| Now what are we going to do?
Republished Dave Peyton, June 10, 2004 CHARLESTON DAILY MAIL
Now what are we going to do?
I found a factual error in an L.T. Anderson column once. Just once.
I was proud of myself, because Andy didn't make many mistakes. In fact, in all the years I read him, it was the only mistake I ever found.
What will West Virginia do now that Andy is gone? There's no one -- absolutely no one -- who can replace him and his trademark acerbic wit. There's no one who can step up to lay the pompous and self-important low the way Andy did it. He was simply the best.
I began reading his columns in the Charleston Gazette in the 1960s while I was a student at Marshall University.
I soon learned that Andy, a Marshall graduate, didn't blather the way most West Virginia columnists of the day did. He carried no one's water. He gave no guff and he took no prisoners.
I had never read a writer who could emasculate an arrogant politico or long-haired preacher with a phrase the way he did. A dagger couldn't cut to the heart of any matter the way Andy cut with a few well-chosen words.
When he moved to the Daily Mail and grew older, he got better. Bob Weaver, the editor and publisher of the online newspaper The Hur Herald, is another fan. When news of Andy's death reached Weaver Tuesday evening, he called me and we held our own private wake by phone.
Weaver said he was constantly amazed at how Andy seemed to write so effortlessly, how every word seemed to flow from his columns like water from a cool West Virginia spring.
"Do you think it was that easy for him?" Weaver asked.
I told him that it probably was. Geniuses are that way.
I don't know how many times I sent Andy e-mails to congratulate him on a phrase, a concept or the effortless way he explained what the pretentious -- the cognoscenti -- said only they could understand.
I know more about Hinton, his hometown, because of him. In fact, it was one of his columns about his beloved hometown where I found the mistake.
It was an insignificant error. He said he had memories of folks in Hinton attending summer camp meetings singing the hymn "Life Is Like A Mountain Railroad. "
Being a student of old-time music, I recognized that he had made a common mistake. Although the old hymn begins with the phrase "Life is like a mountain railroad," the true name of the hymn is "Life's Railway to Heaven."
I suppose I felt a little self-important myself as I sent the corrective e-mail to the author.
Andy took care of me with his response:
"Nobody likes a smarta**," he wrote.
I never found another factual error in one of his columns, but if I had, I doubt I would have called his hand on it.
For all his verbal bluster, Andy was a true gentleman -- quiet, unassuming, decorous to a fault. After visiting with him, I came away feeling better about myself and the world around me, in part because I knew Andy was on the front line defending us against the creatures who would deny us our inalienable rights.
And he did it with aplomb we rarely see these days in the newspaper business.
Now that he's gone, I am truly sad. I fear no one will ever take his place.
Peyton can be reached at 522-0179 or at dpeyton@davepeyton.com.
Charleston Daily Mail
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