Your End of the Boat is Sinking

YOUR END OF THE BOAT IS SINKINGYour End of the Boat is SinkingbyBarbara Bayleyauthor of "I Could Always be a Waitress"Back in the early 1970s I wrote a few articles and sent them to our local newspaper, the Melbourne Times. I was in the right place at the right time: Weona Cleveland, one of their columnists and community historian, needed surgery and I was hired as a temporary replacement for her.I loved being allowed to write whatever I wanted on any subject, and my subjects were my family (not always willing) and the community (like the lady who didn't like the car she had bought, so drove to the office in her vehicle that she had covered in yellow plastic lemons). My job lasted only a couple of weeks, but by then I had printer's ink in my veins and six months later, after much more freelance writing sent to editor Lucille Kahn (Me:"How is my writing?" Lucille: "You have a knack for writing about anything and everything." Me: "But do you have any criticism?" Lucille: "Well, you do tend to scatter commas like confetti.") I was given a column of my own.I titled it "Your End of the Boat is Sinking", because I loved John Donne's quote that "no man is an island unto himself" --so I hope for you that my book represents this idea: that if we float or sink, we cannot take the credit alone.All the stories and anecdotes are true.Especially the dreams.Barbara Bayley2013