Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/558

 7. 1871.

4

"Misfits"

In the Albany Democrat, 1882-1917

By Fred Pike Nutting

Fred Pike Nutting, who is author of "Misfits" that started under another name way back in 1882 and who is still a good columnist at 79, was born in New York on November 19, 1856. After at- tending Lisle Academy in that state, he worked in printing offices and studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1879 and came to Oregon the next year, getting a job as printer on the old Albany Democrat. In 1882 he bought the interest of George E. Chamberlain in the paper and later the interest of another partner. He published it until 1912, when he sold it to W. H. Hornibrook, and edited it again from 1915 to 1917 while the latter was United States minister to Siam. Subsequently, he was for 10 years city recorder and police judge of Albany. For eight years he has been secretary of the Kiwanis Club and editor of the Wttkly Kiwanis Informant, in which he has filled a column of short stuff in his old style that is now reprinted once a week in the Democrat-Herald under the original head of "Misfits". It has perhaps enjoyed the greatest longevity of any Oregon column. He has given the follow- ing description of its beginning and its long duration from 1882 to 1917 under its different names:

"On buying into the Albany Democrat, I immediately started a short item column under the head "Plain Talks by a Plain Chap." This was changed a while afterwards to "Man About Town"; later to "Grafts", suggested by visiting the orchard of a friend across the river where there was a tree with grafts of 22 different fruits and nuts, so that the name implied a wide range of topics; and then to "Misfits", a title that was continued until I left the paper in 1917. This head happened like this: I was reading the San Francisco Examiner one day when I noticed a small advertisement of a Misfit Store that sold all kinds of misfit goods. It struck me as a good head for items regardless of sequence. I think I used it for perhaps 25 years altogether."

In the early days he could turn out this material so prolifically that it was sometimes run in two sections, one short and one long, with still a surplus under the older caption of "Grafts." Ralph R. Cronise, editor of the Democrat-Herald, says of it: "The column which he called 'Misfits' was written in his own original style and often contained wisecracks and humorous errors but a sprinkling of