Editorial
Front Page - Friday, July 9, 2010
I Swear ...
Let’s hear it for “Are we there yet?”
Vic Fleming
Congratulations,
Jay Edwards!
For an installment of his “Are we there yet?” column, Jay has won the Arkansas Press Association’s 2010 News-Editorial First Place Award for Humorous Column in the Smaller Dailies category.
Jay’s no stranger to these awards. Two years ago, one of his “Are we there yet?” stories took second place in General Interest.
It’s a diversified columnist who can compete in General Interest one year and Humor another.
And now, he is recognized as the Top Dog in the humor column industry. Among smaller dailies. In the APA. For at least a year.
There are 60 member papers in the APA. Six qualify as smaller dailies.
The Benton Courier, The Blytheville Courier News, The Paragould Daily Press, The Stuttgart Daily Leader, The Forrest City Times-Herald and The Daily Record make up that six-some.
FYI, seven newspapers qualify as medium dailies, nine as larger dailies.
And then there are your weeklies: 11 smaller, 12 medium and 15 larger.
Add ‘em up. Should run to 60.
I will not list all the titles.
After all, we are focused on the winner in the smaller dailies category. And him alone! (Though he’d want me to acknowledge the Benton Courier’s Krystal Kuykendall’s “Feeling like a Saline Countian” and the Paragould Daily Press’s Janie Ginocchio’s “Baby on board” for placing and showing.)
Jay’s column which brought home the bacon was titled “Where talk is cheap.” It’s funny.
I’ve reread it to be sure. I recalled it immediately. It ran some time last year. It’s about Facebook.
It begins, “You may have heard about that thing on the Internet known as Facebook. I signed up a couple of months ago, and have recently been known to be staring at my computer screen with bloodshot eyes long past midnight.”
Jay goes on to note that his 20-something daughter contacted him and said it was “weird” seeing him on Facebook. He agreed. He’d entered a weird world, and so he recounts some of the weirdness.
Like the question that someone sent him: “If you were a body part, which one would it be?” That was weird.
And then someone sent him a margarita. That was weird. Of course, he could not lay his hands on it to take a sip.
“Then there was someone named Kathleen, who is a friend of a friend. I was watching their conversation one night (which not only feels weird, it looks weird when you write it).”
And then an old high school friend wrote that she saw his profile photo featured the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. She wrote, “I cross it every day but never see you standing there.”
He concludes (brilliantly, IMO) with an “echo,” saying that some other activity “beats making conversation with …‘friends’ I don’t really even know. Of course, that can always change if one of them wants to buy me a real margarita.”
Over 2,000 entries in categories ranging from General Excellence to Best Web Design to Single Sports feature Photograph were submitted.
The judging was done by the Mississippi Press Association.
The APA was founded in the year 1873. Its purpose: “to serve” Arkansas’s newspapers by providing them information and training that will allow them to grow and be competitive.
And, once a year, they compete with each other for these awards.
So, till this time next year, Jay is THE MAN! If you see him, give him a high five AND buy him a margarita!
Vic Fleming is a district court judge in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he also teaches at the William H. Bowen School of Law. Contact him at vicfleming@att.net.
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