Pat Bean's blog

“Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow is the future, but today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.” – Bil Keane

This is the kind of landscape I was living in when Texas changed to Daylight Saving Time back in 1967. — Photo by Pat Bean

A Memory from the Past

            When the change to Daylight Saving Time rolls around each year, my memory bank gets a jolt of fresh power that takes me back to my days as a reporter on a small Texas Gulf Coast newspaper.  Texas began its annual clock manipulation, as a way to save on energy costs, the same year that I walked into my first newspaper.

And this is the Arizona landscape where I live now, and which does not participate in Daylight Saving Time. — Photo by Pat Bean

While the benefits of Daylight Savings Time have been much questioned, there’s no question in my mind that this event was a first step on my road to a 37-year journalism career. You see, that 1967 newspaper story about the time change carried my first-ever byline.

I remember the managing editor lecturing me afterwards on how I could have made the article better, like not starting every sentence almost the same way.  A few years later, I reread the story and cringed. While it was grammatically correct, it lacked grace. It read like a toddler taking their first step. But then that’s exactly what I had been doing at the time.

It took many, many years after that first story before I could comfortably call myself a writer. And some days, I still question the title.

Meanwhile, I’ll never forget that first timely baby step.

Blog pick of the Day. Check it out.

Bean Pat: On Growing a Spine http://tinyurl.com/jrn97k4 Some people are born with one, and some, like me, have to grow them. This blog reminded me that I, too, was almost 40 before the growth began.