If you don't want to become invisible, show up | MARK HUGHES COBB
The book for faces' bittersweet memories widget reminds me this is the time of year when we lost not just Nelle Harper Lee, and Jack Warner, but an old mentor, boss and inspiration, Ben Windham.
P.S., T.S.: February's rushing up on April for cruelest month honors.
Saw another former co-worker/editor/boss Friday night at Theatre Tuscaloosa 's production of "Best of Enemies," about which more later, except to say I had to bite my lip to keep the sobbing inaudible.
Alongside Ben, as managing editor, Don Brown, our executive editor, was the guy most responsible for me joining The Tuscaloosa News staff. Also as with Ben, please don't blame Don.
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Much like Ben, he was kind, fair, encouraging, and in love with words.
He was also placed in the unenviable position as conjunction junction, tugged in often disparate directions among:
No. 1: Our older readership, puckered and narrow in views of what did and didn't belong in print. One of my earliest memories of reading this newspaper, as a boy, was back when Mandy Ochoa wrote a fascinating string of articles about prostitution — Right here in the Druid City! With a capital P, and that rhymes with WT, as in WTF? — and the letters tumbled in, aghast that those desperate women had been reduced to such dire circumstances.
Ha. No. Readers were appalled that the series began on a Sunday, the Lord's day, but also coincidentally the biggest publication, where newspapers typically start all series, and run the most in-depth, or best, stories of the week.
No. 2: The younger readership we were — and still are — desperately courting. I was hired in part because of my experience writing and editing arts/entertainment stories and columns for Tusk, a weekly A&E mag at the University of Alabama, and writing/editing a similar tabloid for Fort Walton Beach's paper, called TGIF.
Yes, I was hired as The Kid, once upon a time. My mission, that I decided to accept: Get edgy! But … not too edgy.
Insert Inigo Montoya's response to "Get used to disappointment" here. 'K.
No. 3: Ownership at the New York Times Regional Media Group, which largely didn't give a flip as long as we continued to make profits. One year, The Tuscaloosa News made more money than The Boston Globe, which the NYTRMG had purchased. Not more percentage-wise. More money.
Insert moo-ing bag of TNews dollar bills here.
No. 4: And the contentious, fractious gaggle of writers, photographers, designers, free-lancers and other malcontents huddled under flickering, too-low ceiling lights at 2001 Sixth St., grabbing loose pens and pads whenever that mangler of an elephantine press rumbled to life, juddering the whole building like a strip-mall carnival ride bolted together by a guy named Lefty with more fingers than teeth, though neither of those figures would soar into double digits.
Don once railed at me for using the phrase "kick butt," as in a kick-butt action movie. I disagreed, but heard him out, because he did know gray-haired readers better than I. We did not prod anything but posterior for some time.
With Ben, he helped me remember to deploy empathy in column writing, any personal writing, to rely less on snark and snap.
Oh, well. I mean, he tried.
When crazy folks would call, and I would, after 90 seconds or so, run out of patience and hang up, Don would take the NEXT call. He'd ask what happened, then back me up to the wall, assuming I hadn't actually done anything.
Narrator: "He may have done something."
Though it was definitely not my fault that time a dude threatened my life over a misplaced TV listing, one that caused him to set his VCR wrong. I didn't even compile those. We bought them from a service, and the copy desk installed. But any questions about arts/entertainment rang to me, eventually.
Don not only calmed the irate fella down, but made it clear the po-po could and would be here in minutes if needed, though he certainly hoped they wouldn't be needed. Cooler heads makin' all that jazz.
He retired years back, and though we've had a steady stream of folks since — Some great, some good, some meh, some "Who ever told you that you could work with men?," thank you Mamet, though honestly more of my best bosses have been women, so time for new leads, maybe? — many days I've missed Don's quiet, calm leadership, his concern for details and decorum.
Last time I'd been in the same room with him was for an Ernest & Hadley Booksellers release event, for Don's book of memoirs and memories, "Stepping Stones — Tuscaloosa at 200: Its Most Decisive Years, 1950s to 2018." Don had asked me to moderate, which basically meant, as with other talented writers, to just set the volley up, and let the game flow.
Over the short years since then, his health has declined. When I called him to talk about the passing of TNews long-timer Ed Watkins (March and April of 2022 took its toll, too, between Ed and Tommy Stevenson), he struggled to get out a couple of sentences. His wife Hannah told me that was one of his better days.
Friday night, I saw and spoke to Hannah and Don. He was clearly making an effort, but he remembered me, knew my name, and asked about work.
Later, Hannah told me too many old friends now ignore Don, act as if he's invisible.
It's tough, yeah? Talking with someone who's clearly seen better days, as illnesses, mental, physical, maybe both, take their cuts.
You don't want to over-emote, to over-pronounce, overdo the hale-and-hearty: Nothing to See Here!
You can't pretend nothing's changed, but you don't want to focus solely on rocky shores, and exclude oceans of existence beyond.
It's probably atavistic, fears of something jumping up and catching hold, taking you down with it. No one wants to look their future in the face, not if those coming days look less than; reduced. If you've got any empathy at all, you can feel some of the pain. It ain't fun.
As those of us who've grown know, inside every older person is a young person bleating WHATTHEHECK just happened?
Insert interrobang here.
But who lets their meager worries, their neuroses and awkwardness, override concern? Not people who teach you to watch your words, to take the time to understand where others are coming from — even if it's from the nuthouse, aka the home of the guy with the tragically bereft VCR — and, I hope, not those who've tried to learn from them.
Do you just not show up?
It's easier, yeah? When my big brothers died, when my father died, I knew who made efforts. I knew who went out of their ways. I knew, and remembered, and always will.
And I certainly remembered those rare ugly few who wouldn't even bother to return calls, but maybe, possibly, sent a printed card, stuck on a mass-market bouquet through a mediating florist.
They will always be less than to me, even as I try to remember not to be like the worst, but to be more like those good folks we've lost: Dad, Scotty, and Randy; pals like Bill Buchanan, Glenn House and D.C. Moon; co-workers such as Tommy and Ben. And more like bosses such as Don, Michael James and Anne Newton (Not departed from life, but disconnected from our old work days together). All of them lifted hearts, minds and spirits, whether consciously or not.
I'll always be sad for those who don't show up. Not for my sake — OK, initially, for my sake — but for theirs, because I understand they've crushed and blinded parts of themselves to stay aloof, distant, and above all: safe.
This one's directly from Dad, though he acted more than articulated: In order to be good — or good-ish — you've got to do things just because they're right. Not because the person you're stepping up for deserves it.
But some do deserve. And they damn sure don't deserve disregard and disrespect, which speak of disdain.
Be there. If you can't do it for the right reasons, do it because you realize you should, and because someday you might see your own aging self fading. As we learned from "Unforgiven": We all got it coming, kid.
You don't want to be invisible, right? So show up.
Reach Tusk Editor Mark Hughes Cobb at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com, or call 205-722-0201.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: If you don't want to become invisible, show up | MARK HUGHES COBB
