The Week That Was

When we were living in England in the '70's, there was a popular TV program that later was taken up in the States and became popular here, too. It was called TW3, with the 3 written small, to indicate the TW to the third. It stood for That was the week that was (three TW's) It talked about English politics that week and gave you all the royal scandals - which was the way it stayed in business, I think! Even back in the '70's there was at least one scandal a week which held the public's attention. It was Britain's Saturday Night Live. Well, this past week I had a TW3 myself. I'll set it up for you. Since we are in Open Enrollment, I made an appointment with my insurance agent to change my Medicare Advantage Plan. During the conversation my age came up and she mentioned she had liked the bitter poem I had written a year ago when I had lost my insurance. She said I should publish it. I replied, "Well, actually I have it in Draft form addressed to the Publisher of the New York Times, but hadn't gotten up the courage to send it yet." Then I laughed and said, "I believe in starting at the top!" That evening she sent me an email, saying only "Small steps.." So, partially as a joke, I wrote back, "Okay, I've just submitted it to the Tucson Daily Star." I thought that they might print it in a little column the size of a Letter to the Editor, if they published it at all. Two days later, I got an email from the Editor of the Opinion page, asking me if I had written it myself and that they wanted to publish it. I confessed I had indeed written it and that I had experienced each of the stanzas I had written. (It's titled "When you're an old woman in America" and all about the poor medical system in the States.) The Editor said it would be printed in Wednesday's edition. Since I haven't subscribed to the paper for several years, I advised my daughter to be on the lookoutfor it and to save it for me. WELL: All Hell broke loose! She had chosen to print the whole thing all across the top of the Opinion page and headlined it in big, black letters. And she had gone through their archives and found a photo I had sent for a long article of mine that they had printed three years ago, about the terrorist attack on Barcelona. She had cropped my husband out of the photo and had placed me in the center of the poem, giving my name and age. But what gave it importance (besides the huge black headline) was the fact that David Fitzsimmons saw it, liked it, attached it to his Facebook page with just the message: Read this. Please. David is the immensely popular cartoonist-columnist for the Daily Star, syndicated in 800 papers worldwide, and has 5,000 Followers. My granddaughter in Denver discovered it first because she follows him. In just a few hours, my poem went viral. He had 249 Replies, 65 Likes and 59 Comments. All were positive except for one, who thought I should get a life, but everyone else was congratulatory and told sad stories how the poem related to them and how compassionate they were for all the old women out there. Two actually wanted to start a Go Fund Me website, so I could pay for my eyedrops. (I had NO IDEA, when I wrote the poem, that it would have that much effect on perfect strangers.) I have opened my own Facebook page, but can't figure out how to send a message. I have sent a message to David asking him if he could let all these lovely, generous people know that I'm okay, have insurance again and can afford the eyedrops. Apparently the message didn't go through. But trying to cope with hundreds of messages has taken up my entire week. Furthermore, my computer wouldn't compute for 2½ days, constantly telling me my Internet was disconnected. I spent three hours with Cox on the phone and got nowhere, then called my own Techie, paid him, and he "reconnected" me in FIVE minutes! Besides all this, I had offered to deliver the lecture to my Zoom meeting on Friday afternoon for the Writers Group I belong to and had chosen the Subject to be "Writing Obituaries vs. Back Cover blurbs." Fortunately, I had written my speech on Monday, before all this started. The lecture went well, and they all enjoyed it. (More emails.) So there you have it, Gentle Readers: my 15 minutes of fame. I have changed my mantra from "Be careful what you pray for" to "Be careful what you publish." Janice