Thoughts on these articles

There are a few other columns I wrote that aren’t published here.  Looking back, I should have written about whatever they were most emotional about or what hit me most: experiences in war, reservations about war, their desire to downplay their war duty, questioning being labeled a local hero, ideas on power and society, Arnie Lepisto talking about social work, Connie Jordan on the biochemical basis of nutrition, Gantman wondering why the American Red Cross stopped taking his blood when it took over local blood donation, John Crisafulli on education and “the load of crap” that moving grades into the middle school is or even on his new passion for Nantucket baskets.  I don’t know if focusing on one or two ideas or themes like that in each short column would have worked.  I do know I should have spent far less of my precious space on facts: dates, college degrees, job history and the like.

I have full transcripts of my interviews which are far more valuable than my articles could ever be; they aren’t up because not everything on them was said for the record.

One thing I didn’t do and don’t know how to do is convey a sense of a person’s presence – John Crisafulli’s intensity, like the sports coach you were a little scared of when you were ten years old, for example, or Constance Jordan’s dignity – in addition to the personality more easily conveyed in print because it comes out in word and deed, such as Crisafulli’s gentleness and Jordan’s kindness.