We don’t stop writing when we get old…
We get old when we stop writing.
That variation of a George Bernard Shaw line comes to mind with word that Bennington (Vt.) Banner columnist Harriette Leidich, who celebrated her 100th birthday last week, continues to produce copy --- via typewriter --- for “Senior Moments,” notes Grumpy Editor.
Recognized as the oldest active newspaper columnist in the U.S., she started her writing career at 14 with her father’s Iowa newspaper.
Over the years she knew her way around newspaper production, too, including operating a Linotype that set type from hot lead. It was an important back-shop machine from the late 1800s before fading in use during the 1970s.
Leidich has been writing her column, a collection of mostly small town matters, since 1995 in the Bennington Banner one of MediaNews Group’s 57 daily newspapers in the U.S.
Her July 17, 2006 column explained the background for her column.
“Sometimes one needs to step back and take a closer look at what they write for publication,” she pointed out.
“This has been the case with my Senior Moments columns. Seems that as I grow older and as the world changes its many patterns and modes of living, one gets a bit jaded. When friends called to inquire if I had passed on, I decided to tell you that I am quite alive and always interested in what is going on in this world.”
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