Sallie

Satterthwaite

Lifestyle

Columnist

Among the pleasures of being a semi-quasi-sorta-public figure is a certain celebrity and access to a platform from which to ask for help. (If you don't read the rest of this, at least check the appeals at the end.)

Long ago I learned to ask the burning question: Do I have something to say or do I just have to say something? As long as desperate program chairmen don't make the distinction, I guess I'll keep on getting invited to mount the occasional dais.

I'm glad. Writing is a solitary business, even though I visualize you opening your paper and scanning down my column to see if it's worth the effort today, and I try to anticipate where you might lose interest and how I can get it back.

That's often guess work. When I'm done, I still won't know whether we've connected in any meaningful way for at least a few days.

Case in point: last week's column. I was on deadline with plenty of ideas, but they were going to take more research than I had time or energy for. So was born a little piece on neckties which I submitted apologetically and with a promise to my editor that I'd try to produce something with more substance before the paper went to print.

I didn't, of course, and splash! At least a dozen of you told me you just loved that column and sent copies to friends. Never fails. Those I labor over and fill with passion often sink to the bottom without a ripple, too late to retrieve.

But with faces in front of me, I get much more immediate feedback and can stretch out a point when you seem interested or cut it short when you start to glaze over.

I've spoken to Kiwanians and Newcomers, Real Estate agents and Pioneers. Last year I had two delightful visits with youngsters. I got to sit in the chair of honor a comfy rocker in Peachtree City Elementary's cheerful library shortly before Christmas.

I was a Celebrity Reader imagine! Me, a celebrity! for Cherise Quamme and her fellow third-graders, and we dissected the poem they were memorizing, "'Twas the Night Before Christmas." I dallied too long trying to make them see exactly what Clement Moore meant in word pictures like, "As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, when they meet with an obstacle mount to the sky." The bell rang, and away they all flew, like the down of a thistle.

It was all right. A few who stayed behind for my autograph (!?) asked if I was famous. At that moment, I thought maybe I was.

Kathy Cox, then our new state representative-elect, asked me to come talk to her son's Cub Scout troop about being a reporter. I told them that my most important writing tool is my dictionary, but that e-mail and computers have made reporters' work easier than any advance since the typewriter.

I told them how embarrassing it is to get something wrong and not be able to take it back once it's been tossed into driveways all over Fayette County.

And when Kyle Gifford asked me if I'd interview him, I did, and learned that he and his brother Andrew are both in the pack; that Kyle is in third grade and likes math, science, reading, football, and skateboarding; that he won a drawing contest for a picture of his friends Haydn and Jared Rhodes Jared's the one who fell and scraped his knee.

(Did I get it right, Kyle? I'd hate to embarrass myself. Again.)

But as often happens, whether we're writing or speaking, I thought too late of things I should have told the kids. I should have told them that the most fun about being a reporter is that we get to ask big shots questions ordinary people wouldn't dare, and they have to answer them or risk the dreaded "had no comment."

We help keep elected officials honest, and we remind them of promises they made and might prefer to forget. That's important work.

The best thing a newspaper writer does is turn a spotlight on the good news that is taking place in most communities. I should have pointed out that, despite complaints that newspapers print only bad news, The Citizen is devoting more and more space to school news.

My favorite part of my job is letting people know how they can help with worthwhile causes. Like Second Chance Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Center in Grantville.

Rick Conger, a computer whiz, has upgraded an old discarded computer for wildlife rehabber Mary Lou Wooters, and she now has the capability to launch her own Web page. Internet exposure not to mention e-mail can make a tremendous difference in her nonprofit project to save injured and unreleasable animals.

What she needs now is someone to build the site and maintain it for her. She's not computer-savvy and doesn't have time to get that way. This project would be perfect for someone who is hankering to do something really rewarding without ever leaving the comfort of his or her own keyboard.

Interested? Know someone who may be? Please let me know. One more thing: Because of an amazing courtship I've written about recently, I've been hearing equally magical romance stories from folks.

If you have one to share, or have already told me a story but didn't see me write it down (like the one about the woman who adopted her friend's orphaned German-speaking children), contact me again. I'd like to use the best for a Valentine feature.

Please call or write me at 770-487-8134, sallies@juno.com, or 127 Terrace Tay, Peachtree City, GA 30269.

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