The Grumpy Bachelor
Cleans His Desk

This week we leave the bachelor pad behind and, instead, take a long hard look at the bachelor copy editor's desk, located smack-dab in the middle of the newsroom at the Mount Vernon News. When I say a long hard look; I mean that it's hard to look at it for too long. You can't miss it, it's the one that looks like a paper recycling pile wearing a hat.

But looks are deceiving, at least in this case. Underneath that pile of old newspapers, Styrofoam coffee cups, half- full cans of tepid Coke and/or Pepsi and old faxes from the Humane Society, lies the heart of the newspaper. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

It's like an archive. Want to know what your club, organization, grange or church was doing at this time a year ago? Well, you've come to the right place. It's here somewhere. Let's reach into the pile and see what we get. Here's a story about the Spanish-American War with an attached picture of Teddy Roosevelt charging up San Juan Hill. I know I haven't been here that long. I guess this used to be Virgil's desk. Let's see what else we can find. Here's a month's worth of horoscopes and a week's worth of bridge columns, fair results from 1984 and an extremely short article about Bill Clinton's moral leadership.

Since all my desk drawers are full, I am considering two other courses of action to deal with this mess. One is to let the Sociology and Anthropology department at Kenyon come in and have at it. The other is to apply for funding to conduct an archeological dig myself. Whatever I decide to do, I should do it soon. I've noticed that objects such as pens, paper clips and small children will go into orbit around the pile if they get too close.

Then there is the computer. This is near the top of the pile because computers are a relatively recent development in the long history of human invention. This is what the government would lead us to believe, anyway. I am not so sure about computers being of human origin. Not the ones in the newsroom anyway. I know that mine has a nasty habit of adding commas, where, none, belong, and of mis-ppelling words, even though they were typed in correctly. And it's a personal thing with me. It happens more often with stories and columns I write than with, say, Associated Press stories.

We all know that there are a lot of things the government isn't telling us. The REAL story behind computers is just one of them.

There has been some not very subtle pressure from my co-workers to clean it up, in the form of the "Sanford and Son Salvage" sign that appeared on my desk one morning. They should be grateful. If I had kept my desk clean somebody else would have had to write this column.

George Breithaupt works for the Mount Vernon News. We are not proud of that, but since he has already told everybody, we really can't deny it. If only he'd change his name ...