Taking Up the Pen Again

When I was an eight-year-old second-grader at Queen of the Most Holy Rosary elementary school on Long Island, N.Y., I decided our school needed what I called a newspaper, but what was really a monthly magazine. I thought we needed it because we didn’t have it. Oh sure, we got tons of great-smelling blue mimeographed sheets to read and bring home at night, but we didn’t have anyplace where we students could express ourselves. I had this vision that kids from each grade would submit stories and artwork and we’d give the “newspaper” out once a month to all the students in every class once a month.

So I went to my teacher, Sister Rosario, who patiently listened to my request and then sent it to the principal, Sister Sheila. A few days later they said, “Okay, you put it together and we will copy and distribute it.” They even told every teacher to allow me to come to their class and talk about the newspaper and how kids could send materials and pictures in. I thought the students should name it too, so I came up with this contest idea for the name. Anyone who wanted to could submit a name for our newspaper and the students would vote on it. They’d see the winning name when the first issue came out.

The response surprised me—the first issue was about 40 pages long (there’s still a copy somewhere up in my parent’s attic) and it was filled with stories, poems and pictures from every grade. The winning name, The Monthly Blab, was my least favorite of the choices but it had won fair and square. I felt a real sense of accomplishment when I gave the final pages to Sister Sheila with a big drawing of the school penned by a fourth-grade artist, and right below it in big block letters the winning title, The Monthly Blab.

It seemed like it took forever to get the newspaper printed because, at that age, I was unfamiliar in some of the ways Catholic schools work. I did not realize that the ever-resourceful sisters had talked a local printer into printing the Blab at no charge—but the agreement was that he would “fit it in whenever he had time.” Finally, after March had turned into April, one day, I heard the shrill sound of the intercom intrude into our classroom and a booming voice called me to the office. Now, at my school, being called to the office usually meant either you were in big trouble or someone in your family had died, so I actually found myself hoping I was in trouble.

Sister Sheila was waiting for me with Pete, the janitor, who had a pretty good-sized dolly upon which were piled three big cardboard boxes. “Here’s your newspaper,” she said with a slight smile. “You can hand it out in all the classrooms tomorrow. Make sure you give Sister Rosario one, too,” was all she added.

I was so excited I could hardly contain myself. As soon as we got in the hall, I asked Pete to open the box and hand me one. And there it was, all 40 pages, printed in front of me with the great illustration of the school and below it the words The Monthly … no, wait, where were the words? The spot where the words The Monthly Blab had sat was now blank. Instead, on top, in the finest cursive penmanship you could imagine (that I recognized as Sr. Rosario’s) it said Our School Newspaper. Our School Newspaper? Our School Newspaper? A very cool name had been replaced without my knowledge—and with a very lame one at that.I thought there was a mistake, so when I got back to my classroom, I told Sister Rosario. Now here you should know that most of us in the class figured that, conservatively, Sister Rosario was about 117 years old. She was also about 3-foot 11, but she had the aim of Tom Seaver with an eraser, so I mean it when I say we were looking eye-to-eye and I was trying not to be intimidated.

“Sister, there’s a mistake,” I said holding it up and pointing at the blank space. “It was supposed to say The Monthly Blab right here and it doesn’t.”

“Oh, that’s not a mistake,” she shot back pleasantly. “I changed it. That wasn’t a good name for a newspaper.”

“But Sister, all the kids voted …” I protested.

“Oh well, too late now,” she said with a unique combination of authority and finality.

I was eight years old and I’d learned an important lesson. I’d just been edited.

I should probably be too embarrassed to tell you what I did, but I will anyway. Working out of Pete’s broom closet, I was able to spend the whole next day delivering the newspapers to all the classes. But before I would visit each class, I would make a stop in the girl’s bathroom and, in my best penmanship, write the words The Monthly Blab in magic marker on each one. I did this for all copies—all 841 copies—except, I’d somehow forget to do it on the copies I gave to the teachers. An ingenious plan, I was sure.

The first Blab got a number of great compliments and I started to plan the next edition. It wasn’t too long after that that the good sisters told me there was not enough time or money to do another issue of the Blab, so I shouldn’t even bother to work on it. This was how I came to understand the phrase “winning the battle but losing the war” at a young age.

To my knowledge, there never was another school newspaper at QMHR, which, sadly, is no longer a school but a community center.

So why am I telling you this? Because I tried an experiment this summer. It’s been 40 years since I first started writing for The Monthly Blab. I decided this year to take the summer off from writing. That’s why I haven’t in ink since May. Oh, I was still editing, researching, etc., but I just took a break from writing. I had this crazy idea to stop for a summer and see how it felt. Instead of feeling a sense of freedom, I felt loss. I missed writing terribly, and I’m back. I will keep a tender hope that you are glad; I know I am.