What a year: Part II

Tom Pinney

It was a Tuesday afternoon last year here at the office, and between writing the news and putting together stories for the “Our Town” edition, I overheard a conversation where Phil was saying that we were a few inches short on the Opinion page for the next day, so I volunteered to write something up for it.

I was the new guy, and instead of doing an introductory story on the news side, I wanted to introduce myself through the opinion page in hopes of starting a permanent column. To be quite honest, I really wanted a column so that I could use the title “Pinney for your Thoughts.”

I already had a blog entitled “Closed Eyes, Open Hands,” and I felt like it was too deep to rename, so I wanted a column. At first, I expected it to be filler for when we needed something to occupy space.

So, on Wednesday, August 10, 2016, the first “Pinney for your Thoughts” column ran, and it was a bit of a joke-y column about the generation gap making jokes at the expense of the term “millennial,” Al Gore, and Hot Pockets. I didn’t expect it to become a regular deal.

But I kept writing the column, and the column kept getting published, and 45 columns later (I know because they’re all numbered in my “Columns” folder on my desktop, and because there were seven non-consecutive weeks where I didn’t write it), I’m a permanent fixture on Thursday’s opinion page.

I find it ironic that my day is Thursday, because growing up, Thursdays always sucked.

I don’t know why, but Thursday was always the worst day of the week in school. It seemed like I only forgot my homework, got bullied, got hurt, forgot my lunch money, or any other bad thing, on a Thursday.

I sprained my right ankle for the first time in seventh grade during basketball practice on a Thursday. Two weeks later, I sprained my left ankle during a game on a Thursday.

Every fielding error I ever committed in baseball in middle school was on a Thursday. My batting average on Thursday games dragged my overall batting average down, and I only ever struck out on Thursdays.

It was on a Thursday that I found out that I was allergic to seafood – both fish and shellfish, on separate occasions. Every breakup I’ve ever gone through has happened on a Thursday.

Throughout college and grad school, Thursday was the day before we left for tournaments, so it was always slow as molasses in a freezer. And every embarrassing thing that happened in my formative years – splitting my pants in the fifth grade, tripping over my shoelaces in the hallway in sixth grade causing me to throw my trumpet across the hallway, this one time I got food poisoning in second grade and projectile vomited down the hall on my way to the bathroom – all of it happened on a Thursday.

I know what you’re thinking. The odds of all of those happening on the same day of the week are one in a billion. As it turns out, I’m the one.

The only traumatic event in my life that didn’t happen on a Thursday was the tornado, which happened on a Saturday. But that didn’t do much of anything to curb my lack of enthusiasm for Thursdays.

What did do that was getting this column, claiming these inches for my own to say whatever I want to say. More than anything, Pinney for your Thoughts has been my own not-so-subtle effort to reclaim my Thursdays.

Granted, I’m writing these columns on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays (and sometimes, Fridays a week before they’re due), but that’s just because Thursdays can’t be all fun and games. When I open the paper Thursday morning and see this column decorating the opinion page, it’s a bit of a highlight for the day.

And then, like normal, I go about my daily business.

The cool thing about the opinion page is that I get an opportunity to give you a glimpse into my mind and how it works. On this page, you’ve seen me write about millennials, shaving, broad-brush partisanship, music, depression, and just a bit about politics.

There were a lot of people who were shocked that I could sing and act when they saw me in Hello, Dolly! I’m still full of plenty of surprises.

For instance, I started writing songs as a way to deal with a particularly difficult breakup, and since then, I have written about 15 songs and played two shows, including one I co-headlined as a featured up-and-coming local artist at a bar on Ohio State University’s campus my junior year of high school.

That’s a great story. Stay tuned.

I once got into a theological argument with a street corner preacher wherein I accosted him for holding God’s grace hostage and he ended up leaving the street corner. And I haven’t yet said a word in this column about just how much I love dogs.

And while some will look at this as me being smug about keeping people guessing, I often prefer it this way. I love being full of surprises. I love being somewhat mysterious about what I can and can’t do and letting people make judgments on who and what I am so that I can tear those judgments down.

In October and again in February, I talked about the importance of getting to know people instead of making broad judgments based on limited interactions. This is my way of proving how necessary that is.

By this time next year, if I keep my current pace, I will have written 90 columns, and a lot of you will know me a bit better based on those columns. But there are parts of my personality that you’ll only know if you actually get to know me, face to face.

That’s the best part of building relationships. The written word can only tell so much.

Tom Pinney is a news reporter for the Maryville Daily Forum.