Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
Arguably the greatest American writer, Mark Twain, had an idiom that people used to follow. The creator of Tom, Huck, Becky, and Jim, who told tales of Jumping Frogs and time traveling Yankees once said, “Never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel and paper by the ton.”
Twain is most famous as a humorist, but he had a stint as a journalist writing for the Virginia City Daily Enterprise in territorial Nevada. It was there that he learned of the pushback the news often received from people who didn’t like the message and the power of the press in overwhelming those who disagreed.
That trend has only grown exponentially with the rise of social media with the scales tipped much more in the individual’s favor.
The interesting, well not exactly interesting, but rather disturbing nature of social media is that it “levels the playing field” on not just opinions, but facts as well.
A distinguished scientist who has spent her entire career working on a solution to a global problem is often placed on stage with someone whose sum total of knowledge comes from biased internet sites. In the world of social media, they are equals with equally valid opinions. In reality, the wingnut arguing with her should be wearing a tinfoil hat so the viewing audience can see rather than just hear their insanity.
Why is this done? That’s a great question.
Social media has allowed everyone to express an opinion without requiring facts, just pure emotion. Thinking requires work. It’s much easier to just have someone else do that for you.
Research, real research, not just clicking a mouse to find a place where people thinking as you do can gather and share misinformation, is even more difficult. You need to interview people, read original resources such as newspaper articles from specific time period, journals, and letters, then cross-check all of them.
A favorite phrase is “Go pound sand.” It first appeared in print in 1857. The original meaning is difficult to comprehend for anyone who has never set fence posts by hand, but that’s the reference.
Dig a hole, put the post in, fill the hole, and tamp the dirt. It’s an easy enough process if you’re working in topsoil, but rocky ground, and especially sand create problems. Dry sand slips away, is hard to compress, and equally hard to dig a hole in.
Telling someone to “go pound sand” in pre-Civil War America was an insult. It meant they were so dumb they couldn’t even pound sand. The person’s presence was a waste of someone else’s time.
The insult jumped to the pages of the Saint Paul Globe in an 1886 sports column where the sportswriter expressed his love of baseball through his ability to insult umpires and opposing players. That’s something that has grown exponentially as well.
The writer loved nothing better than telling the ump to “go pound sand” from his comfortable seat in the bleachers with a cold beer in his hand.
Have you ever wanted to tell someone to pound sand? We all experience this urge. In interviewing people, researching in the county museums, and in the photo albums of local people for the series I’ve been writing the last 18 months on the history of Fremont County there have been many fascinating discoveries.
This is an amazing place with hidden gems of history just waiting to be unearthed. They don’t pop out of the page. When you’re writing about subjects that have never been written before it makes it a fascinating process.
The discovery process starts with one person connected to a story, then flows outward as they tell me of the others involved. That’s how it is supposed to work, and a natural crosschecking process takes place.
The consternation comes not from the primary subject, or the people with the knowledge and experience of running a store, a mine, a cattle business, or a transport company, just to name a few, but from those on the periphery.
The problem is often self-involved people refusing to be interviewed until they see positive comments on the story and suddenly they want to be seen as an expert.
It’s modern day drama, pure and simple.
A story of a generational family store was written through interviews with the elderly couple who created the business, their retirement-age children who ran it, and the people in their community who frequented it.
This little gem popped up in the comments section when the story was published. “It would be nice if someone who actually worked there were interviewed for the story.”
The complaining party was a 20-something, grand nephew from California who had only visited the place once as a child but considered himself an expert. I bet he’s fun at parties.
Petty family jealousies often emerge after someone is credited more than someone else, or an aging relative relates a tale slightly inaccurately. One of my favorites is the woman who had to correct a photograph of a young boy holding a big bullsnake. “It wasn’t behind the store, it was behind the house,” she wrote indignantly. OK, they were 25 feet apart and it was 1938, what a travesty.
In another incident, a printed version of a story arrived with handwritten red “correction marks” on the story. She dutifully wrote, OK on each paragraph, but added quotes with her name about a half dozen times.
She’d refused two requests for an interview and denied requests from family members to participate as well. Now she wanted in. What’s that about cake and eating it too?
The best drama, offense, and backlash comes from names. Refer to someone named William as Bill and you’re bound to get a response. In a story of a restaurant that closed in the 1970s, it was a man’s legal name William that created self-important offense. Everyone interviewed referred to the deceased businessman as Bill. Everyone that is except a niece who refused to be interviewed because she didn’t have time. She did have time to indignantly note that her late uncle’s name was not Bill, but William. Stop the presses.
Interviewing people about distant events is the best part of writing. If they can’t quite recall something they usually indicate it. Most commonly it’s the first name of someone their parents or grandparents bought the farm or business from. When that happens, you try to contact relatives of the people to get the correct information. It always works if they answer the phone or reply to a text or email. When they refuse, you go with the best available information. If it’s incorrect, and later contacted civilly, it’s easy to correct. If the drama boils over it’s just as easy to rewrite a sentence or two and delete all references to their relative.
It’s something you couldn’t do in print media but is easy with digital publishing.
The joys of writing a unique story never printed before far outweigh the drama generated by those wallowing in the cult of offense.
To the ever-offended, “You are unique, just like everyone else.”