Part 7 (1/2)

Margie saves clay flowerpots I hate clay flowerpots and, if I think I can get aith it, I throw them out

She hates the coffee cans, old broken dishes, odd lengths of wood and the assorted junk I save, and she throws out any of them she thinks I won't notice Sometimes there's been an undeclared war between us If I find she's thrown out some of my treasured junk, I retaliate with her flowerpots

The boxes of scripts are back down in the base theht find a use for thehtthe different altogether

It occurred to me that for twenty years I'd kept them; for twenty years they'd taken up space; for twenty years they were part of my life If I threw thehts I'd had about the In that case, I ht as well have thrown the that ood saver can always think of a reason not to throw so, as I am, a world-class saver, don't look for those crutches in my trash can anytime soon, either

Born To Lose I'm a world-class loser

There are very few people better at losing things than I aht tostuff would make an essay” So I scribbled sohts, and went to sleep

I cannot find the piece of paper I wrote the notes on about losing things I got down onIt's not mixed in with the sheets It's not in my pajama pocket and it isn't on my dresser I'll find it a week fros One reason I lose so s, a possessor Once I get so, I keep itunless I lose it, of course It's hard to find a place to put all of et lost or, perhaps, covered over by other possessions

My shoehorn was gone thisto wor down the backs

I lose fingernail clippers at a great rateand sunglasses

If I need a screwdriver, I can only find the one with the Phillips head when I'le-slot screw And, naturally, vice versa

Where do all the flashlights I buy go?

Soave me a beautiful fountain pen for Christmas I can't find it I don't use it; I just don't want to lose it

At this very150 al to drive without a license, but I' to make the trip anyway

”I really do have a license,” I'll explain to the police ”I just can't find it”

This goes over big with policeular places where I look for things I can't find They're never in those places We have dozens of little drawers in tables and Born to Lose 103 103 chests around the house, and I always look in those for things I can't find Nothing I've looked in those drawers ten thousand ti ite there

In the office, Jane is good at finding things but she often doesn't realize I've lost what she finds; so she doesn't tell me she has it The items are just the sao, I got a small lump of money for one of my books, so I decided to invest in the stock eable about ht Exxon It did very well, but after the unpleasantness in Alaska, I was embarrassed to be an Exxon stockholder and decided to sell my shares If I ever ran for office, some reporter would discover that I owned a small amount of Exxon stock and ruinit

I'd sell the stock in a minute if I could find the stock certificates The man who sold the stock to h to recover my stock without the certificates It would cost me about 1 percent of the stock's value This fellow sentmy investment but I can't find his letter

The value of an ite to do with s of very little value in the refrigerator Last Saturday, I wanted lunch and reerator I could not find it and everyone else swears they didn't eat it

Things are even easier to lose in the freezer than in the erator could be preserved for scientists of the year 3000, they'd find a treasure trove of gustatory Americana in there that I've lost

My idea of heaven would be to die and awaken in a place that has all o, solove compartment and a suitcase I had left on the back seat Twenty years ago, I had a , soh et a twenty-four-hour pass These were the only brushes with crime I'd had in my life until recently Now, several thieves have taken soreat value froo, people started sendingon computers all over the country It was a list of about twenty co, under my byline The piece was titled, ”In Praise of Older Woht have written, but harabout it

Several months after I first saw the e- why I had puthe had written in 2000 for his syndicated column called ”Suddenly Senior” I called Frank immediately and he accepted the fact that someone else had taken what he wrote and put my name on it

There have been two other instances of so a list of opinions under my name What would make someone write down a series of personal observations and distribute the o, I became aware of a more serious theft of my naal action against the thief Hundreds of people have written asking if I really wrote the twenty detestable remarks made under my name that have had such wide circulation on the Internet

The list of recampfires”

It continues: My Nas to e with a bad coive it away to crack addicts for squirting babies”

”Guns do notht NOT to be tolerant of others because they are weird, different or tick me off”

Some of the remarks, which I will not repeat here, are viciously racist and the spirit of the whole thing is nasty, mean and totally inconsistent with my philosophy of life It is apparent that the list of comments has been read by hundreds of thousands of Americans, many of whom must believe that it accurately represents opinions of s or on television It is seriously da to come out of this incident is the dozens of letters I've received froh to know I didn't write the comments There must be many more, however, who are ready to believe I did write them

