Sam, the teacher

It may seem a bit unusual for one columnist to be writing about another, but I am not the least bit uncomfortable as I gather a few words about Sam Blackwell, whose column occupies this space on Thursdays.

I have been a Sam Blackwell fan for exactly 14 years. I first read his column when Wally Lage, then publisher of the Southeast Missourian and now chief operating officer of Rust Communications, sent me a batch of newspapers after I applied for a job here. I was the editor of the Capital-Journal in Topeka, Kan., at the time, but I was familiar with Cape Girardeau. I grew up on a farm near Piedmont, Mo., and I remember my family's occasional visits to Cape Girardeau over the years, including listening to Eleanor Roosevelt speak at Houck Fieldhouse in the 1950s and taking my ACT exam in the 1960s at Southeast Missouri State University's Academic Hall.

Included in the copies of the Southeast Missourian I received from Wally was one of Sam's columns, the one dated March 3, 1994, with this headline: "Wild turkeys and thunderwomen." How could anyone forget that?

At the time, Sam and his wife were living in Garberville, Calif., a place I sense would have been comfortable and familiar to anyone who experienced the dramatic social adaptations of the 1960s. Sam's column was -- and still is -- called "Letters from Home," and each epistle captures a few moments of observation and reflection.

In his birthday greetings to that week's letter recipient, David, Sam wrote: "As we gallop toward the millennium and our 50th birthdays, the word that comes to mind is 'Whoa!'"

Here's a bit more of Sam's calm, lush writing style in that column: "I have been incarcerated by rain and a cold, made to drink healing concoctions steeped in ginger root and dried weeds, forced to stare along with Sally Jessy as a husband revealed to his wife on national TV that he'd cheated on her, lolling quietly abed while poor DC went to baby sit for a co-worker whose toddler screamed and beat his hands against the door most of the night, and a guilty-feeling no-show at a community benefit, complete with belly dancing and Middle Eastern food, for a dancer named Meadow who has cancer."

Get the picture?

In one 96-word sentence, Sam recreates a world that has the same effect on appreciative readers as what I imagine black holes do to light. We come back, week after week, pining for more of the same. And Sam obligingly delivers.

As regular readers of Sam's column learned yesterday, Sam will soon take on new responsibilities that will help student-journalists at Southeast understand this craft called newspapering. His professional experience and his gift for -- and love of -- writing will offer those students an educational gold mine, should they choose to become prospectors. Lucky students.

In the 14 years I've known Sam (he returned to Cape Girardeau shortly after I arrived), my job was to be his editor. In reality, all this time I have been Sam's pupil, learning from every column he writes about the art, not just the craft, of what we do. I compare "columns" and "good columns" this way: A keyboard musician who plays all the notes in a piece can be called a pianist, but a pianist who plays those notes with his heart is a gift from the music gods.

Sam's writing is truly a gift.

Fortunately, those columns will continue to be a fixture in the Southeast Missourian every Thursday. Thank goodness. Those of us who learn from his columns, as well as enjoy them, can continue our education.

I could have saved all of this until Sam croaked, but eulogies seem to me to be the very definition of "too late."

On behalf of Sam's many loyal readers and fans, let me add this:

Go, gentle Sam, teach. Let those willing minds soak up the wealth of professional knowledge you have to share. Those you leave behind here wish you well. Some of us will forever be your pupils.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.