Street Talk

Street Talk, the weekly column, got off the ground in 2002 and it was an immediate quandary. I was asked to write about downtown life, which is easy enough. But when I sat down to write my first piece, I thought: do I write windy, solemn stories and try to nudge deep thoughts from the readers? Or should I write about the occurrences that happen to be -- for good or bad -- funny as hell?

It turned out I had the freedom to do both. And it's a good thing, my friends. Lewiston, Maine is one wild, unpredictable place. We can probably boast "The World's Dumbest Criminals," "The Highest Blood-Alcohol Level at 9 in the Morning," and maybe "Most Daily Nakedness Per Capita."

I unleashed Street Talk on the readership with a narrative about a woman standing on a roof and threatening to jump. The roof was only a few feet from the ground and the woman came down peacefully in due time. I wrote about it, anyway.

Shortly after, I wrote about a woman walking through Kennedy Park in single-digit temperatures. Readers asked me later why I didn't give the shivering woman the hot sandwich I was carrying. I don't remember exactly how it all went down. But I remember it was a hot ham and cheese from Speakers. With mustard.

It went rapidly downhill from there. Somewhere near late February, I descended into the unstable depths of goofiness. I wrote a lengthy column about the corner of Bartlett and Walnut streets and how nothing was happening there. We're talking nothing here, people. I was cold and my feet were wet and I wrote about it. I believe the editors must have missed that column. Otherwise, they would have assigned me a story about a cute dog.

Rallying from this apparent low, I shifted gears toward the serious. A story about a dead source and the fall of a detox center seemed to set a new mood. I was writing a column with substance. There was a piece in there about the perilous world of cab driving and a troubled young girl with anger radiating from her like heat. A tone was set.

Sadly, in my world goofiness acts as a sort of gravity. These somber writings were followed by a lot of babble about naked people, my ugly column photo, people trying to run in oversized pants and demented ice cream trucks.

People noticed the ice cream truck column, mostly because I referred to it as the "ding-ding." I thought everyone referred to the ice cream truck as the "ding-ding." But, no. People left taunting messages on my phone. Others sneaked up behind me and made "ding-ding" noises and caused me to screech like a schoolgirl. One nice lady sent me a tiny ice cream truck that rolls and dings if you wind it up. I don't wind it up, because ice cream trucks are evil. Even little ones.

I wrote about my tendency to talk like a police radio, my disdain for weather stories and a crazy attempt to escape the cop beat with a trip to Baltimore. This on the heels of thoughts from prisoners, words from a prostitute and the latest on the heroin craze.

Somehow, purely by accident, I let it slip that editors occasionally annoy me. A good dozen times, I let it slip. I admitted that I sleep until noon and suddenly people are making alarm clock noises at 3 p.m. Funny people are everywhere.

Crazy business, column writing. They called it Street Talk and I began writing about UFOs, haunted e-mails, bad dreams and Halloween. It would sound lofty to say I refuse to be pigeon-holed. But the fact is, I have a short attention span.

At first glance, I see at least a half-dozen columns that never saw print. Some, the editors had issues with. Others didn't make sense in the light of morning. One appears to be a really long grocery list that somehow got mixed up in the column folder. If you see a thoughtful piece about Vienna sausages and sunflower seeds some Friday, you'll know I was truly desperate.

As for the photo that runs with the columns each week, I apologize. My attempts to have it removed were unsuccessful. Layout editors say it is in keeping with the style of the page or some gibberish like that. Then they go into their offices and giggle for hours. I just know they do. Funny people are everywhere.