Prelude to an oldie
January 03, 2002 ~ 4:28 p.m.
BOSTON, MA�Being back home this week, as I was, gave me the opportunity to dig through the closet in my old room. In there were neatly stacked piles of all my past work: columns that I wrote for my college paper, in addition to �professional� freelance opinions published in Boston-area newspapers. But it�s the stuff I wrote in school that really got my attention. And the only conclusion I can come to, upon reading most of it again for the first time in several years, is this: �Damn, did I write some really whacked shit in those days or what?�
Now I know how P.J. O�Rourke must�ve felt when he pulled out all of his early work for his book Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence and a Bad Haircut
My debut column for the University of Massachusetts at Boston�s The Mass Media on April 7, 1992 is very stark in outlining the differences between the writer I was then and the writer I am now. For instance, I was a lot less discriminating in those early days. I just wrote what I felt, took one look at the hard copy, said �ah, fuck it,� and submitted it to production. My first-ever column reflects this cavalier attitude I had toward editorial writing: I made use of vague historical references and used words like counterrevolutionary to describe a simple primary race. I even suggested the European political system was cleaner than the American! Whoa. Well, it was college, damnit�I was as stoned as anyone else. Forgive me.
You will observe that I was considerably more liberal in those days as well. I have to shudder at my na�vet�. If my memory serves me correctly, I may even have written all my early work attired in tie-dye. It would explain a lot.
Anyway, in a few short hours, I will post that very column, totally unabridged and shamefully unedited. (After I�ve typset it, that is. It�s times like this when I dearly wish I had a scanner.) But I must share it with you�it is just too good. I don�t even mind if you laugh. I laughed myself, good and hard. The me of ten years ago was quite an amusing person, in a this-kid-needs-serious-help kind of way.
Till then, happy wanderings ...
� M.E.M.
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Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.
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