WOODWORKING

When I finally ‘arrived’

Literary lore is full of stories about how poverty-stricken free-lance writers are on London's Grub Street and New York's Tin Pan Alley. One of my favorites comes from an acquaintance, Calvin Trillin, a New Yorker staffer who several years ago began writing a regular freelance piece for The Nation Magazine, not known for its generosity to freelancers. When his charming wife asked him how much he was being paid, Trillin replied, “$25.” “My God, that's just not enough,” she shot back. “It was then,” recalled Trillin, ”that I vowed I would somehow achieve an increase in the pitiful rate.” What did he do? He wrote limericks, the first about the possibility of German reunification. This is it: There is a fate That might befall us, Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles. “How much now?” asked spouse. “Twenty-five.” “Not enough.” “My dear,” replied Trillin. “Don't you realize that amounts to SIX DOLLARS AND TWENTY-FIVE CENTS per line!? That's more than John Milton got for Paradise Lost.”

It's sad but true that freelancers are in most cases a starving lot. I taught a course in freelance writing at Augsburg and lost half my students when I mentioned that a recent survey found that the top thousand writers surveyed made an average of $500 per year, and that’s the average where some of the bigshots earned $50,000.

It was a day like any other day when I broke the barrier. Columnist Robert T. Smith and I entered Chessen's Deli in the Wheat Exchange near the Star Tribune. We were greeted by the amiable owner Ronnie Chessen. “What'll it be fellas?” I reported Bob's answer to my editor at Grit, where I was freelancing a weekly column. Not long after, I received a call from a Reader's Digest agent responsible for items like “Humor in these United States.” He wanted to know if the scenario had actually happened, and if it did, could he publish it the Reader's Digest. You bet he could, said I. Months later I ran into Chessen, and he told me Reader’s Digest had called and wondered if the scenario had actually happened. Ron also told me the Digest wanted the name of another customer who was also there. That turned out to be a Star Tribune printer. And when the scenario was published in Reader’s Digest, I got a call from my father, an avid Digest fan (he liked things short and sweet.), who told me I had finally “arrived.”

And then I received a check for $500. I'd heard that the Digest was having financial trouble and now I knew why. That didn't stop me from cashing the check. And from saving the only copy I have ever read of the Reader' Digest. Here’s what got me the biggest check I ever got for a freelance article: AT YOUR SERVICE

When a group of us entered a delicatessen that I frequent in Minneapolis, the owner approached to take our order. A friend of mine, in a playful mood, ordered the following: “Ron, I want 140 knockwursts on pumpernickel buns, 100 with the works and the rest with just hot mustard. Then give me 27 pints of coleslaw, about 40 of baked beans. And could you toss in about six dozen kosher dills and 17 pieces of cheesecake and hold the cherries on seven of them?”

Ron looked at my friend cupped his hand to his mouth turned toward the kitchen and hollered: “Number 3!”

Page 21, Reader's Digest, September 1992 That's ten lines at $50 per line. Way better than John Milton.

BY DAVE WOOD