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I celebrate an anniversary Tuesday – not the one that has resulted in kids and grandkids, but one that has put food on the table for them. That day will mark exactly 40 years since my first day on the job as a professional journalist.
I was so happy to get the minimum-wage paying gig in 1985 that I said prayers of thanksgiving daily for months from my knees in the only private place at the Clayton (Ga.) Neighbor’s office – the restroom.
How I got there would be tall tale if it wasn’t true, and not just because I’m 6 feet, 4 inches from the ground up. I took journalism classes in high school and seemed to have a knack for it, including a stint as editor of The Boomerang, Murphy High School’s student newspaper. I received a nice honor from the Society of Professional Journalists. As someone who was a voracious reader and constantly writing something – poems, songs, stories, you name it – it seemed like a good match.
Afterward, I went to college. Then I had a son. The need to support him led me to take a semester off and get a job driving a forklift at a facility west of Atlanta that worked on large trucks, from utility vehicles to semis. While making $5.25 an hour, I felt so loaded we could eat at Burger King every other week.
One day, I asked the shop foreman if I could leave early to meet the power company and turn the lights on to my apartment. He agreed. The next day, the blue uniforms in my locker were cleaned out. Apparently, I was supposed to ask the guy above the foreman for permission, and he had a zero-tolerance policy.
Desperate, I did the only thing I could think to do on the way home to Marietta, just a mile away from The Big Chicken – I stopped by the office of the Marietta Daily Journal and threw up a verbal flare. A fellow came out a few minutes later.
“Got a resume?” he asked. No sir. “Any clips?” Not on me. “How about professional references?” Only from high school. “Ever attended a city council meeting?” Nope. “Would you like to?”
That’s what led me to cover a Forest Park (Ga.) City Council meeting, sitting in the back row with faded jeans and torn sneakers, though I did have a remarkably colorful shirt representative of the glorious 1980s. I wrote my story with a pen in longhand on a clipboard and took it the man in Marietta the next day.
“Do you have a tie?” he asked. At home, I said of the blue silk piano key necktie hanging in my closet. “Will you wear it?” he asked. Yessir. “You’re hired.”
That’s when I learned he oversaw several weekly newspapers that circled Metro Atlanta for the Daily Journal, including the Clayton Neighbor. I was officially a staff writer, with a real business card and all, and within a month I was cranking out more than 15 stories per week.
Over the four decades since then, I have been blessed to be able to experience many fascinating things I otherwise may never have been able to, from leading the Clyde-Beatty Bros. Circus on the back of an elephant to flying with the Northern Lights Aerobatic Team to attending conferences and meetings from New York to San Francisco. However, what I’ve enjoyed the most are some of the great people I’ve met along the way.
One of those folks was a Murphy fellow named Joe Keffer, who passed away on May 9. I knew he was a veteran and retired doctor from his emails, but he never bragged about his background. After searching for him online and seeing his accomplishments as a pathologist, his humility became rather obvious.
I didn’t spend much time in person with Joe, but we corresponded quite a bit via email. His last missives were in February, when he shared national media articles about a Mississippi judge that stunned a newspaper with a clearly unconstitutional restraining order, which was later reversed. The fact that he cared enough about the incident and its potential impact on the local newspaper was par for the course with Dr. Keffer.
I hope to see Joe again in the next world. Until then, as my journalism career barrels toward the half-century mark, I hope to run across many more people who will, like him, enlighten me with their knowledge and compassion.
David Brown is publisher of the Cherokee Scout. Call him at 828-837-5122 or email dbrown@cherokeescout.com.