You can be on the verge of success and not know it.
"Mom called, depressed," I wrote in my Waterstone's Literary Diary on Sunday, Jan. 21, 1996. "Which is ironic, since I'm feeling pretty down too. Just tired of working hard & not getting anywhere."
No exaggeration there. Almost nine years on the staff of the Chicago Sun-Times and still scrabbling on the lowest rung. A general assignment reporter, stuck on the night shift to keep me out of sight, which some days meant 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. I nicknamed my wife, "the gray oval" — an indistinct featureless face glimpsed in darkness. Our first son was born three months earlier, and I had taken the year-long, unpaid paternity leave permitted in the Chicago Newspaper Guild contract. Nobody did that — I never heard of another guy taking a full year. I did so, because I had nothing to lose at the paper. And I had a book to work on, my third. That paid the bills, though even the book wasn't exactly crackling with promise either.
"Nothing going on," I wrote the next day, a Monday. "No calls from Bill" — my editor at Doubleday —"or anybody. Went to gym & felt better." There I ran into an editor who was leaving the paper I was stuck at, Julia Wallace, off to greener fields in Atlanta. Then had coffee with John McKnight, who had just written his own book, "The Careless Society," reminding me: books are a dime a dozen.
Tuesday, Jan. 23, I phoned Games magazine and got an assignment. Freelance brought in both money and a sense of purpose. Phoned a Chicago magazine writer — and future food game show host — Ted Allen to "arrange lunch to discuss Chicago column." A column, anywhere, was what I wanted. Not having one, I used to say, was like being drowned. Not in a hazy abstract sense. But real, visceral. Like someone holding my face under water and killing me. I was 35 years old. Life had thundered past and was disappearing into the distance. While I was stuck at a job that involved random people yelling my name and demanding me to hurry to various addresses and figure out what's going on there, then write instantly forgettable stories about minor events.
And lately I wasn't even doing that, having swapped frantic insignificance for total obscurity, my life was a sleep-deprived rondo of changing soiled diapers and plugging bottles of formula into a little screaming mouth.
We lived in the city, on Pine Grove Avenue. I went out to Great Harvest to pick up bread, When I returned, I found out I'd gotten a call from Nigel Wade, the new editor-in-chief of the Sun-Times, a great red-faced slab of New Zealand press lord, whom I'd met exactly once. The previous October, when he was still editor of the London Telegraph, but had come over to kick the tires of the paper. Most employees leap under a desk in such a situation. Reckless with ambition, I'd run to meet him, and we went out for a drink. I gave him my latest book, "Complete & Utter Failure."
"Something for you to read on the plane to London," I said.
"I called back. Nigel asked me if I would like to write a column for the Sunday paper. Astounding! He began by asking when my paternity leave was due to end."
In my memory, the query went like this: "STEINBERG!!! This paternity leave ... how long is it supposed to last???"
"I said, 'Nine months.' But after he offered the column, I said, 'I of course could return tomorrow.' I faxed him the NY Times piece."
I'd been working on it for weeks, trying to sell a Chicago column to the Times. People act like success falls in your lap, but a lot of futile pushing is involved. I've spent my life jiggling the handles of locked doors.
"Nigel sent back a note. 'This is it!'"
Of course it wasn't "it." The next day was spent redoing the column I had written to wave under the nose of the Gray Lady, then trying something completely different.
"Wrote new column — first tried something on Oprah, then settled on State St. Mall. Wrote column and faxed it to the paper. Talked to Mark Jacob in the afternoon. I need to change the lede since it refers to my niece (no kids) and to make it funnier."
The niece reference is ironic. Nigel had no children, so was puzzled about their possible appeal. My son became the one subject in my career I was formally forbidden from writing about, not that I listened. A key survival skill in journalism is knowing when to pay attention to your bosses, and when to just ignore them.
Dealing with consequences is the difficult part of the job. Readers thunder their disapproval. Colleagues too. In the few days between when I spoke with Nigel and when the paper hit the streets, I didn't tell anybody the column was coming. To make my getting it a pleasant surprise for my colleagues? Nah, I didn't want to give anybody time to stab me in the back, to try and stop it. A smart move, as afterward another columnist, whom I considered a friend, went around telling anybody who would listen that the last thing the paper needs is another 35-year-old white guy writing a column. I forgave him, but am not sure that he ever forgave me for poaching on his personal preserve.
I used to say that writing the column, I do for free. It's the dealing with the consequences that demands a healthy salary.
Not that the salary was particularly healthy, at the start. Because I was on unpaid leave, the paper paid me $250 a column. To my credit, I stayed out the rest of the year, writing from home. When I returned, I had one day a week to write the column. The other four, I was still a reporter. The column ran on Sundays — luring readers to the Sunday paper was a continual struggle for the Sun-Times, like the Russians quest for a warm water port.
A dynamic I copied myself. My midweek column began after I convinced Nigel that if I could attract daily readers, I could shunt them toward the Sunday paper. Then in 1997, my second son was born, and I took only three months paternity leave. I thought they'd be happy, my logic being, three is much less than 12, I thought I was being considerate, but Nigel thought it was insane, and when I got back, I was made the environment reporter (writing two columns a week wasn't a full-time job either. The other three days I covered some sort of beat. For a while, I was the charities, foundations and private social services reporter).
Covering the environment was so contrary to my nature — they wanted someone who cared about the environment, for starters, and could attend conferences and pick over reports, or who even liked being outside, none of which applied to me — that I quit on the spot, pausing only long enough to secure myself a job as features editor at Chicago Magazine.
But the paper didn't let me go. Goodies were assembled: I would be given a third column and three days to write them, which could be spent at home. And the paper would promote me. And a raise.
Why am I recounting all this? Nostalgia, I suppose. Five years ago, when I hit 25 years as a columnist, I merely reprinted that first column here, and did not mention the anniversary in the paper. Because heads were rolling. I decided to keep a low profile, and not leap up crying "Here I am; fire me!" Nor do I plan on remarking on the three decades in the paper because ... well, a lot is going on, dire doings at home and abroad, and there's enough self-indulgence in the world without my adding to it. But I do have to fill today somehow. I figure, 30 years on, a person can pause to reflect. Heck, I might do something on the day itself, Jan. 28 — list 10 favorite columns maybe. Or might not. That sort of choice — being your own man, making your own calls — is the essence of column writing. They give you a regular hole to fill as you please. How you fill it is your affair. That's a great responsibility. And a joy. I've got nothing to regret. It was a good way to make a living, for many years, and still is, most days. The journey is nearly done, the coastline in sight, the safe harbor just around the bend. But not yet.
Ten years ago, I also paused to reflect on this job. Cultivating gratitude, I thanked 14 colleagues on staff who made life at the paper enjoyable for me. Of those 14, two remain.
