It’s back. After over a two-year hiatus, “Karen’s Column” has returned to the printed pages of The Daily World.
Nothing has been signed in concrete but my agreement with Editor Michael Wagar is I’ll try to write a column ABOUT once a month.
I think the very first column I wrote for The Daily World (about 22 years ago) was about my experience on jury duty. I remember coming back to work and commenting one of the insights I took away from my first jury duty was that the defense attorney kept stressing his client had the right to be “judged” by a “jury of his peers.”
This guy was being accused of consuming a large amount of alcohol and then deciding to shoot up the mobile home where his girlfriend was staying.
It was a little insulting to me that I was being considered “one of his peers.”
After listening to me rant and rave for about two minutes, Editor John Hughes said, “Sounds like you have a lot to say about that. You should write a column.”
So I did.
And the dye was cast.
Early on, there was the occasional column — about a new restaurant my husband and I had visited and really enjoyed, or how empty the house was now that our son and youngest daughter had left to go to school in Pullman. GO COUGS! and in 2013, talking about how my doctor told me I needed to get out and exercise so I started walking 30 minutes every evening around our Central Park neighborhood.
There was the column about one of the new reporters telling me “You are one of the strangest people I had ever met.” — she couldn’t believe I didn’t have a cell phone, another a story about cleaning out the junk drawer in the kitchen.
And then sometime early in 2018, The Daily World Editor Doug Barker, called me into his office and said “Karen, I’d like you to write a column every month, the last Saturday of the month.”
I didn’t know what to say. Up to that point I’d written a column only when inspiration hit me (usually in the middle of the night) and the next day I would sit at my desk and pound out a column, usually in an hour or less. I was worried what I would do if I had an actual deadline to meet. What if I didn’t have anything to write about?
After listening to me complain and tell him lots of reasons why I couldn’t do a column every month, Doug said, “How about you give it a try and if it doesn’t work, we’ll figure something out. And while you’re at it, figure out a name for your column.”
And “Karen’s Corner” was born.
One of the first I wrote for my official monthly column was about how much I was going to miss The Daily World Sports Editor Rick Anderson as he retired. A couple of months later I talked about having my left kidney and gall bladder removed and having kidney stones in my right kidney blasted into tiny bits — three surgeries in five months. Another column mentioned how much I loved living in Washington state and another one detailed how I finally gave in and got myself a cell phone.
Nothing astounding. Nothing earth-shattering. Just me rattling on about something that was happening in my life or an item that caught my interest at that time in my life.
And now I’m going to try again.
So fingers crossed folks. Karen’s Corner is back and hopefully I won’t miss any of those upcoming deadlines.
Got an idea for Karen to write about? She’s not promising she’ll use your ideas but she’s always open to suggestions. Contact her at kbarkstrom@thedailyworld.com or give her a call at 360-537-3925.
