A letter from Dick McLinden

Here’s a letter from Copy Desk retiree Dick McLinden who still lives in North Canton:

My apologies for not responding sooner.. It took almost a week to get over the shock of learning that somebody actually cared about whatever happened to McLinden!

As I told you, I'm a total computer illiterate as of now. Everybody and his brother seems to be bound to the computer these days, and I guess I never did run with the herd.

But it hasn't been easy. When I get the urge to compute, I go out to lunch or something. Boy, am I well fed!

When I'm not eating I'm taking pills or going to the doctor -- or the bathroom. Marcus Welby would be proud. Seems I'm keeping his colleagues in business. Let's see ... a second knee replacement, triple heart bypass, carpal tunnel surgery, cataract surgery, the heart failure before Christmas, a pacemaker and defibrillator, and maybe a couple of distemper shots from a passing veterinarian sometime when I wasn't looking.

They tell me that Aetna is considering a whole new category for me -- way too risky.

Anyway, you asked about the old, golden days in the Sunday Department. And that's just what they were. I only had to worry about the Beacon Magazine when Kenny Cole was off sick or something. My guess is that they just wanted to keep Lary Bloom and Bierman from getting us into a lawsuit.

The News and Views section was fun. I was pretty much responsible for it after Lloyd Stoyer left, and that was far and away my best time at the Beacon. I got to write Biogaphy in Brief for several years as well as edit copy. That's why I went there. But Ben Maidenburg's departure changed that in a hurry. No more handling his weekly column. No more picking the Sunday features I thought most appropriate.

So that was that. Shippy and I got the axe from that department within a few months of each other. Mostly filling space like Art Cullison, Donn Gaynor and some other rejects who didn't fit in well with the new grand design. Not that it was all sackcloth and ashes. I liked the people on the copy desk for the most part. With an exception or two, of course.

But no JSK and no Maidenburg took away the feeling that I was helping contribute to the best paper in Ohio. So retirement couldn't come too soon. I have a hunch some of the rest of you felt that way, too.

There it is. My BJ career in a cracked nutshell. Do with it as you will. Sorry aoout the lack of a photo. An old one of Tyrone Power will do nicely.

Keep up your great work.