At that point I knew, I had to write a column

One of the downfalls of being an editor of a small weekly paper is, one day, he or she eventually has to write a column.

I thought I would have enough content to skirt by this week, but no, after seeing a large, empty space on the opinion page Tuesday morning, I knew I had to write a column. My dread for column writing comes from not being very opinionated and the opinions I have regarding local, state, national and international governance are insane. When it comes to working at a small weekly, that column writing anxiety is doubled because someone is going to read things into my column I didn’t intend to write.

Take, for example, Chief Barry Roberts’ column a few weeks ago asking residents not to dress as scary clowns for Halloween. Before long, someone went on social media and wrote Olney had banned citizens from wearing scary clown costumes. I was surprised when I heard more than a few residents bring it up in person and through my email. The Chief never requested a clown costume ban, he just asked people not to dress like clowns out of safety.

 Lucky for me, that same week I wrote my column on the Olney High School football team needing a Napoleon figure to fire up the community. Waking up Thursday morning, a thick sense of doom washed over me as I came to realize the ramifications of what I wrote.

Will Mark Young think I was asking for him to be fired? Did I just call out the entire community for not showing up to games? What are people going to say when I show up to the game?

Pulling into the Chico High School parking lot last Friday was a bit nerve racking, but when I looked into the stands, I saw more Olney fans than Chico fans and the Cubs played one of their best games all season. People were reading that week and it was reassuring to know something I wrote lead to people seeing the Cubs’ best game of 2016.