The Misanthrope's Corner.(journalist's last column)(Brief Article)(Column)

Dear Gentle Readers: I've resolved to write this column without using the word "last" because nowadays it is tied up with that insufferable cliche, "I want to spend more time with my family." The only way to avoid it is to say what I have to say the NR way: This is my l**t column.

It shouldn't come as a complete surprise. I've been dropping hints about discarding my files and sorting my notebooks and journals. When writers start fiddling with their "literary papers," you know something is up. Another hint was my recent tribute to Aunt Ellen. I've long meant to write it and wanted to be sure to get it in before I left.

As to why I'm leaving, the simplest reason has to do with those "clicks" we hear in our heads: Ten years is enough. I've written this column for so long that you know everything I think about everything under the sun; there isn't an opinion of mine you don't already know, except perhaps the ones I have sense enough to keep to myself, but even there you can probably guess. If I were to continue, it would just be overkill.

Moreover, I'm tired. Count it up: I've been writing for 43 years, full time for 35. I started with true confessions at three-to-five cents a word. I've lost track of how many I wrote but it was enough to support myself off and on in the late '50s, with temp jobs at Manpower to get me over the dry spots. At first I was thrilled because it was writing and I was getting paid for it, but it soon paled: one dreary, guilt- ridden heroine after another, and having to dream up plots to go with titles like "I Stripped for My Husband's Bowling Team."

I put myself on automatic pilot and kept going for three years solely for the money, but eventually even that paled. Confessions were published anonymously, so I still hadn't experienced the thrill known as "seeing your name in print." One day in 1961 while perusing The Writer's Market, I decided to try the small religious mags. They paid peanuts but at least I would get a byline, so I put myself on a different automatic pilot and wrote a sweet, virtuous short story. I forget the title, but the name and address of the mag I sent it to are engraved on my mind: The Christian, P.O. Box 179, St. Louis, Mo. (There were as yet no zip codes.)

They bought it for $10. I wanted to frame the check but I needed the $10 -- that was a big bag of groceries then. I sold more stories to the religious market, including one to St. Joseph's Magazine called "After the Ball." The priest-editor had one problem with it initially: I had a scene in which a secular song is sung at a Requiem Mass, not allowed at the time, so I moved the scene to a funeral parlor and they bought it for $75.

How many automatic pilots can you go on before you qualify as a schizophrenic? My third one was the men's market. There were a lot of little mags -- Sir, Escapade, Dude, Gent -- that pre-dated Playboy, so I tried them all under my male pen name, Ruding Upton King, from my mother's and ...