The "Hey, That's My Idea!!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Took the orange plastic sleeve off the morning newspaper and all of a sudden the article in the bottom left corner caught my eye.  Not really a story, but a blurb telling of a new column that will debut the following day.  It will be written by a rotating team of LNP (Lancaster Newspaper) staffers.  Then it hit me.  

The front page of the Lancaster Newspaper!

The name of the new column is …. THIS LIFE /Ordinary People, Extra- ordinary Stories.  Whoa, now wait a minute!  Where did they get that idea and title.  You know that if you Google "Extraordinary Stories From An Ordinary Guy" what you'll get?  Try it!  So you see why I'm … upset, anxious, unsure, etc.  I started my blog over six years ago this past September.  My first story titled "The White Rat" I posted on Wednesday, September 2, 2009.  Since then I have posted 2,320 stories.  Yeah, not all of them are extraordinary stories, but at the time they occurred they seemed extraordinary to me.  And, some stories aren't anymore than photos that I thought  I should share with my readers.  Wasn't until a few years ago that I began a "counter" on the blog to see if anyone besides me was reading the stories.  Well, as it turns out, there have been over 308,000 hits as of this story.  Readers from all over the world have been tuning in, sometimes daily, to read the stories about my life and the lives of those whom I know or have known at one point during my life.  Extraordinary people, many of them, with an extraordinary story to tell.  This morning I read the first edition of THIS LIFE /Ordinary People, Extraordinary Stories.  I loved it!  Story about a teacher in the Lancaster School District who doesn't use textbooks in his history classes.  He uses a variety of methods to help his students understand history and how it influences just about everything we do in our own lives.  I loved the story, especially since I was a teacher and realize how hard it is to keep the interest of all the students in your class.  His class is wildly popular and fills quickly.  I only wish I could have had him for history when I was going to school.  Perhaps I may have enjoyed it more than I did.  Since I have been writing my blog I have learned more history in the past six years than I did during the entire time I was a student in school.  The writer of this first edition of the new weekly column is Ad Crable.  The photos taken for the story are from a good friend of mine, Dan Marschka who has spoken to my photography classes on many occasions.  Gonna have to drop Ad a line and let him know his column title has already been taken.  Do I mind?  I guess I don't.  What would really make me feel better is if Mr. Crable would contact me and give me a chance to tell him my extraordinary story about writing my blog.  Certainly written by an ordinary guy …. right?  I wonder what will happen when you Google the newspaper's stories.  Probably get my blog.  One thing for sure … it's gonna make me try harder so I can keep up with the professional writers at the newspaper.  At least they are only posting once a week!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.