Ol’ Margaret aided and abetted me in many a foolish venture in the first 58 years of our marriage, but I don’t put any blame on her for my erratic behavior.  She did her best to make gold out of sawdust and watched in astonishment as I wended my way along an unblazed safari through the brushy jungle of life.  She was a volunteer and a loyal trooper.

For instance, she did all the work in creating The Messenger magazine on a Hewlett-Packard computer to commemorate July of 1994.  “Straight from the heart of Texas” was our motto and trademark in the life of that publication for the next six years.  It was a bi-monthly and there are 37 issues in print.  It has become a collectable and the interest pleases me.

I had ulterior motives during our first year, since I never fully outlived my ambition to publish a weekly newspaper, as a partner to The Messenger.  Ol’ Margaret was not greatly enthusiastic when I made the confession to her.

“You are 65 years old!” she reminded me.  “You’re way too old to consider doing such a stupid thing.”

“Show me where it’s written that a 65 year old shouldn’t publish a newspaper,” I scoffed.  “I’m just a late bloomer!”

“Blooming idiot would be closer to the mark,” was her response.

De Leon’s Monitor appeared on June 29, 1995, and did not miss a lick until June 23, 2000.  I made a promise to Ol’ Margaret that the Monitor had a five-year life expectancy, and she shuffled off to the bedroom and unleashed that Hewlett-Packard, and we came out of the chute, with our whole house serving as world headquarters for both a bi-monthly magazine and a weekly newspaper, and it should be noted that we never missed a single deadline in that span of time.  Our apprenticeship raged unchecked with Ol’ Margaret as the unpaid creator and just me as reporter, correspondent and distributor, for a couple of months.

I have ever been a Vesuvius of rabid writing and my reservoir of word arranging made the Ogallah Aquifer look like a mud puddle.  I’ve never claimed that my output of journalistic drivel is top on the line, but quantity wise it ranks high on the totem pole of output.

Ol’ Margaret began to balk a tad around the tail of 1995 and we located uptown and recruited for help.

My first victim was Fred Turner, and my daughter Tracy submitted out of sympathy to my pitiful pleas.  Fred lasted better than a year but a gig in Dublin—to oversee the conversion of the old Dublin Hospital to a retirement home—lured him away.

Jeanette Ward was next onboard, and she hit the business community with hustles for advertising dollars, and whatever else she could do to keep us afloat.

I, of course, spent a lot of time at the coffee shop and stayed out of the way mostly.  Those who did the actual labor were appreciative of my absence and were grateful that I could not type a lick if a gun was held to my head.

Ol’ Margaret was still on the unpaid force, and she stood her ground when brave men would have fled.

There’s more to come in this saga, and I ask your patience—I feel the need to unburden my soul about the good old days when De Leon boasted two weekly newspapers and a magazine.  I have trouble believing the incident.

More to come.

Let me hear from you.

My phone number is 254-893-5063.

My postal address is 333 W. Ayers, De Leon TX 76444.

You can e-mail me at Charles@CharlesChupp.com.

By Charles Chupp, Copyright ©2008 Charles Chupp