Shell Shocked: I’ve been writing this column for 35 years
Do you remember the scene in the movie “Network” where the distraught news anchor tells everyone to open their windows and shout “I’m mad as hell and I can’t take it anymore?” Well that’s what you should do after you read today’s column.
Once you grasp the essence of my message today you’ll do exactly that — say those words after you open your window. And for good measure — jump. Here goes. I’ve been writing this column for thirty-five years. It’s the longest running column in Sanibel history. No past or present columnist is even close.
This means that those of you who have been reading my column these past thirty-five years can now howl, protest, punch the wall and drink cheap wine to your heart’s content.
You probably don’t even realize that you’ve been reading my column for thirty-five years. If you did you would have jumped out that window eons ago. As you know, I tend to look at the world with rose-colored bi-focals. And I report on trends and events in ways that make your hair curl. I personally have caused the demise of the hair curling industry in Sanibel. There isn’t a single female in Sanibel with straight hair.
Thirty-five years. Well I didn’t exactly follow the Neanderthal man to Sanibel. But, admittedly, it was close. I remember dining at Bangkok House, Nutmeg, Jacaranda, La Dolce Vita, and McT’s in the early days. And the rumors that dinosaurs roamed the island are patently false.
Writing a weekly column for thirty-five years isn’t easy. Readers I run into in Sanibel jails always ask me how I could come up with ideas for columns week after week. My answer always is plagiarism pays. Only kidding.
It’s often a struggle to come up with new ideas. I need to be alert to what goes on in Sanibel as well as the rest of the world. Ideas pop into my head the way raw oysters slide down my throat. I don’t know what this means but it sounds literary. I could be playing golf, eating blackened fish, throwing dishes against the wall or talking to my pet geckos when a semblance of an idea forms in the darkest recesses of my brain.
I always have a pad and pen handy when this happens. All I need is a central theme and my crazed mind can fill in the rest. Believe me; it’s not easy to be consistently weird. But thirty-five years?
You might ask how I came to write this column for the Reporter-Islander in the first place. I had written an op-ed piece in The New York Times just before I began spending my winters in Sanibel.
One day, someone knocked on my door in my new condo in Sanibel some thirty-five years ago. When I opened the door there were two big guys each about six foot five and weighing more than 300 pounds.
They said “Are you the same guy who wrote a commentary in The New York Times?” I was very flattered that they knew about this and said yes, of course. They said, “Well you’re going to start writing a column for the Islander starting next week. We need new columnists.”
They then put a hood over my head, put me in a car and deposited me in the swanky offices of the Sanibel Islander. I was put in front of a computer and told to start writing a column otherwise my cat would be indicted for shedding in a public place.
What choice did I have? I started writing and the rest, as they say, is history. Fortunately, the Islander staff never hurt my cat or me. I was told that writing a column is like riding a bike. Once you start you never forget how.
And yes, it became addictive — and fun. So Shell Shocked readers. When you stick your head out the window these days to complain about the woes of the world, you can change your message to “oh, well, there are worse things to do each week than read Shell Shocked.” This was all the encouragement I needed.
Thank you, loyal readers. Here’s to the next thirty-five years.
Art Stevens is a long-time columnist for the Islander. His tongue-in-cheek humor is always offered with a smile.