Ink Spots Matt Paxton
On July 3, 2013, The News-Gazette debuted a new columnist, Glenn Rose. As the editor’s note said welcomi ng him, Glenn was certainly known to a lot of our readers already. In his first column, he explained the name he’s chosen for the column – “Quid De Cogitatione?” – a Latin phrase translated loosely as “What about this thought?” Glenn’s last column appeared in the paper on March 25. He died last week.
Glenn was a renaissance man in many respects. He was a radio personality on WREL in the 1980s. He taught English at Parry McCluer High School from 1985 to 1989. Many people knew him as the owner and “chief paddler” at the James River Basin Canoe Livery, which he ran out of the Coffee Pot near the boat locks on U.S. 60. He also sold life insurance and annuities. And, he was a News-Gazette columnist for almost 13 years. He was a skilled canoeist and his knowledge of the Maury and James Rivers was extensive. He mapped the entire Maury, noting all the rapids and the preferred course to navigate each in a canoe. He was known for being one of the best to canoe Goshen Pass. It’s said that he knew all the eddies and draws around the rocks and considered them his friends.
I remember when he hosted the “Hotline” call-in show on the radio. Once, when I was driving and listening during the 1980 presidential election, his topic was “Should Jimmy Carter be reelected.” A woman called and went on and on about how he was a good man, a Christian, and a peanut farmer, and we had to support our farmers. After about five minutes, during which Glenn couldn’t get a word in, she finally took a breath and Glenn, with a suppressed chuckle, asked the woman if she ate peanuts. She said she did, and that everybody knew that eating peanuts made you smart.
Glenn asked, “Ma’am, do you ever eat cashews?” The woman said no. Glenn said, “Well, that’s good, because eating one cashew undoes the smarts you get from eating 10 peanuts!” The woman replied, “Well, I’ll never eat those!” I almost wrecked the car laughing.
With all the things that Glenn did well, he was an excellent columnist. He had a point of view, and he expressed it skillfully in his columns. A columnist, especially one writing about politics and political topics, expects to get letters both affirming his opinions and disagreeing, and the newspaper got plenty of both over his career. One writer wrote about a column, “Glenn Rose nailed it…” Another wrote that Glenn saw the world “through Rose-tinted glasses.” Based on the number of letters we received over the years, his column was well-read.
Glenn expanded my vocabulary on many occasions. Autogolpe.. pasquinade ... Glenn was also fond of Latin phrases, challenging my two years of high school Latin.
Glenn’s column dealt with politics and political topics, as expressed from a center-left viewpoint. He certainly had his detractors and defenders, depending on the respondent’s point of view. I always felt that, while he was expressing an opinion from a particular political perspective, he wrote to challenge the reader to think and to examine their own views. In my mind, that’s what a good column should do.
