The Delightful And Curious Essays Of Lew Hudson

When I first arrived at the Daily Globe in the winter of 1983 as a young sports writer with a full head of hair, one of my co-workers was regional editor Lew Hudson.
This was at a time, of course, when the newsroom was blessed with not only his esteemed presence, but also that of Paul Gruchow, Ray Crippen and Bill Brower. I felt privileged just to be allowed into the same space with them.
Sad to say, I never got to know Lew very well. I don’t think he cared about sports very much, and at the time I wasn’t particularly interested in anything that didn’t revolve around the sporting world.
Just the other day, however, one of my current and long-time co-workers, Beth Rickers, pulled a book from her desktop and asked if I’d be interested in reading it. It was a collection of Lew Hudson newspaper columns compiled by one of his daughters, titled, “Dispatches From Our Corner of the Globe,” and it contained pieces of his life written during his years at the Daily Globe and, later, at the Brainerd Daily Dispatch. I leaped at the chance to read it, and when I did I was very glad I did.
The columns that particularly entertain me are the columns that deal with Lew’s family life. Those essays are unlike most such essays in that they are not only warm and funny and insightful, but they are also about unusual personal subjects. The central character in most of these stories is Lew’s wife, who he always refers to as “Mrs. H.”
Well-written as they are (well-chosen words were always a hallmark of Lew Hudson’s writing), they are often on mundane subjects that hardly register with most human beings. He writes about his stubborn determination never to answer the phone (Mrs. H will run to answer it anyway). He writes about the importance of husband-and-wife conversations in the car, and those strange young people who turn their car stereos up so loud as to tempt deafness). He writes about how he eats his pie at the crust end first, and how it drives Mrs. H crazy.
You get the picture. Stuff like that.
Today, those of us who currently work in the Daily Globe newsroom write personal blogs, and many of us choose sometimes to write about our family situations. I’ve written many items about my wife (Mrs. W) and many of them go for the humor angle. She has learned to accept this, but I know that in the back of her mind she’s nervous that one day I’ll reveal a little too much information and embarrass the both of us.
I’ve been warned on more than one occasion.
Lew’s book makes me wonder how he and his wife handled the sensitive subjects. Perhaps Mrs. H was so impressed with her husband’s writing ability — and trusted him so — that she never worried about what he might reveal.
I read one of Lew’s columns, however, that must have put that to the test. It was a column about his wife’s weight, and Lew wondered to the world why, for all the healthy communication that the two of them shared over the years, why Mrs. H. would never — I mean never — come close to revealing to him the secret of how much she weighed.
The thing is, I completely understand the situation. And yet, the very fact that he felt comfortable enough to write about it at all leads me to conclude that he belongs in some kind of Hall of Fame.
I just don’t know which one.