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Honolulu Lite
I was out sick for most of last week, but you probably didn't notice it since I continued to write "Honolulu Lite" from my sickbed, or at least from my sick chair and computer station when I finally managed to wobble downstairs between spikes of high fever. If you find errors
here, blame the fluI would not recommend WWI (Writing While Ill, not World War I) to amateur writers. A lot of bad things can happen when trying to write under the influence of influenza, most of them messy, and we aren't talking dangling participles. After lying relatively still and horizontal for most of a day, to suddenly find yourself sitting upright and rocking gently back and force in an office chair can be an unnerving experience.
While your mind is coping with vertigo and the challenge of remaining perpendicular, it lets go of other duties, like the functioning of the brain's spelling lobe. For instance, in that sentence a few lines above, I meant to say "back and forth" instead of "back and force," but my brain suddenly had to deal with a tilting crisis and left the spelling up to my fingers. And we all know fingers are notoriously bad spellers.
The fact that I caught the "force" faux paux means my body has almost triumphed over the evil virus that has made my innards its playground for the past several days. The fact that I've begun using French words means I'm not out of the woods yet. But I know my body. When I start channeling French, that's a good sign. When Spanish starts coming through, we're talking relapse.
Now, I have had editors who have said, "If you're sick, just be sick, stay in bed and don't think about writing columns. It's not like the paper can't get along without you."
Not exactly what you'd find on a Hallmark card, but what can you do?
Since starting Honolulu Lite in 1991, I have not missed a publication date, whether I was sick, on vacation or mentally constipated. That's more than 1,300 columns. As I've said before, some people wouldn't call that writing, they'd call it typing. But it's the only personal record I have going for me and if they ever establish an Olympic event for Longest Continual Columnizing I don't want to have blown my chance for a medal by taking a sick day on column 1,378.
The thing about WWI is that you may feel like you're in control but you're really not. It's like, so I've been told, DWI, driving while intoxicated: You feel like you have the skills of race car driver Jeff Gordon right up until you park your car in your neighbor's swimming pool.
I had one of those WWI experiences the other day. It was about 9:30 in the morning and I was reading the Star-Bulletin. In fact, I was reading my column. I noticed a typo near the bottom and called my editor to see if it could be corrected for the second edition, which comes out after 10:30. I was midway through my request when I realized I was looking at the previous day's newspaper.
"What kind of drugs are you taking?" the editor asked.
So, I felt pretty silly there. Luckily, no WWI cops were around to cite me. I went ahead that day and cranked out a new column, the subject of which escapes me at the moment.
I see from the word count function that we've come to the end of Column 1,357 (or so). All in all, I think things went well: no outrageous misspellings, no libelous remarks, no humor to speak of. Wait. The rooms swaying a bit. Aye carumba, muchachos. Yo quiero aspirin.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
The Honolulu Lite online archive is at:
https://archives.starbulletin.com/lite