Prior to being a campground owner, I worked for nearly 30 years in the newspaper industry, starting as a reporter on a couple of Long Island community weeklies that paid 10 cents a column-inch—an unfortunate practice that discouraged concise writing. From there I worked my way up the journalistic food chain, parts of which no longer exist, or barely so: The Myrtle Beach Sun-News, The Phoenix Gazette, the New Times in Phoenix, The Roanoke Times & World News, The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s. I then segued into another dying institution, organized labor, by becoming editor of The Guild Reporter, former official publication of The Newspaper Guild and now just a memory.
Although at my journalistic peak I specialized in long-form journalism, writing stories and investigative pieces that sometimes exceeded five thousand words, Renting Dirt is my first attempt at writing a book. It’s a modest effort, I know, but its natural audience is modestly sized as well. I may get more ambitious once this package has been put to bed and I can stop obsessing about it, perhaps by looking at the demise of print journalism. Or perhaps by turning to fiction writing.
Meanwhile, after selling our campground in May, my wife, Carin, and I bought a house in nearby Staunton, VA so we could be close to our grandsons--and because it's a helluva nice town.
