A Dream Delayed

    Among my many personal keepsakes, accumulated from years gone by, is a letter from The State Journal. The top of the document features a drawing of the building in Downtown Lansing where this daily newspaper is headquartered and the salutation reads: Dear Mr. Stephen Horton. It’s dated September 14 was signed by the then managing editor, Ben Burns. Mr. Burns was in the early stages of a distinguished journalistic career that would include a long tenure at The Detroit News.

   This letter was part of a packet that he had mailed to me. In it were the articles I had sent him, offering an example of my writing. I had heard through a pressman who worked at the daily paper, a gentleman who had recently met my mother, that a reporter position was open.

   Mr. Burns, as you might now suspect, was turning me down for the job, explaining that “we are looking for individuals with more hard news experience.” 

    Well, I couldn’t quibble with that. I had none. My application was a shot in the dark; a “nothing ventured, nothing gained” attempt at finding work—at least work more interesting than the construction jobs I had been doing off and on since leaving college. I had to admit that my query was even a bit presumptuous. I was trying to start at the top.

     Of course, I was also dealing with the predicament that many young job seekers--fresh out of high school, college or trade school --are faced with in launching a career or landing that desired job. How do you get experience if no one hires you, thus giving you that hands-on education? It was dilemma then and, I believe, even more so these days.

   In earlier years, many businesses and the trades had apprentice programs. Some still do. But now many employers seem to want someone else to do this heavy lifting; someone else to put in the time and investment of training an employee and, once that’s been accomplished, hire this person and reap the benefit. Imagine that?

      Or they want government--through high school career education classes, community colleges, and job-training grant money—to provide this service. There’s nothing wrong with this approach, per se, other than the purpose of education in high school and college has been and should continue being about more than making a young person ‘job ready’—important as that is. Producing a well-rounded, knowledgeable person, ready to assume the responsibilities of citizenship in our republic still ought to remain the overarching goal.

      I came across this letter recently when rummaging through the container I use to store these keepsakes as I was looking for some other memento.

    So, why had I kept it?

    I don’t know. Maybe I did so because I was a glutton for punishment and liked to be reminded of such setbacks. Or perhaps I’m just a pack rat, unable to toss out any item—no matter how insignificant--from my past. We’ll let the psychologists figure it out.

    The rejection was hardly a highlight of my life. In fact, the time frame was during a period when I was drifting along, not seeming to be headed in any suitable direction that would lead me to realize my wish to be a writer—or more accurately (since nothing was stopping me from writing) that would help me to fulfill my ambition of earning a living at this profession.

    Well, whatever reason I had for keeping it, I’m glad I didn’t discard this letter. It’s lasted long enough to serve as an inspiration for this column.

    I eventually did get a job with a newspaper—a weekly where my lack of news experience was not a hindrance. At this publication hiring a beginning reporter at entry-level wages was part of the business model. Just as importantly, I had two more years of life under the belt—mainly spent in Traverse City where I worked as a cook at the Big Boy and then spent several months the following spring and summer--having decided to become a working writer come hell or high water--pursuing that goal.

     In the same container where I kept The State Journal letter is one from The Chicago Review, dated from 1975, rejecting the vignette I had sent them. In this case, the editor was looking for an actual story, not the slice-of-life I had submitted.

    During this apprenticeship in the picturesque North Country, besides attempting to create fiction, I had the notion that I might sell free-lance articles on fishing as well as travel pieces on the attractions of the Grand Traverse area to regional magazines. Towards that end, I interviewed a few people, gathered information, and took notes of my impressions of different places. None of my query letters to the magazines bore fruit. In most cases, they’d already done a similar feature in a recent issue, or I didn’t pique their interest. Which was just as well; I really didn’t know how to go about producing an acceptable article. I needed to start a little lower on the ladder.

    None of these aborted attempts to be both a fiction writer and magazine journalist proved to be wasted. I was developing a writing style as well as the self-discipline of sitting each morning at the desk with pen in hand.

