The pattern of a newspaperman's life is like the plot of 'Black Beauty.' Sometimes he finds a kind master who gives him a dry stall and an occasional bran mash in the form of a Christmas bonus sometimes he falls into the hands of a mean owner who drives him in spite of spavins and expects him to live on potato peelings.
Like a lot of you I grew up in a family on the ragged edges of the middle class. My daddy sold carpeting and ended up as a maintenance man. After he had a heart attack my mom worked the phones at Sears so we could hang on to our house.