My short lived Journalism career

Dear Ma,

Well, something new has come up. I got a job as a newsman on the local paper the Prague Dost. Ain’t that something? You be sure to tell Skeet “Scoop” Johnson over at the Possum Pouch Bugler that Delbert done hit the big time. It’s a long story and I’ll try to tell you all about it. I got a deadline to meet, so I can’t go into a lot of detail, but I just can’t get the essence of what i is supposed to be writnig about now. I guess I got that what they call call writer’s blockage.

Well anyways, I was at what they call a “cafe” over here (it ain’t nothing more than a coffe shop, but I guess that ain’t Europion enough) having a cup of Joe when I sees this guy all in a fret over something. He was a looking at some papers and a shakin his head and a moaning and groaning.

I tell you what, it sure is hard to find a decent cup of coffee over here. The Czech stuff is something terrible! Once you gets the hang of it, it ain’t so bad. Howevers the first time can do you in, if you ain’t in the know. But I was recently reminded of the peril the other day when this new guy tried it.

We’d been out all night at the hospodas and such stuff. Now don’t you get to a worrying, you know I wasn’t drinking! But this fellow had been carrying on something awful. He was this guy I met passing through. kind of like a hobo or something. He had his pack and everything and he said he’d just come over. We caught the early train back to Mozekojedy. I told him I’d show him the real countryside as I’d been in Prague to see about getting some chili powder.

This fellow was feeling a might poorly when we got up so we walked down to the potraviny to get on our feet. The potraviny is the same as a general store and all the towns folks gather there to chew the fat and put in the time. So I ordered a cup for him and me. I forgot to tell him, but he went to a stirring and a stirring. You see they cook the coffee cowboy style, that is to say it ain’t run through a filter and sitting around in Silax pots like you’d expect. I must admit a get a chuckle even now thinking about it. He took a big sip and just turned green around the gills! He went to a scraping his toungue! It was as black as a Chow dog! He run outside and came back in feeling better. I reckon that coffee probably helped him more gettiing out what was ailing him than if he’d a digested it.

Sorry to ramble on so, but I’m trying out my journalism skills. This fellow from up Louisville way says this is the new way to go. He calls it a ‘tapazoid lead” and it’s supposed to be the new way to go.

That feller who was a down in the dumps so was feeling right down sad and I could tell. So I went over hoping to console him. I asked him if a train had run over his dog. He looked up and asked me what I was talking about. I told him it wasn’t no use being all blue and sad unless a train had run over his dog or something. He said it weren’t none of my business but the fresh shipment of writers had just been flown in and he was thinking they weren’t no better than the ones that had just flown out.
He was saying it was time for the pub crawl issue and then the mushroom hunting issue was due soon and this group didn’t know a toadstool from a champion. He said he needed someone who knew something about the country and weren’t worried about where to get their favorite brand of toothpaste. I told him to just set up straight and cheer up because I was his man! I told him I’d been here for years and I’d been mushroom hunting many a time and furthermore I’d been to pig skinnings and goat ropings! I told him I knew three different ways to pull a tick and I could whack and gut a carp with my eyes closed. I told him I’d been to Czech Woodstock and met mister Havel himself. I told him I could do the “vices” with my nose plugged up. I could tatse the difference between Hruso, Slivo, Vino, and Franta vice with no problem. (Franta is the local shiner and his special brand is anything from last year’s jams to whatever fruit is laying around.)

He kind of moaned again, (I guess it was relief) and said he sure didn’t have nothing to lose. He said the pub crawl issue was due too soon he’d have to put two and two together but he'd sweat that one out. He told me to get on an article about mushroom hunting and get it to him as soon as possible. I asked him what a pub crawl even was and he said it was where you went around to a different hospoda and had a different beer at each one. I told him I knew of several pubs in Praho cause my friends had taken me there. He asked for some names. I rattled off a fairly long list, but he said they wouldn’t do cause nobody spoke English in them bars. He said just get that mushroom article to him. He said to include some sidebars too.
I left wondering what in tarnation he meant cause I knowed he said he was doing the pub crawl article and all the bars I been to you enter from the front. Just as well, because I’d been to some of those English speaking hangouts and those folks is a bit snooty.

PS. Things didn’t work out so well as you can see:

Well, I wrote long and hard and got it done that week and got back on the train and took it into him. I got to the offices and said I was expected. There were giggles and such from some of the people there. I had my Clark kent hat on, so as to blend in with the newspaper environment. I was surprised by the rest of them though. It didn’t look like nothing I expected.

I heard some giggles and such, but I never pay no attention to that kind of carrying on. I handed that fellow my article. I told him I was sorry if there was some problems with the typing, but all I had was that old Czech thing and the keys weren’t in the right places and it caused me to stumble a bit. He muttered something about a word processor and a disk, but I didn’t follow him entirely. I was right proud of it! I had explained all about what kind of sausages work best on the campfire and how to keeep the beer cool in a spring and all the pertanint details I could think of.

Then I was sure surprised! He just threw it down and said it didn’t say nothing about mushroom hunting and how to tell what you was doing. I said you had to go out with a Czech cause they know what is what and sometimes even a Czech idiot gets poisoned cause he thinks he knows everything. I said it weren’t right to set a bunch of greenhorns loose in the woods. I told him only a damned fool would go out into the woods and pick mushrooms without someone else who knew what he was doing going along. He yelled, “Who the Hell do you think we’re writing for!”

I just slunk on out of there like a hound who knew he done something wrong with my tail between my legs.
Love,
Your son Delbert Peaches