Two Women Named Barbara: Part One

I owe a lot to two women named Barbara.

First there was Barbara Clarkson, a published poet who taught creative writing at my alma mater.

Her creative writing course was open only to juniors and seniors, but I used to see her around the campus before I ever took it. On the surface she seemed friendly and pleasantly eccentric.

When I finally got into her class — I think I was a senior — I found out she was indeed friendly and pleasantly eccentric. But when she handed my stories back I learned that she was also a friendly, pleasantly eccentric and damned hard-nosed editor. If she saw a word that she thought didn’t belong, or was redundant, she’d circle it.

She circled a lot of my words — so many that as I think of it now, I’m surprised I ever became an editor. I’m sure that she herself would have been a godsend to the copy desk at the paper where I eventually worked.

But she did like my work. When the college’s annual literary magazine came out, she saw to it that the issue began with one of my stories.

As my graduation approached, Ms. Clarkson wanted me to get the college’s commencement award for writing,

The head of the English department wanted somebody else to get it. The college had recently added a minor in communications, and the department head, apparently in an attempt to promote this new focus, wanted the award to go to the editor of the college paper.

I could see the department head’s point. I knew the editor. I had even worked for him on the paper; he was a good guy, and he had led the paper during a time of controversy on the campus, and the stories he wrote about the controversy were about as professional as you could get at a school that didn’t have a journalism department. Not surprisingly, he is now the president of a corporate communications company.

But Ms. Clarkson pushed for me, to the point where the department named two recipients: the editor and me. As much as I still appreciate this, I remember Ms. Clarkson more as the person who let me know, without ever explicitly saying it, that I was indeed a writer, that the career choice I had made in the late 1960s was not a stupid one.

I wish I could say I kept in touch with her through the years, but several months after my graduation I began a 30-year stint at the local paper, and that, among other things, kept me busy.

One New Year’s Day, she died. She hadn’t been sick; the way I heard it, she was here one moment, gone the next. Someone else who knew her told me it was the perfect way for her to go.

Before she died, I did have one more, quite unexpected encounter with her.

A colleague of mine had become an adjunct instructor at the college. One night at the paper, when he wasn’t there, the phone rang.

“Is Dan Valenti there?” I knew the voice immediately.

I explained that Dan wasn’t there, then hesitantly asked her if she was Ms. Clarkson.

“Yes! Who’s this?”

Filled with pride at being a successful (so far) alumnus, I told her.

“Mark! What are YOU doing there?”

I still laugh at this, while remembering how I sometimes asked myself various versions of the same question over those 30 years.

Next time: The Second Barbara.