A good editor knows when a writer doesn’t need editing. Our recently departed Publisher Don Rogers, who left us for The Aspen Times, is just such an editor.

This is not to cast aspersions on Managing Editor Alan Riquelmy or our new Regional Editor Robert Summa, who are both fine editors. It’s just to say Don is the best editor I’ve ever worked with.

Don gave me a column every other Thursday (Wednesday if you read online). Other than to tell me to keep it local, Don didn’t tell me what to write. I think he was bemused to see what the hell Durkin is writing about this time. He let me live and die by my own words, but like a good editor, he would catch my typos (well, most of them).

More important, if he saw I was about to hoist myself upon my own petard, he might say, “You might want to rethink that.” Or he’d refer me to an article that informed me that I didn’t know what I was talking about. That’s also what a good editor does.

Most important, even though he is younger, Don was my mentor and role model. I was inspired by his sometimes outrageous columns. I remember once after he wrote a highly controversial column, I asked him, “Do you still have a job?” He just laughed.

Through our many conversations, he taught me how to endure the inevitable criticism – and not to let the praise go to my head. Don helped me become a better, bolder writer.

“Schmaltz” is Yiddish for chicken fat. I was living under my writer friend Gayle Savitz’s humongous dining room table. Seriously, that’s where I slept during one of my several bouts of homelessness.

Gayle suggested I submit a story to the Chicken Soup franchise. Say what?!

Gayle was, however, letting me camp out under her table, so to please her, I submitted “What I Did on My Kid’s Summer Vacation” to Chicken Soup for the Single’s Soul.

The story was about what Keller and I built for the Auburn Funk Soap Derby in 1984 when he was 10. The derby was not a race. It was a competition to build an outlandish contraption with at least three wheels and working brakes that would roll down a steep hill in Old Town Auburn.

We built a huge Groucho Marx nose and glasses out of chicken wire, papier mache, plywood and an old soapbox derby frame we found at the Berry Street Mall (a junkyard) in Roseville. We rigged eyebrows that wiggled, and Kel added drag chutes.

The entry was a big hit at the derby, and it’s a memory we both cherish.

Chicken Soup responded with a letter. I expected to find the usual rejection slip to add to my extensive collection, but to my surprise, they wanted to buy it. All I had to do was sign a contract permitting them to publish their edited version of my story, and they would pay me $200 when the book was published.

Edited? To my horror, it was a butcher job, dripping with maudlin schmaltz and grossly distorting what we said and did.

There’s something called pride of authorship, and I have a lot of it. There was no way I was signing off on this tear-jerking vat of chicken fat.

I took a certain amount of glee in writing the first and only rejection I’ve ever sent to a publisher.

Within days, a senior editor from Chicken Soup called me. She profusely apologized, claiming a junior editor had gotten carried away. She begged me to give them a second chance. Apparently, men don’t write for Chicken Soup, and they really wanted my story.

They sent me another revision, which I had no trouble rejecting. We went back and forth over email through several rewrites until I finally agreed to a version that was, in some ways, better than my original. (Good writing is rewriting.)

Nevertheless, I still cringe when I read the schmaltz that got published. Chicken Soup for the Single’s Soul (© 1999; ISBN 13: 9781558747067)

Chicken Soup asked me to write for them again, but I never did. I did not feel valued as a writer. I just felt used, forced to fit into an embarrassing box of hack writing. Besides, who wants to wait a year to get paid?

Of course, I don’t get paid for writing this column. Don told me he had to put The Union’s money into the newsroom. I respected that. When I write for the front page, I expect to get paid. When I write for the editorial page, the rewards are more intangible.

The Chicken Soup editors forced me into mediocrity. Don Rogers empowered me to take chances, to be the best I could be.

Don’s been a model, a mentor, and he remains my friend. He was kind enough to send an advance copy of his first column for The Aspen Times. I’m sure his readers are asking themselves, “Who the hell is this guy?!”

Tom Durkin is a freelance writer, editor, and photo/videographer in Nevada County and a member of The Union Editorial Board. He may be contacted at tjdurkin3@gmail.com or http://www.tomdurkin-media.net

Full disclosure: I believe that recent dramatically accelerating climate changes are real and dangerous and I support attempts to mitigate effects. That said, new state housing legislation and proposed local fire mitigation taxes that directly…

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