Mike Moser "I Say" Published Feb. 22, 2002

To know Martha is to love her

One of the joys of being editor of a community newspaper is the neat people who cross your path during the course of a day. And one of my favorite people is a dear Homesteader by the name of Martha Elliott. To really know Martha is to love her.

And right now I am chuckling to myself because I can hear her scoff at that thought.

Martha doesn't visit me quite as much as she used to, but she still manages to come by a couple of times a year, just to make sure I am kept in line and humble. Her visit yesterday is what sparked this column.

No one, with the exception of her poor husband, Howard, has borne the brunt of Martha as much as I have over the years, and the first time I was on the receiving end of one of her abrupt telephone calls, I wondered to myself, "Who in the hell was that?"

My next contact was in person and in short order, I found out who Martha Elliott of the Homesteads was. From then on I knew what a formidable foe Miss Martha could be, when she set her mind to something.

I cannot remember now if it was a Greenbelt issue, or lost mineral rights in the Homesteads, that first brought us together.

In both cases she wanted to know why we had not reported the issue she was concerned with and wasn't satisfied when I told her I did not know anything about it.

"Well, Mr. Moseley, isn't it your job to know?" she would ask. Well, yes, it is my job to know but no one had told me about either one affecting folks in the Homesteads. "Isn't that what a GOOD newspaper is supposed to do? Stand up for the little guy?"

Well, yes, Miss Martha ... and so it went.

I have to admit that sometimes her inquiries felt more like a new shirt with the pins left in it than a nice satin one. Yet, her pricks at my conscious kept me on my toes.

I still laugh at the time years ago when she called upon receiving her paper and said, "Mr. Moses, if you run that old (politician's name deleted)'s picture in the paper one more time, I am gonna cancel my subscription.

I am sick of seeing it and I think other people are too." Click.

Carol, Mary and Vickie who work in the front office love seeing Martha come in to renew her subscription, as she did yesterday, because they know I am gonna catch it. And if I haven't done anything lately to displease her, Martha will simply ask me if I have done any work lately. Or why don't we put some news in that old newspaper of ours.

I really laughed yesterday because it was the first time some in the newsroom were exposed to Martha. She stood at my door chastising me for breathing someone else's good air and anything else she could think of.

I asked her what she thought about the AARP sending me a membership application and she looked me square in the eye and said, "What's wrong with that? Howard and I are members."

What the staff saw was me being treed by a little old lady. What I saw was the twinkle in her eye as she gave me the devil, then as an aside kinda whispered out of everyone else's hearing, "No, I think you folks have a pretty good paper."

If I know Martha like I think I do, she won't like this column. She would rather me take some politician to task.

However, I see it as about time that I got one up on my sweetheart from the Homesteads. With apologies to Howard, happy late Valentine's Day, Martha.

Now, someone help me pile sandbags in front of the door ... and no one answer the phone for a few days.

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Mike Moser is the editor of the Crossville Chronicle. His column is published periodically on Fridays.