I traded a home movie camera we seldom used, for an old Underwood manual typewriter, and got an even older desk. A set of High School Subjects, Self Taught, a Home Medical Guide, and my dictionary sat at the left of the typewriter. A precious ream of typing paper waited at the right. A neighbor told me about a writers' group, so I went to one of their meetings, but was disappointed. They met only once a month. If I would ever write well enough so someone might want to read it, I needed more training and experience. At the next writers' meeting someone said a man called Hemingway became an outstanding author by writing newspaper war stories. I think their saying that was a helpful nudge from God to encourage me.

A few days later I noticed an ad from something called the Newspaper Institute of America. It offered correspondence courses in, that's right, newspaper writing. If I could just do it, if I could complete twelve lessons, I would be a writer, maybe not as good as Hemingway, but I would have the chance to be. Don't ask me how I paid the two hundred something dollars it cost. We probably ate a lot of oatmeal for breakfast, and beans and potatoes for other meals. Some of my children still won't eat any of those.

I wrote about anything I could think of: the children coloring Easter eggs, the boys and their father making animal traps and catching critters in them. I wrote long letters to editors. Once I did a lengthy article about Chritmas Seals, and the spread of tuberculosis. If a regular newspaper columnist commented favorably about any tidbit I sent them, I sent more. When the church needed someone to write for the weekly newsletter I volunteered. I would have written about a neighbor's husband being on a ship that disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle, but an important rule about newspaper writing is you must keep your facts straight, and I didn't know why his ship didn't make it back.

Twelve lessons, only twelve, I kept thinking. Number eleven was a tear jerker I wrote, about a school bus driver running over and killing a little dog at the bus stop. Parents were ready to lynch the driver. The children just needed a proper burial for little Corkey. I am sure my children remember this. After getting bed sheets from me to wrap him in, they prayed and placed plastic flowers over his grave, and cried.

But back to the present, while considering what I might share with you here now, I noticed a recent news item, and realized even though I wrote my number twelve newspaper writing assignment 33 years ago, it is still timely for today's news. It was October, 1963. Had not decided on a subject for lesson number twelve. Turned the evening news on, and there it was. As the story unfolded Russian missiles in Cuba, only ninety miles from America beaded down on us. Castro, who today may be at the end of his life, was an oppressive dictator that Cubans gave up their homeland and risked dying, to get away from, to be free. Sounds a lot like what our servicemen and women are fighting about for us, today.

The evening news said 60 Cubans were rescued at sea, and would soon arrive at the port in my hometown, Beaumont, Texas. Some say newspaper writers can smell a story. I tasted mine. Didn't have enough money to buy lots of candy, and didn't know how many Cuban children would arrive, so I stopped at a store and got all the chewing gum I could for them, Chiclets. I still have the story, what I wrote about this back then. After it all took place I typed the story, and drove to the local newspaper, and left it for the managing editor. To have an important story printed, one can hope, one can only hope. Will try to condense it here.

I call it my "Almost" story. Inside the Red Cross shelter exhausted Cubans, even little children milled around, as if lost. Red Cross volunteers gave them blankets and packages of bath soap and other cosmetics. Other volunteers gave them food and coffee. In a quieter part of the shelter, the Cuban women waited. When someone handed them blankets or food, they took it, but it was obvious getting those things was not their big concern. A language barrier made it difficult to understand what they wanted. Finally, someone called a priest who spoke their language, and he brought what they needed, a large candle. Before they left their homeland they vowed to not sleep or eat, til they gave thanks for being in a safe place.

Volunteers helped them erect an altar made of upended cardboard boxes, covered with Red Cross bankets. The priest placed the large candle on the makeshift altar, and the Cuban women knelt in thanksgiving. Their journey of faith was done. Although the newspaper didn't run my story (the regular reporter met deadline for his) the editor was kind enough to write me an enouraging note, and send the story back to me. For a long time I regretted it didn't make it, but today I realize it's better it didn't.

If my first shot at a front page scoop had made headlines, I might have become complacent or smug, and never written any better than I did then. If for no reason other than that, I treasure my number twelve newspaper writing assignment, and you can be certain I welcome the privilege to write number thirteen and beyond very well, very well.