Clips I saved in a scrapbook from my journalism internship as a student at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Thanks to fellow blogger from Writing from the Heart with Brian for his post about “The Elements of Style” by Strunk and White. It brought back memories of my first encounter with the powerful little book that has been by my side since my internship as a “stringer” for a Washington state newspaper.

The Elements of Style was listed as one of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923 by Time in its 2011 list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Style

I haven’t thought about those days “like forever.”

Our professor, who was an intimidating former editor/publisher of a Northwest paper before he retired to “professoring,” selected 12 students to move to Olympia, Wash., our state Capitol. He assigned each student a newspaper where he believed they’d fit.

For example, a single mom who was older than the rest of us, got the Seattle Times, the biggest newspaper in the state. I was assigned to The Daily Chronicle and covered news for Centralia and Chehalis — the midpoint between Seattle and Portland, Ore.

I was surprised to be one of the chosen. In fact, I was scared to death having no interest or knowledge about government and politics. How was I going to write about it?

I looked up to — or rather worshipped my older brother at the time. He was the golden boy who was smart, good looking and could do no wrong in my eyes as well as my parents.

We got together so he could go over the basics of government with me. I was going to get a crash course in politics.

“What’s a Gop?” I asked pronouncing the word so it rhymed with cop. I was referring to the GOP or Grand Old Party.

“Is it too late to get out of this?” my brother asked. “Please, do not go!”

I was so afraid to go, that I procrastinated and showed up to the state Capitol several days late. My excuse was my part-time job at a restaurant. I was comfortable in my apartment with my roomie, watching General Hosptial and eating Kraft Mac-n-Cheese. I liked working with career waiters and waitresses. It was so less threatening than the unknown I faced.

I missed orientation, meeting the other students, but finally mustered up courage and made my appearance. My professor gave me a one-on-one tour. My best friend’s dad was a lobbyist for Weyerhauser and invited me to his office for my second crash course — this one about the timber industry. His wife was a big wig in the department of Natural Resources and they took an interest in me.

They helped me get off my feet and I busied myself with my first article, writing it longhand on a legal pad.

“I never would have selected you if I knew you wrote longhand,” the professor said stopping at my desk. “I can usually tell. Put down the pen and use the typewriter from now on.”

The 12 students, including me, shared one big room with our desks in two rows. The professor had a private office and critiqued our stories. He made us rewrite them before sending them via wire or snail mail to our newspapers. If there was a tight deadline, I’d call my editor at the paper and read the story to him as he transcribed it.

One of the students put up a picture of a cowboy and named him Bill. Then he posted all our headlines that included the word “bill.” Bill would to this. Bill would do that. Bill would do all sorts of things.

I turned in my first article to my professor. He called me into his office. It was marked with lots of red ink. He told me it was a great puff piece for Weyerhaeuser, but instructed me to get both sides of the story. He gave me names of several people to call who were in government or lobbied against the timber giant. He also showed me how to cut and paste my article so the most important facts were up on top.

Yes, back then we cut and paste with scissors and glue!

The article above about RIF by lottery above was from a bill that a Senator in my newspaper’s district proposed. My editor asked me to write about it. The bill and the article was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. I got a call from a congressman reading me the riot act over it.

“You must feel so powerful!” he yelled at me.

I guess he missed the joke — even though I have the word “joked” in the article. Sheesh!

What memories do you have of an internship or first job? What did you learn?