    I had, during my time in Traverse City, practiced creating sentences and then paragraphs and had begun to learn how to align them into a short narrative. Those skills came in handy once I needed to write news stories on such topics as what happened at the village council meeting, how the football team did in their game, and who won the election as well as profiles on local residents and reports on upcoming events like the fair.

     When I finally began to work as a newspaper reporter in May of 1976 (and getting paid), I used the vignettes I’d created and the journalistic notes I’d gathered for several of my first columns and as background for features. And once I got the hang of producing hard news stories, I had little trouble cranking out five-to-six articles a week.

    A few months after securing that part-time work, the state editor at The Journal called to see if I might be interested in working as a stringer, sending him news and features from the Fowlerville-Webberville area. I agreed. While the arrangement only lasted a few months, I have copies of the newspaper with my articles to go along with the rejection letter.  

 

    My journalistic career—I should add--did not have a “and he lived happily ever after” storybook ending. Along the way there have been ups and downs, peaks and valleys, missteps and challenges. And there were a few occasions when I thought of doing something else for a living.

    At one time—looking for an extra source of income—I considered re-enrolling at Michigan State with the goal of getting the final credits needed for a bachelor’s degree and, in doing so, qualify to substitute teach.

     For a few years I worked as a part-time farmer, selling hay and freezer beef, juxtaposing that labor with the newspaper work.

     More recently, after my son had entered law school, I looked into the possibility of becoming a paralegal, thinking that this might be an option in my senior-citizen years if I decided to retire from the newspaper business, and also a way of assisting my son. The syllabus indicated that interviewing clients on behalf of an attorney and writing memos were two of the job’s main responsibilities. I figured I had plenty of experience doing both of those tasks.

    In the end, though, I didn’t become a teacher or legal assistant, nor did I remain in farming. What I still do is what I’m been best at, what I still enjoy doing, namely this career of working as a newspaperman that I began over 40 years ago.

     As a young man, when I received the rejection letter, my future was of course uncertain and unknowable. It still is; there’s just not nearly as much of it left. What I had hoped to become back then did not turn out to be precisely what I have become, but what I’ve become is fine.

    I’ve been lucky, and I realize not everyone shares such good fortune. My heart aches whenever I see a young person, so full of hope as they start off after high school or college graduation, ready and eager to realize their dreams, but instead of success their efforts are met with disappointment and setbacks. Their applications are rejected, the sought-after job does not materialize, and all of the studying and preparation seems for naught. Their aspirations begin to seem fragile.

   It aches, too, for those older folks who have been downsized out of a job or career or who have been let go after many years of being with the same employer. The market changes or costs need to be cut or the plant is closed or the owner decides to automate the place are the litany of reasons we have heard in recent years.

     So these people go back to college, or else take training classes, with the goal of finding a new opportunity—a tiny flicker of hope they keep alive only to meet with a similar disappointment.

   “We’re looking for someone with more experience” or “We’ve found someone else to fill the position” or “You’re over-qualified” are among the responses that so many people get. Still, people—young and old—are resilient.  Faced with a roadblock or setback, they change direction and move on. In doing so, they give themselves the option to find still another dream; maybe not a castle-like vision as bright and shiny as the first one, but a foundation upon which to build their life and a suitable place to dwell.

    I have no magic wand to make any of this possible. The only comfort I can offer is a helping hand and an encouraging word.

     Of more tangible value are those programs that provide job-training and career opportunities, policies that provide incentives to employers to hire workers who might not have that desired experience and train them; and a business climate that helps small business and entrepreneurial start-ups to flourish. As a society, we know that it’s important for people to have a job and, better yet, to have work that is meaningful to them. A chance is what most people ask for; an opportunity to pursue their ambitions and prove their talent and worth.

    There are those for whom circumstances have conspired to erect insurmountable barriers. We ought to recognize that, too, and lend whatever assistance we can. But for many others, we can provide as much support and encouragement as possible to help them find that desired job or career…to remind them, and ourselves, to keep trying and not give up.   

    You see sometimes disappointment—that letter of rejection--is not a dream lost, only a dream delayed.