Opinion: No. 1,692 recalls centennial column

The impending birthday has caused me to rummage through early clippings of the Rusty Saber.

I came upon the 100th time the column appeared in Springfield Business Journal. The very first column ran in January 1983, and the 100th appeared Aug. 19, 1985.

In a way, the 100th column was a milestone. At the beginning, I had no notion that I would want to stick with a deadline for that long. For all I knew, the folks at SBJ might have sent me packing before that century mark.

Actually, surviving 100 columns was a seminal event.

Unearthing the 100th issue brings an unexpected windfall my way. It allows me to erase a red check mark that has pulsated beside my name for all these years.

I quote from the column: “The average of the Rusty Saber column is somewhere around 800 words (give or take a few hundred). This means about 8,000 words have appeared under this heading.” It would be only a slight overstatement to say that every person with reading skills beyond “The Little Engine That Could” let me know that 100 x 800 does not equal 8,000.

I can’t tell you the number of times I heard such barbs; I was often asked how I managed to correctly calculate student’s grades. All I can say is that it was a good thing I taught communication courses, not mathematics.

I must say the derision coming my way was delivered in good humor; it proved people were reading the column.

Now, the truth can be told. I make no claim of being a math whiz, but I do know that 100 columns, each with 800 words, equals 80,000 words. That’s what appeared on my original manuscript.

In a rush to get that SBJ issue out on time, the typesetter accidentally dropped a zero. It was a typo that probably wouldn’t pop up with modern computers that take out a lot of the angst of today’s newspaper publication.

Until now, I have never explained the blunder in print. Once a typo hits the street, it’s etched in stone; might as well move on.

To put the first 100 columns into perspective, the one you are reading now marks 1,692 times the Rusty Saber has appeared in SBJ. No, I’m not going to consider how many words that would be.

Taking a moment to glance at column 100 is more than a nostalgic trip down memory lane. I was reminded that back then, SBJ readers and I had become connected. I recounted then how readers would mention columns written awhile back, but they still remembered them.

As an example, I told of one written two years earlier that readers still mentioned. I had said that when taking ice cubes out of an icemaker, a law of nature decrees that you will drop at least one cube on the floor. Readers I met would assure me that law of nature had not been repealed.

I said this about SBJ readers: “Perhaps the most revealing characteristic about our readers is a sort of compelling desire to find humor in the many little annoyances that crop up in their lives. The little things that happen to us can mount up until they aren’t little anymore. If we can chuckle at ourselves, life is much less stressful.”

I say the same thing today.

By the time column 100 came along, SBJ was no longer an upstart publication, it was an entrenched force in the community, well on its way to becoming the leading regional business publication it is today.

Of SBJ, I had this to say: “I am proud to be associated with it in my small way.”

Even after column No. 1,692, this still works for me.

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.[[In-content Ad]]