It has been an honor and a privilege to be a contributing and regular Welcome Columnist for the CBA website for – um, quite a few years now.
As much as I’ve enjoyed writing the weekly Wednesday column, I have also enjoyed the other Welcome columns as well. I don’t know if any other website that has such an upfront feature that changes daily, and I think it’s a great idea.
Think of the variety of content visitors to www.cbaontheweb.org get. Some columns are very light and whimsical, and some are much deeper treatises on matters that concern us all. The common thread is “bluegrass content”, but it’s not usual for the connection to be very tenuous indeed!
If you like writing (and I do!), the column provides a wonderful place for the author to share the things that flicker across all of our minds from time to time. Believe me, it’s a cathartic exercise. Sometimes, the weekly deadline for 500 words looms like a Sisyphean task, and other times, I might dash of 2 or 3 columns in advance.
My 500 word goal is self-imposed. I find it an interesting challenge to state a theme, expound upon it (hopefully providing chuckles, deep thought or enlightenment to the readers) and tie it up neatly in a piece that can be read in just 5 minutes. The idea is to provide thought-provoking content, not tie up the reader for a great length of time.
Isn’t that how our minds work? Something we hear, see, smell or think spawns a train of thought and we ride it until something else takes its place, and sometimes, an insight or – dare I say – an Important Truth pops up in our heads?
This process can be triggered whether the column is deep,thoughtful and well-researched, or an amusing collection of random thoughts, or homespun vignettes of life on the farm, the stage or in the past.
I don’t try to bring the reader around to my point of view. I try to explain how some of these things rattle around my own brain, and maybe that will set things vibrating in their own brains and they will draw their own conclusions. Maybe then those conclusions will be the result of some frenzied thoughts, colored, perhaps by some empathy for how others view similar situations and feelings.
I know I ramble sometimes, and it’s not unusual to end up with a column that’s completely different that what I had in mind, originally. What I really want is to have an EFFECT on people. Can I make you think of something you hadn’t thought of before? Can I present some information in a way you haven’t often encountered? I certainly hope so, and I figure if I can’t accomplish that in 500 to 600 words, I may be on a fool’s errand. When I DO accomplish this, please take a few minutes to let me know by email or the Message Board!