I have tracked the e-mail back to an address in Tucson and a Web site called CelebrityHypocritescom, which is owned by by a man named Dave Mason Mr Mason lists as his address, 405 East Wetmore Road, No 117 PMB 520, Tucson, AZ 85705 I was in Tucson recently and foolishly went to that address thinking it ht be Mason's home or business I'd like to know more about Mason, but the address was a commercial mailbox business and I didn't wait around for him to show up so I could confront him If it is Dave Mason who has stolen my name, I demand that he put out a retraction that reaches as many people as his fraudulent e-mail did a man named Dave Mason Mr Mason lists as his address, 405 East Wetmore Road, No 117 PMB 520, Tucson, AZ 85705 I was in Tucson recently and foolishly went to that address thinking it ht be Mason's home or business I'd like to know more about Mason, but the address was a commercial mailbox business and I didn't wait around for him to show up so I could confront him If it is Dave Mason who has stolen my name, I demand that he put out a retraction that reaches asThere Is No Secret W riters are repeatedly asked to explain where they get their ideas People want their secret The truth is there is no secret and writers don't have many new ideas At least, they don't have many ideas that a coht bulb over their heads

New ideas are one of the most overrated concepts of our time Most of the irown up, we've had our personal, political, econo time They evolved out of some experience we had or they came from someone ere exposed to before ere twenty-five Howimportant after ere twenty-five because of soets popular, new ideas and the concept of creativity have been trivialized People are passing off novelty for invention Not many products have been improved with a new idea compared to the number whose quality has been diminished by inferior worke we face in this country is not new ideas, it's quality work

Much of the progress of the world has coenuine creativity but we've cheapened the whole concept by treating creativity as if it were a coht and sold by the pound

Colleges teach courses in ”creative writing” as if a course in just plain writing weren't enough Trying to teach so to teach her child to be a genius

I don't knohere we all got the thought that ideas co flash or that we can learn how to be struck with creative new ideas Not many ideas come that way The best ideas are the result of the sanitive process that produces the suures Anyone aits to be struck with a good idea has a long wait There Is No Secret 107 107 [ie]At his desk, with his beloved Underwood typewriters behind hi If I have a deadline for a column or a television script, I sit down at the typewriter and daical about the process, no flashi+ng lights an idea There's nothing hts

Creativity is a by-product of hard work If I never have another really new idea, it won'tthe new, the far-out, and the obscure We don't understand the old ideas yet I' to quantify the obvious

We have our ideas What we need now are ood with the is difficult That's why there's so little of it that's any good Writing isn't like ht or wrong No writer ever puts down anything on paper that he knows for certain is good or bad

When I was in The Albany Acadeood student, it was the acadeh point of e and looked at the things I'd written to win the prize in high school and winced They were so bad

In college I was a prolific contributor to the school literary and huot out of the Are, I reread what I'd written in college and couldn't believe I'd ever been so young or written so badly

In the Arned as a reporter to the newspaper, The Stars and Stripes, The Stars and Stripes, and spent three years covering World War II and learning froreat war correspondents like Hal Boyle, Bob Considine, Hoaskis and Ernie Pyle It see up as a writer and spent three years covering World War II and learning froreat war correspondents like Hal Boyle, Bob Considine, Hoaskis and Ernie Pyle It see up as a writer

In several boxes in my basement I have every issue of The Stars and Stripes The Stars and Stripes printed during the time I was on the staff and they contain hundreds of stories I wrote I like having them as mementos but I'd be e the time I was on the staff and they contain hundreds of stories I wrote I like having them as mementos but I'd be embarrassed to have anyone else read them

All this self-criticism of what I wrote in the past seems like a notunnecessarily modest attitude on ood? How come what I wrote last year, last ht, either? How co to get the hang of writing but when I reread it the following day I realize I still have a ways to go? When do I arrive as a writer?

It's a Writer Who Makes a Fool of Himself 109 109 I have finally co today that looks as good as it should to me tomorrow It's the writer's albatross

The syndro writers and, to so wasn't difficult and often even de it The coreater In motion pictures, television, newspapers and book publishi+ng, there are hundreds of producers, directors, publishers, editors and saleset what the writer has put down on paper so they can change it, package it and sell it Producers, directors and editors don't becoood life and the money are, become producers, directors and editors It's so much safer