Two years ago one of my oldest daughter’s friends asked what her father did for a living. “He listens to records in his office,” she confidently replied.
This was not quite an exhaustive description of my duties. From her vantage point as a toddler, she could not distinguish between the physical space and the job usually performed in it. She might just as easily have gotten the impression that I am a professional viewer of Skip and Shannon Undisputed.
How do I make my living, though? If I were asked to give a succinct description of my work (for that, believe it or not, is what writing four or five days a week is) I would say that I am an entertainer and that journalism is simply a form of mass entertainment, like Hollywood or Major League Baseball, albeit one with somewhat lower average earnings potential.
