Standing in for Gulliver

Remember the Texas Department of Tourism slogan? “Texas: It’s like a whole other country.”

If that’s true, then I’ve recently returned home from about four years of working in foreign lands.

To be honest, I never intended to find myself in places like Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. Although I was born and raised in eastern Tennessee and attended college in Memphis, the state of Texas has been (and felt more like) my home for the greater part of the last two decades, for a number of reasons.

But after leaving Van Zandt Newspapers in 2001, and having short stays with a couple of small dailies in the state, I went eastward again and landed in central Arkansas.

I had passed through the state numerous times but never set up residence in it. Once I did begin the next chapter of my career in Searcy (about 45 minutes north of Little Rock), I found an experience that was both good and bad – good outside the office, bad inside it.

I persevered through a rather negative work atmosphere to enjoy a couple of years of nice, appreciative people (not unlike Van Zandt County), beautiful scenery, and some fun assignments.

In retrospect, I probably should have counted the blessings I had there and not counted my yearly earnings. It was the latter, though, that tempted me to set sail again, moving on the lure of a higher paying position with a larger daily in Mississippi.

Going further east, though, was when everything started going south.

I never had an employment problem in my life until I moved to Mississippi, but I suppose the rules of work ethics and effort that hold fast in other states do not apply there. Then again, I now have a fuller understanding of why that state ranks last or damn near it in just about every socioeconomic category in the United States.

Maybe I just didn’t fit in there, though I certainly tried to be a good team player at two different publications. Maybe the people in charge of me felt that way, too, and that was their reason for unceremoniously sending me off to the sea of job searching twice in six months.

Weary and growing ever frustrated (not to mention seeing my bank account dwindling), I turned my steady boat of journalistic talent and experience toward Memphis. Surely this, my second home, the place of my collegiate alma mater and parents’ last years, would offer me the shelter of a fair wage in a stable position and an appreciative, sensible publisher.

About five months later, I realized the print journalism seas had sent me on yet another wrong turn. That was when I decided to make a phone call and put a six-year voyage out of its misery before I wound up doing the same to myself.

On an employment journey that took me to six different cities in four different states, I saw a lot of things and learned quite a bit about myself, the newspaper industry and people in general. There was much I will always remember fondly and much I would just as soon forget.

The one thing I found most in the newsrooms? A lot of people I don’t want to become in 15 to 20 years.

The good people I worked with in those places will know whom I’m talking about, and I’ll leave it at that.

Sometimes, the only way to know where home lies is to be gone awhile. Fortunately, an opportunity to come back to Van Zandt Newspapers, and Texas, opened just when I needed it most. If it were the closing passage in a modern retelling of a certain literary character’s travels, it might read something like this:

“And so, disenchanted with recent unfair twists of economic fate, and beleaguered from daily worries with Lilliputians, Brobdingnags, pompous editors and computer crashes five minutes before deadline, the young writer crossed the great river and set sail westward again, guided by the great Lone Star. He yearned to be back in the great land he once knew, where people were friendly, cattle grazed as far as the eye could see, and where high school football really meant something. It was not a perfect place, but he now knew beyond any doubt it was home, and that made it a far greater place than any amongst his many voyages.”

Well, it sure as hell beats sitting at a desk in Tupelo.

Terry Britt is an avid reader of classic literature and reluctant southern newspaper explorer. You can reach him at terrybritt@hotmail.com.