think about but could never express. I am thrilled that I can be that voice for some of you.
So thank you, readers, for hanging in there with me. I hope you’ve had as much fun with Past Deadline as I have. Now…what to write about next week….