A Collection of Columns

By Rick T. Rae

Book contains columns and observations published in various newspapers managed by Rick Rae during the course of his half-century career in the business.

Book Review by Alice Queen of rockdalenewtoncitizen.com

Rick Rae loves his family and loves his cars.

That much is clear from a reading of his second book, “A Collection of Columns,” a series of personal and observational essays the native of Canada — whose newspaper management career spanned some 45 years — has curated from a life well lived.

“I’ve been writing columns here and there, mostly internet stuff, and a couple of folks noted that I’ve been writing them a long time and they’re right; I think I started back in 1974,” said Rae, 84, from his home in Loganville where he lives with Penny, his wife of 62 years. “Several people suggested I package the best of them and put them in book form. So I went ahead and did it.”

Many of the pieces in Rae’s new book detail his automotive obsession (he bought the first of his 75 cars when he was 14 years old) and a number of vacations taken by his family. But the former publisher of the Rockdale Citizen, Newton Citizen and Gwinnett Daily Post also delves into a host of other subjects, including some “inside baseball” insights on the newspaper industry, his thoughts on music, and other significant (and not-so-significant) life moments.

Published by Indiana-based AuthorHouse, “A Collection of Columns” is Rae’s follow-up to his 2011 memoir “Not Extinct Yet,” in which he details his many decades in newspapers. Rae said he worried that the subject matter of some of the columns might seem a bit antiquated, but he moved ahead with the project.

“Unfortunately, I’ve been at this so long that some of the columns are rather dated,” he said. “I love writing about personal experiences, and the more I can get down on paper, the better I’ll like it, although I’m getting kind of old, I guess, for personal experiences.”

Two chapters particularly amusing to Rae were written in recent years for a Canadian publication for which he once worked. One concerns teaming up with a co-worker who was a successful pool shark and the other involved meeting a young singer who became one of country music’s most beloved stars.

“I wrote two recollection columns for a former employer in Canada; they were about getting in a pool tournament and making more money than I had selling newspaper ads and also my meeting with Harold Jenkins, who would later change his name to Conway Twitty,” he said. “I love to do that kind of stuff — I’ve got a few of those in my background.”

The book’s final chapter was a column published in the Rockdale Citizen (which by then had a companion paper in Newton County) and the Gwinnett Daily Post on June 28, 2006, the day he retired.

When asked if he had plans for any more books, Rae said he’s got something on the back burner that he might want to release.

“One of my buddies in Canada who I grew up with is an author and makes a lot of money ghostwriting for Canadian politicians — it seems like everybody in Canada wants to have a book out,” he said. “He suggested that I combine my love of cars and my love of music and do some kind of book about cars and songs. I’ve been thinking that might be a way to go. It’s been in the back of my mind.”

One story that may well wind up in another book takes place during the time Rae managed a newspaper in the suburbs of Detroit and saw an up-and-coming performer that left an impression that remains today.

“I’ve never written about my times with Bob Seger when I worked in Pontiac, Mich.,” he said. “When I worked there, every Friday we’d go across the road to a bowling alley that had a lounge and the guy playing there was Bob Seger… We’d listen to him until they shut the bar down at 2 in the morning — the whole newspaper used to come over and hear him perform.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665573122

Rick T. Rae

A Collection of Columns is Rick Rae’s second book. His first book, titled Not Extinct Yet covered his 44 years managing newspapers in Canada and the United States. Now, ten years later he offers a Collection of Columns, he wrote that were published in those newspapers. Born in Canada, Rick managed operations for newspapers in twelve locations before settling in the Atlanta area where he published seven newspapers before retiring in 2006. After that, he and his wife bought a company producing colored comic sections for Sunday newspapers in the southern USA before he retired for a second time in 2018. Rick and his wife, Penny now enjoy their permanent retirement in Loganville, Georgia.

Book preview

© 2022 Rick T. Rae. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  02/03/2023

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7311-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7312-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022918776

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Photographs and images contained herein are the property of Rae Media Services Inc.

This book is Dedicated to the current and former employees of the following newspapers. Some of these publications no longer exist, Reflecting the decline of the business that I toiled in for over nearly half a century. Those that remain are just shadows of their former selves as reflected in these words from Bob Dylan’s Masters of War….

