Doug Blough

I digested Lauren Lejeune’s column charting her writing roots. Somewhere in there was the name Vin Cappiello. I later read Braden Schiller’s piece on his writing beginnings, and there it was again — much credit to the influence of Vin Cappiello.

Me? I really have no writing roots. There was no such thing as journalism when I went to school in Davidsville, Pennsylvania. Heck, math had barely outlived being called arithmetic and English class was about boring sentence structure and similar things I slept through.

I have something in common with Lauren and Braden though, having my own brush with Vin greatness when he was my editor at a rival newspaper. I learned a thing or two, possibly three, from the Italian stallion — the main thing being THAT I shouldn’t have used that word in that sentence. He basically pointed out I needn’t use that that often. I learned well and every little bit helps in lowering word count. Vin will be given credit in my Pulitzer speech.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, (it’s relatively easy since I move so slow). Decades earlier, Scott Berkeley and I published (pen, paper and staples) a makeshift newspaper in the eighth grade called “The Doug/Scott News.” after our youth obsession, “MAD Magazine.” The closest I had to a writing mentor was our eighth grade teacher, Miss Alberter. She not only made class fun, but was a gorgeous woman with bright red lipstick.

She noticed Scott, Wayne Thomas and I were amateur entertainers, so set aside each Friday as “Creative Writing Day” when we were encouraged to share our silliness. I oddly remember reading a list of imaginary song titles, one being, “I Left a Humdinger While Necking with Agnes.” So aptly juvenile, yet so audience-effective.

I recall Scott singing a takeoff of “You’re a Grand old Flag,” with: “You’re a grand old hag, you’re a high-headed hag.” With gems like those, the Doug/Scott News was a bargain at only a nickel.

My experience with our high school student newspaper, The Contonian, was when class president and editor Dave Mishler approached me and my buddies — stud baseball stars, Larry Grandas and Tom Reckner, asking their evaluations of the team. After their answers, I chirped, “Hey, I’m our second baseman, aren’t you gonna ask me?” Grinning, Mishler gave me the floor and I deadpanned, “It’s a jungle out there, Dave; you gotta be an animal to survive.” That issue garnered more acclaim than all the others combined

That was about it till ‘89 when my fiancee (didn’t end so well) talked me into signing up for a Northwest College, fiction-writing class, taught by another inspirational educator, Mike Riley. My classmates included a longtime English teacher and wealthy business owner and wife. I humbly assert I’m the only one who took our weekly assignments serious enough to contribute quality stories. I was a little miffed when teach gave everyone an A.

Fast forward to ‘91 when I was depressed after forcing that fiancee to bark up another tree. Working on the museum roof amid daily 50 mph winds that gradually ravaged my new, hideous perm, to preserve sanity, I’d go home each night and write on my ongoing story about Genesis and God’s one regret creation — the wind.

I showed it to Athletic Club owner, Ev Diehl, who in turn shared it with Bruce McCormack, Enterprise publisher, who said if I could write similar stories each week, he wanted to hire me. Not long after, in a thin-skinned reaction to excessive editing, I temporarily quit and was offered a less intrusive gig by the Trib’s then-editor, Scott Hagel. The rest as they say, is a cinder block story.