When I first began writing for the Sullivan County Democrat, I was congratulated by many people who also happened to make suggestions about what I should report upon, everything from unsolved murders to the plight of local artists who need to sell their work. I’d nod and say, of course that should be covered. What I didn’t say was by anyone else, but me.

When the comment “I don’t understand understand [sic] this,” was posted in reference to my column, Here’s Johnny (Sept. 14th), I felt the remark was not about the story (a local six-year old’s desire to become famous), but rather a statement alluding to its lack of important news and perhaps a misunderstanding of the job of columnist.

Columnists are not reporters. Allow me to explain in my usual rambling sort of way:

You may have heard of Dorothy Kilgallen (1913-1965). At 17, she dropped out of college to begin a career as a reporter for the New York Evening Journal, a newspaper owned by the Hearst Corporation. At the bequest of the Evening Journal, she traveled around the world dressed to the nines in the first-ever blimp. On the way back she rode the Hindenburg, which blew up on its very next trip as it attempted to dock in Manchester, NJ. Maybe this is why upon her return, Kilgallen who usually reported on organized crime, politics and murder, invented the gossip column.

Kilgallen’s column, The Voice of Broadway, blabbed about the lives of celebrities; what they ate, wore and who they kissed other than their spouses. It also extended into opinions of performances and soon had the ability to make or break careers. (Watch out!). Her column even opened doors for Kilgallen, eventually leading to a spot as a panelist on the national television game show, What’s my Line? When Queen Elizabeth got married, Kilgallen rode in the motorcade directly behind the royal couple and afterwards received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

During the ‘60’s, Kilgallen momentarily stepped back into the role of reporter by interviewing Jack Ruby, the man who killed John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. After bragging about the interview and swearing to blow the whistle on an aspect of the assassination, Kilgallen got an invite to have drinks with a mystery man. The very next morning, she was found sitting up in bed, dressed in her Sunday best, but dead. Some investigators believe she was murdered with a spiked cocktail. That kind of thing can happen to a snoop, but hardly to a taleteller.

Taletellers a/k/a columnists, like myself and Carrie Bradshaw (a fictitious character from the TV show Sex and the City played by actor, Sarah Jessica Parker), stagger out of bed each morning to sit safely at their home computer where they pen whatever pops into their head. In Sex and the City, Bradshaw writes for the bogus New York Star and becomes iconic for her musings between men and women, particularly where it concerns dating and sexual escapades. Now you’re probably wondering, why isn’t Ramona writing about sex and the country? Wouldn’t that be a grand idea? Back to Bradshaw: Even though she was a fashionista, you can bet she wrote most of her columns at home in pajamas.

As a columnist at home in soft flannels, I whisk together arbitrary perceptions with a dash of my own slaphappy life, and then sprinkle it with something my fellow columnist, Hudson Cooper, calls ‘random thoughts,’ a delight to be noshed upon with or without facts.

Perhaps this is why I haven’t followed through with any earth shattering suggestions of what to write. If you do, however, have one, please feel free to email me or comment below and I’ll gladly refer you to a genuine reporter.