And I hope you die, and your death will come soon

I’ll follow your casket in the pale afternoon

And I will watch as you lay in your deathbed

And I’ll stay over your tomb till I’m sure that you’re dead

Dylan – Masters of War

The Hamilton (Ont) Spectator

The Winnipeg (Man) Tribune (deceased)

The Windsor (Ont) Star

The Oakland (MI) Press

The Hamilton (OH) Journal News (deceased)

The Sevierville (TN) Mountain Press

The Light Newspapers, LaJolla, (CA)

Southern Farm Publications Raleigh, (NC)

The Martinsburg (WV) Morning Journal

The Irwin (PA) Standard Observer (deceased)

The Rockdale (GA) Citizen

The Newton GA) Citizen

The Gwinnett (GA) Daily Post

By Rick T. Rae

Cover design by Kit Rae

CONTENTS

Foreword

Chapter 1 My Model A

Discovery in a farmer’s field

Chapter 2 More on cars I’ve owned

A follow up on the model A

Chapter 3 Duel on the road

The Mayfair bites the dust

Chapter 4 Wide trackin’... almost

Chapter 5 The First Brand New car

Chapter 6 My first Real Sports Car

The Austin Healey Sprite

Chapter 7 Family matters lead to Change in transportation

The Pathfinder and Polara

Chapter 8 Search for the perfect family car

The Anglia and Cortina

Chapter 9 Larger Engines needed

A Galaxie XL and Hillman Minx

Chapter 10 Road Trip to the USA

The Ukrainian Easter Egg

Chapter 11 Joe Hynd and the Golden Cue

Special to The Spectator’s Memory series By Rick Rae

Chapter 12 Conway Twitty Stole My Girl

It’s only Make Believe comes to Life

Chapter 13 Great Lakes Motorcycle Trip

Lake Superior Trip July 1974

Chapter 14 The Camaro Z-28 Project

Chapter 15 My Mercury

Discovering the House of Blue Lights

Chapter 16 Sailing hard on the ego

Chapter 17 California Bound

A Dodge Challenger in car Heaven

Chapter 18 Who Is In Charge Here?

A new horse owner learns patience

Chapter 19 Old dog learns new tricks

Never too old to learn

Chapter 20 Helping to fight Sevier County Unemployment

The benefits of moonshine

Chapter 21 My Mustang GT’s

Turning a Mustang into a Cobra

Chapter 22 River Rafting where Deliverance left off.

Challenging the Chatooga

Chapter 23 Eventful journey to Georgia

First column from a new publisher

Chapter 24 The Mitsubishi Project

Hopping up a V-6

Chapter 25 The Oldsmobile Project

Restoring a classic

Chapter 26 Car Songs

Loving the music about cars

Chapter 27 Not Every Story Is Worth the Cost

Facing a dilemma in West Virginia

Chapter 28 Newspapers can be fair and ‘take a stand’ at same time

Chapter 29 Does anybody really care?

Chapter 30 Is Media Part of the Problem

The trauma of another school shooting

Chapter 31 Growth In Rockdale County

Planning for the Olympics

Chapter 32 New Growth Warrants new publisher

Chapter 33 Masters Memories

Buddy Pack….larger than life

Chapter 34 The Thunderbird Project

The retro classic returns

Chapter 35 Just a little different

Chapter 36 What’s news?

Chapter 37 Don’t put a label on us

Chapter 38 A New Perspective

Surviving RMSF

Chapter 39 No room for marginal work

Chapter 40 Time to face realities

Chapter 41 News, editorials, columns and opinions: differences

Chapter 42 Press: More than a name

Chapter 43 Momentous Days ahead

Reflections of the past and a look to the future

About the Author

Keep reading for a review of Rick Rae’s earlier book

FOREWORD

My first book was published in August, 2012. It covered the highlights of my publishing career from 1966 through 2010, 44 years of managing newspaper operations.

After retiring from newspapers in 2006, my wife and I bought a company that produced color comic sections for Sunday newspapers in the southeastern USA, called Continental Features.

