My first hint that I wanted to become a writer began in high school. Sort of like that first yellow bloom on a tomato plant, my English teacher, my aunt Lillian Montgomery picked up on something like that tiny bloom that gave her a hint that her gangly, awkward nephew might possibly have an inborne ability to string words together in a meaningful way.
I resented Aunt Lillian at first because she was tougher on me than others in the class. Anything I wrote was returned to me dripping in red ink pointing out the mistakes I had made, scratching out something I had written and replacing what was scratched out with how I could have said something better.
Fast forward to my four years at Northwestern in Natchitoches. While math and science and history were not in my scope of interest as evidenced by my grades, I took a journalism class as an elective. I just flat out fell in love with it, feeling a new-found freedom to grab a pad and pencil and write. It was in that class that I received one of the few “A” grades I got during my college years.
After college, I taught school for a year, worked in sales for another couple until I settled in on my career in social work. My interest in this job was in interviewing and offering counseling to folks who needed direction. In the back of my mind, even though my job was helping people with little need for writing, that little tomato bloom was always there. I wanted to write.
My interest growing up was in the outdoors as my dad spent his career with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and his love for the outdoors bled over into me.
Stories in outdoors magazines became my interest and one day I sat down and wrote a story, total fiction, of a deer hunt and how the hunter was able to outwit a trophy buck. I was so impressed with what I had written that I sent my story to a friend of my dad, famous outdoors writer Grits Gresham — who lived in Natchitoches — having the gall to ask him where I might market my masterpiece.
To my delight Grits answered my letter. I was about to launch myself into a career as an outdoor writer. He let me down as gently as he could, telling me I might find it difficult to place what I had written in a magazine. He did, however, offer me some of the best advice I ever had when he said learning to write is much like learning how to become proficient at any job; you needed, as he said to “hone your craft.”
One day while living in the Claiborne Parish town of Homer, I got up the nerve and walked into the office of the Guardian Journal weekly newspaper, met the publisher Mrs. Kathy Hightower, asking her if I could write a “hunting and fishing” column for the paper. She smiled and let me down gently, saying thanks but no thanks. I was strangely relieved.
Six months later, I dropped by the office for a weekly paper and Mrs. Hightower called me into her office, asking me if I still wanted to do that “hunting and fishing” column, I was ready and she hired me at the rate of $2.50 weekly plus a free paper.
I was somewhat embarrassed to put my name on the column so to cover my identity in case readers thought it stunk, I gave it the title “Uncle Zeke from Beaver Creek.” My first column appeared on September 21, 1972. I still write for the paper using that same heading.
From that humble beginning, I have been blessed through the years to get to write for other newspapers, parish journals, outdoor magazines, and written outdoors-themed books that ultimately launched me into a second career in outdoors radio.
It saddened me deeply to learn that early last month, the lady who gave me my first chance at actually producing a column, Mrs. Kathy Hightower, had passed away.
From my Aunt Lillian to a journalism class in college to Grits Gresham to that special lady, it’s been a 53-year adventure at which I’m still plugging away.
Contact Glynn at glynnharris37@gmail.com