RIP, DTH

By Johnny D. Boggs

Today is December 9, which has me remembering 31 years ago.

December 7, 1991: I'm assistant sports editor/nights at the Dallas Times Herald when we move into our first house, an adorable two-bedroom 1 1/2-bath Austin stone home built in 1941. December 7? That doesn't bode well, I joke.

December 8, 1991: The first phone call I receive in my first house comes from a friend at the rival Dallas Morning News. She says: "Uhhh, there's a strong rumor going around here that we've bought the Times Herald and are shutting it down."

It wasn't just a rumor. I went to work that day to put out the last edition of the Dallas Times Herald. Eleven hundred people were out of work.

Somehow there was one massive party at my house after we put out that last edition and drank champagne in the newsroom.

Months later, I landed a job at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. But during those months, to supplement the unemployment check from Uncle Sam, I started querying magazines and submitting articles on spec. I gave serious attention to that first novel I kept saying I'd write.

At one point, a former colleague, who had landed a job at a gardening magazine, called to ask if I could drive to a state prison unit in East Texas and write about a horticulture class being taught there. Pay would be 200 bucks. "I thought 'prison,'" he said, "and you were the first person to come to mind."

Hmmm. Since then, magazine assignments have carried me inside Angola three times and Huntsville once.

A week from today I have a novel due at a NY publishing house. I'm contracted for several magazines (no assignment is about maximum-security prisons). I live in an area many people only dream of visiting.

But every year around this time I think back.

If I had not lost my job, and watched many friends move away from DFW and out of my life, would I be here? Or would I still be working in newspapers? Hey, in case you haven't heard, the majority of the newsroom staff at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram is striking. Would writing awards decorate my home office? Would I have made connections and deep friendships with fellow writers and editors of fiction and nonfiction? Would I have found the guts to quit my full-time newspaper job and take off to New Mexico on practically a whim in October 1998?

Don't get me wrong. I work my butt off, often seven days a week. Writing for a living is not for everybody. There's no job security, and I'm always keenly aware that there's no guarantee that the book contract I sign won't be the last book contract I sign.

But I'm doing what I want and love to do. Not everyone can say that. And the catalyst came when I lost my job on a dark December day.