Still Digesting

I recently got some great news: I was selected as one of six finalists in the Reader’s Digest 100 Word Essay Contest! Let’s just say there was so much whooping and leaping that pets fled in fear.

I grew up assuming it was normal to have a copy of Reader’s Digest sitting on the kitchen table like a centerpiece, and I’ve dreamed of being published in that sacred little tome for well over thirty years. I remember only too well lugging my dad’s electric typewriter from his scary basement lair up two flights of stairs to prepare some submissions for their “All in a Day’s Work” and “Laughter is the Best Medicine” sections. Said typewriter was impressively large and encased in mustard-gold plastic with a handle for easy transportation like a Samsonite suitcase, if one had packed 60 pounds of scrap metal and a ribbon that sagged in the middle for a vacation to Writerville.

It wasn’t exactly a fun vacation, either. I had to set the whole thing up on my furry red bedspread with my beloved Webster’s New World College edition close at hand because I didn’t have a proper desk. Mistakes were such an ordeal to correct that the whole process was absolutely agonizing for a poor typist like me. The resulting piece usually looked like a minefield of tiny White Out explosions, like a small war had taken place on the page. Which it had.

Submitting meant more carefully typed envelopes and stamps, followed by ages of waiting. Endless waiting, since I didn’t get a response.

It took over thirty years. For me it was worth the wait. Please consider looking for it in the June edition.

Walking the wire is life. Everything else is waiting around ~Karl Wallenda of the Flying Wallendas