Give the devil his do, dew, due

I like soup.

I always have. My favorites are thick and hearty cream soups like broccoli cheddar or cream of chicken and rice, not that I would ever turn down a nice cheese-topped bowl of French onion soup. You know, the kind of soups that on a winter day will warm you up and will keep you feeling warm and full as you brave whatever awaits you when you head out into the harsh, cold world outside.

My challenge, as has been pointed out to me by my ever-loving children, is that when I attempt to eat soup I more often than not end up wearing part of it. This is especially true if I am eating a soup with melty cheese in it which then stretches and strings out from the bowl to the spoon. These errant strands then end up in my beard.

I went out for lunch with my children and wife several months ago and they allowed me to go through the meal and it was not until I got home and happened to pass by a mirror that I realized there was a hunk of cheddar hanging off my beard.

When I asked my family members, who I dearly love and provide for, why they had not said anything to me, they responded they thought I knew it was there and thought that perhaps I was planning to save it until later. After all, how could I not know that I had something hanging off my face.

At this point, I had to explain to them that beard whiskers are not the same as a cat’s (or a catfish’s for that matter) whiskers and they do not give the wearer sensory feedback of what they come into contact with. This is especially true the bushier and more grown out the beard becomes. At the time this occurred it had been a while since I had trimmed so it was approaching the “row faster, I hear banjo music” level of bushiness.

As those of us who grow our beards out during the colder months of the year know, a primary reason to wear beards is to keep our faces from feeling things, particularly the cold icy wind. All this is to say, that absent someone telling us or passing by a mirror or shiny surface we could be walking around with Lord knows what stuck in our beards.

I was thinking about this on Monday when I got a call from a reader. It seems that a few weeks ago, I had typed the word “due” instead of “do” in the caption for the “Where in Taylor County” picture. She said the first time she saw it she just laughed, and laughed at the silliness of the mistake. It was when the mistake appeared again the following week that she thought she should point it out because, quite obviously, we were never going to see it.

The nature of being in print journalism, is that when you make a bone-headed typo that sneaks through proofreading, it gets printed, sent to thousands of homes and viewed by between 8,000 to 10,000 people, all of whom can have a good laugh at your expense. Eventually those issues will be included in the yearly bound volumes of the paper that will become part of the permanent historical record of the community, so that future generations can question if I should have ever graduated the third grade.

One of the jobs of community newspapers, such as The Star News, is to serve as a mirror on what is going on in the community. Sometimes this is flattering and good news, other times it can be less flattering.

I would have to be a raging hypocrite to not appreciate it when a reader calls to point out a typo or other error. I have never claimed infallibility, nor have I expected it of anyone else, the best we can do is correct the mistake and be on the lookout that we don’t make it again.

Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News.