Road Trip!
Post-Trip Review: Interplanetary Matters
Alakazam!
Note: This is the ninth in a series of posts describing my effort to get letters published in newspapers in every state and territory of the U.S.A. You can read the whole series here.
If you watch the letters sections of newspapers or if you listen to talk radio, you will surely see or hear someone who lives near an airport complaining about aircraft noise. It is a very strange phenomenon. Given that most airports near urban areas have been there for a very long time, most residents chose to move close to the airport with full knowledge that noisy aircraft would be flying overhead.
Of course, the complainers couch their complaints in terms of changes over time. For instance, if they consciously moved close to an airport that served small general-aviation propeller planes, and that airport later lengthened its runways and began serving much louder jet aircraft, why, the complainers will go to the mat to force you to admit that Something Changed. But it is not enough for you to admit that Something Changed. You must also agree with them that This Must Not Stand. Also, they will want you to understand that they have health issues that are exacerbated by aircraft that are clearly violating the regulations governing allowable times for takeoffs and landings.
I’m sorry, sir or madam, but the Something that Changed was entirely within the law and the intended purpose of the airport, and even if regulations are being violated it will most certainly Stand. Even with the best planning and the best efforts, things happen and flight schedules do not run with the precision of an atomic clock. But still the complaints continue.
Really, though, if you want peace and quiet you need to move to a remote area far from any airport. Like the planet Mars, for instance.
Well, I tried that. But wouldn’t you know it, Something Changed!
As it appeared in the Virginia-Pilot. I hear you: “Hey, man! That’s a cartoon! You didn’t draw that!” True enough. But I submitted my letter on 04/23/21, and this cartoon appeared on 04/26/21. Coincidence? Maybe. But keep reading.
As it appeared in the Virginia-Pilot. What ho! My letter, a week after I submitted it and a few days after the cartoon on the same subject in the same newspaper. While I have no proof that my letter inspired the cartoon, I am counting the cartoon as a “publication” of my letter. I will of course gladly retract that claim if I am ever presented with evidence to the contrary, but no one cares and so boom, I win. I’m working solely based on the timing here. I do think it is richly humorous that in the same issue where my letter was published, there is a letter (see “Fix Pungo” on the left side of the editorial page) from another reader complaining about two (2) airplanes overflying his home on a single day; in the same letter, he complains about having to sit through an entire cycle of traffic signals. That guy must have never driven in Atlanta rush hour traffic. We would have killed to only have to wait through one cycle of traffic signals. I can only surmise that, since that correspondent’s move to Knotts Island some number of eons ago, Something Changed.
As it appeared in Hometown News Brevard. This paper has an abomination called “Rants & Raves” in which they severely edit letters. I’m all in favor of editors’ prerogatives, but when you abide by the stated word limit I really wish they would limit their editing to small tweaks. In this case they cut the letter in half, left out the part where I made it clear that I had moved to Mars, and then rewrote it to say that the “news” of the Mars helicopter, not the noise itself, is what knocked me out of my bunk. Kind of makes me look like a grumpy old loon of the Knotts Island variety.
As it appeared in the Record-Courier. Rather than submitting the generic Mars helicopter letter, I added a ton of local flavor. The extra details were based on my study of the maps of Gardnerville, NV, and the websites of various hotels and entertainment venues. What could go wrong?
The complaint as it appeared in the Record-Courier. What could go wrong is that I was not exact enough about the geographic relationship of the sporting clays shooting facility and the hotel and my fictional home in Nevada. Apparently, the shooting facility is quite a ways out in the desert, miles from the hotel. Now, my letter did not state my exact location, but it did imply that someone who lived near enough to the hotel to be disturbed by the vocalizations of Tanya Tucker would also be annoyed by the sound of shotguns shooting sporting clays from the sky. Mr. Clark, the manager of the shooting facility, was not amused.
My follow-up as it appeared in the Record-Courier. I don’t like to sleep on a dispute, especially one with a man who owns not only a shotgun but a whole shooting facility, so I hastened to apologize for my error.
Epilogue
Months later, always seeking ink even in places where I had already been published, I submitted another interplanetary letter to the Record-Courier. I had enjoyed a bit of correspondence with the editor back when my helicopter letter and subsequent apology were published, so I anticipated a friendly welcome. Sure enough, the editor liked the seasonal pants-pressing letter and wrote to me that he would publish it shortly, space permitting.
However, space did not permit, as more pressing issues arose and more compelling local letters arrived. The editor went so far as to apologize to me for not publishing my letter.
While I had lied my way to publication all over the country by misstating my home address on submission forms, I began to feel bad about lying to this particular editor since, given our correspondence, I could now put a name and a face to the receiver of my lie. So, after he apologized for not running my letter, I came clean about my subterfuge, and I also clued him in to my whole road trip project which, by that time in 2021, had run its course. Sure, he could report me to other editors, but he could not stop me from achieving my goal of nationwide publication.
That editor turned out to be one who took the “locals-only” guideline very seriously, and he expressed displeasure at my lie and informed me that I was banned from his paper. I expected no less but I had hoped for a different outcome—perhaps an appreciation of the scope of my effort, and of the humor I had delivered to editors and readers—but I totally understand that local editors are very protective of their turf and of their perceived mission of providing a platform only for locals. I understand it but I disagree with it. As I state elsewhere, I think a better survival response for small news outlets would be to report locally but engage globally. The internet does not respect your circulation area, so why are you so fixated on it?
But that’s just my opinion, man.
Boing!