Five Dollars
By H.G. Miller
When I was twenty, I took a long walk up a big hill with the express purpose of gaining a position on the editorial staff of The University Daily Kansan. Armed with a clip book of my previous work from the junior college ranks, I managed to convince the upcoming year’s opinion editor to include me among her cache of guest columnists. As was the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications' policy at the time, I was to receive a full five-dollars and zero cents per published article in the school paper.
Some time has passed since that day – more than I’d like – and I have since learned that the walk was little more than routine, the hill might only be considered a bump in some parts of the world, and five dollars will not get you very much in this capitalistic society of ours. Nonetheless, every week I’d hand in some text about whatever happened to be on my mind any particular night, and I’d walk away with five dollars I didn’t have before.
I was getting paid to write.
Technically, this wasn’t the first time I’d been given money for my abilities in newsprint, but before my rewards had always come in the form of scholarships that included managing and editing and dealing with printers, along with my musings from time to time. The five bucks from the UDK each week was a direct link. One column… five dollars. Thank you, sir. See you next week.
It’s that kind of direct correlation between words and cash that helped motivate me out of Kansas and across the country to Los Angeles. Sure, I could be happy penning poetry and prose from a front porch on the prairie for the enjoyment of friends and family alike… but in LA, I could get the Bill Gates’ equivalent of five-hundred pennies for churning out the crap I’d spent so many sleepless college nights watching on the USA channel.
Westward, ho.
Of course, you have to do more than just show up in Los Angeles, and the city is a lot less impressed with my clip book than was the collegiate editor I encountered as a minor. There are a few more hills and a lot longer walks to take before you find whoever it is that has the key to that big paycheck.
The good news is that I’m still chugging down cans of Mountain Dew like I did in college (cracking open number five for the night right now) in order to keep my fingers clacking away into the dead of night. Sure, the results may not always be pretty (yes, this is a throwaway ‘about writing’ column) and there are a few more distractions these days (airplane, anyone?), but I’m proud to say I’m still plugging away.
I may not be getting paid for my efforts right now, but I do get the personal satisfaction of knowing my Mom, Dad and a few assorted friends are reading my words and enjoying what little wit I can still drum into the black and white type, and I don’t have to hack it out on a porch in Kansas… though that does sometimes sound nice (that’s just me getting older, though – pay that last sentiment no mind).
Of course, it is a down economy, and the old wallet’s not as fat as it was when the credit card companies weren’t calling yet. So, I guess five dollars wouldn’t be so bad every once in a while. I wonder if I can get back into grad school.