We ran that company as a division of Rae Media Services, a corporation we formed to oversee some consulting business as well as the comics operation. As things developed, I continued to write and contributed columns to some of my newspaper clients that were published from time to time. Readers of my stuff would often comment that I ought to package these columns and publish them together in book form.

At the end of 2018, we shut down our corporation after I suffered a stroke and could not continue, but the urge to write continued on and electronic communications enabled me to contribute my musings to a much smaller audience as traditional newspaper distribution continued to decline.

Friends and former colleagues suggested I package my columns together in book form, so I sat down at age 83 to produce this book. It will never be a best seller but I hope you enjoy it.

Respectfully,

Rick T. Rae

Loganville, Georgia

September, 2022

I came to Georgia in 1996 and a few years later began to write a series of columns in the Rockdale Citizen and Gwinnett Daily Post about various cars I had owned. Here is the first of these from March 2003.

58148.png

CHAPTER ONE

MY MODEL A

DISCOVERY IN A FARMER’S FIELD

Last month, I acquired a new car, bringing the total number of cars I have owned in my lifetime to 56. If that seems excessive, you have to understand that I love automobiles.

For a time, I collected the real thing, When my stable got up to five I quickly realized I did not have the funds to continue enjoying such a hobby. Collectible cars can be good investments, but people usually lose more than they gain on such ventures. An older car is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it at a specific time, and it seems I always found the wrong time to buy and the wrong time to sell.

As visitors to my office in Conyers, Georgia understand, my love of cars is on display along one wall. Glass shelves contain about 60 model cars that I have scratch-built or fashioned from kits over the years. This is much less satisfying than owning the real thing, but it protects my marriage, as my wife doesn’t share my enthusiasm for cars.

My latest ride is a 2003 Mitsubishi Spyder, replacing the Mustang Cobra convertible I had been driving. While not quite as quick as the Cobra, it is a treat to drive, and we’ll work on waking the engine up a bit with some planned modifications.

My first car was a 1931 Ford Model A that I rescued from a field in southern Ontario during summer vacation after my first year of high school. My summer job was working in a Texaco service station, so that gave me a place to bring it back to life.

The rusted floorboards were replaced with a sheet of plywood that I cut to fit, and some old draperies that my mother wanted to throw out replaced the headliner that had rotted away while it sat in the field. The motor eventually seized, and I got my first taste of rebuilding an engine on that venerable four-cylinder Ford. I ran into a few problems, but the guy I worked for helped me out from time to time and thanks to Albert, my Buddy Ray’s father, assistance. By the time school began, I had my own mode of transportation up and running again.

One day I decided to add fog lamps to the car and was drilling a hole in the dashboard to mount the switch when my service station boss pulled the plug on the drill. "What the h--- do you think you’re doing!" he yelled.

What I hadn’t considered was that on a Model A the gas tank is up front under the cowl, and the dash is a thin sheet of metal running in front of the tank. A hot drill spinning into a full tank of gas could have made for an interesting time had my boss not intervened.

The fall semester saw me running my Model A in red lead primer as I spent the evenings leading in rust spots and wet sanding in preparation for painting. Henry Ford once said, The Model A can be delivered in any color you want as long as it is black. I didn’t want black, so just before Christmas I spent the weekend applying several coats of refrigerator white to my old Ford.

As spring came, my ice box white Model A was the talk of the school and seemed to attract members of the opposite sex. Nowadays, I guess that would be called a chick magnet.

With a top speed of 52 mph, I wasn’t in much danger of getting caught speeding, and I put several thousand miles on it before it was time to move on to faster, more comfortable transportation.

Rick Rae is publisher of the Citizen and president of Post-Citizen Media Inc.

58148.png

CHAPTER TWO

MORE ON CARS I’VE OWNED

A FOLLOW UP ON THE MODEL A

by Rick Rae

1.jpg

In a previous column I talked about my first car that was a 1931 Ford Model A. I appreciate the comments from readers who took the time to e-mail and write me citing similar bouts of nostalgia about their early Fords. One more comment on the Model A before I move on.

Henry Ford was very slow to make changes on his automobiles, Both General Motors and Chrysler had changed from mechanical to hydraulic brakes in the early ‘30’s but Henry stuck with mechanical brakes until two or three years after the other manufacturers.