Sometimes we just don’t know God’s plans for our lives but we still feel like we are
being prepared for something bigger. I have often wondered during my arduous two-
month tenure as the regular Thursday columnist for the Chapel Hill Herald — a job for
which there is little thanks and even less pay, why? Why me, Lord?
But, then, just the other day I opened a local daily newspaper (one printed by a
competitor so which shall remain nameless but is published in our state capital and has
a name that rhymes with “Noise and Disturber”), and right there before me was an
article about a position in state government which appears to be coming open, which
my columnist position has perfectly prepared me for: State House Historian.
First, let me give you a little history, very little history, of the State House Historian.
Before May 2005 the position did not exist. But after Ann Lassiter came under scrutiny
as the House page coordinator (having sent teenage pages to stay with her son, a felon
with a history of drug and alcohol abuse), the kind and generous Mr. James B. Black
(D-Mecklenburg), then Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, in
coordination with former Representative William T. Culpepper (D-Chowan), helped
create the much-needed position.
It is a position about which Lassiter is quoted as saying, “If you are offered a job
making $50,000 a year that happens to have had limited responsibilities, is it your fault
for accepting it?” Then asking, “How many of your readers would have done the
same?” I don’t know about Paxton Media newspaper readers in general but for mine
(both Ben and Hank), the answer is certainly, all.
But Ms. Lassiter wrote 23 pages in 20 months — I don’t know if I can do that. However,
with $80,000 in pay and a padded state retirement at stake, I could try.
As Mark Twain supposedly wrote as a postscript to a long and discursive letter to a
friend, “I’m terribly sorry to have written such a long letter. I didn’t have time to write a
short one.” It will be, without a doubt, harder to write drivel concisely than it is just to
spew it out. So, it will doubtless be a burden on me to write about half as much as I do
now, but with four times the time I think I will be up to the task. But, based on the
writing samples left to me by the previous holder of the office, I will have to scale back
my vocabulary somewhat.
This is where some of my other previous work experience will serve me well. Over the
past couple of years, on occasion, I have served as a substitute teacher at the Trinity
School of Durham and Chapel Hill. My longest stretch being three days with the fifth-
grade “Green Class,” I believe it was called. The State Historian, based on the
exemplary history left for me to follow, should write approximately on a fifth-grade
level. (So as not to denigrate the boys and girls of Trinity School, I will say that
apparently the state historian’s spelling and grammar does not need to be as good as
theirs.)
Further, as her report opens with a lyric from the Who’s 35-year-old hit “Won’t Get
Fooled Again,” my extensive knowledge of late 60’s and early 70’s rock lyrics I am sure
will serve me and the people of the state of North Carolina well.
Since the illustrious Jim Black has been relieved of his duties as Speaker, what is not
clear to me is whom I need to be cozying up to. Joe Hackney, the new Speaker, may
seem like the obvious choice, but I’m not at all certain that he has the vision and
creativity to see what a boon a new House Historian could be to this state, or to
recognize that even though I have a college degree and even though I wasn’t run out of
my last state job, I am still preeminently qualified for it.
In any case I will end my report now as Ms. Lassiter began hers, “Power is a wonderful
thing when used to make life better for the majority” — or, at the very least, I might add,
for the majority leaders’ cronies.
Gary D. Gaddy is an art historian, once having taken one art history course at the
Institute of European Studies in Vienna, where his Austrian suitemate, Siegfried Horina,
had memorized the lyrics of all of Leonard Cohen’s then-extant songs. It was an
existentially depressing semester, and very European.
A slightly neutered version of this column first appeared in the Chapel Hill Herald,
Thursday February 1, 2007. Copyright 2007 Gary D. Gaddy
garygaddy.com 