Steve Chapman is my latest guest on Q&A: here. More on him in a minute. Here is my latest music podcast, my latest Music for a While. I play some September songs. (We have a week left in this month, so why not?) These songs are classical, popular — and in between.
Also, here is a post called “Whacks and bangs.” Really? Yes — it’s about timpani playing.
Steve Chapman was a columnist for over 40 years, mainly associated with the Chicago Tribune. He retired a few weeks ago. How does he feel? Do his fingers itch to write? Not so far. Mainly, he is enjoying a break away from the news.
Tom Sowell retired from column writing after the 2016 election. He told me it wasn’t that he was tired of writing; it was that he didn’t want to read the news anymore, which you have to do in column writing. He found it dispiriting, the news.
Anyone can understand.
Steve Chapman has lived in Chicago for a long while, but he was born and raised in Texas and still feels like a Texan. Hasn’t lived there since he was 18. But you never lose it, as he says. He spent his first ten years in Midland and then the next eight in Austin. When in high school, he subscribed to National Review.
Who didn’t, right?
He went to Harvard, where he studied American history. Among his professors were Bernard Bailyn, Jack Rakove, and David Herbert Donald. Those are big names in the writing of American history.
But Chapman’s favorite course was on the Russian Revolution, and it was taught by his favorite professor: Richard Pipes. One can understand.
Chapman did not plan on going into journalism. He planned on going into politics. He was president of the Republican club. One night, he was talking with a friend about the Harvard Crimson, complaining about how left-wing it was. She said, “Well, why don’t you try out for the paper and do something about it?” He said, “They’d never take me.” But they did.
There was a young columnist for the Washington Post, George F. Will, and Chapman loved him. “He combined a knowledge of history, a gift for turning a phrase, and a wit that nobody else had ever demonstrated to me. He made columns into an art form.” Chapman bought the Post on the days when Will’s column appeared.
Then there was William F. Buckley Jr. and National Review, of course. Chapman wrote to WFB, as one did. WFB wrote him back, as he did. WFB gave him a book to review — which Steve did. WFB and NR paid Steve $60 for the review. It was the first payment he ever received for something he had written.
He thought of framing the check and hanging it on a wall. But he needed the money . . .
In our podcast, Steve Chapman and I talk about various issues related to the media. He is a wonderful conversationalist, as he is a wonderful writer, and, again, our Q&A is here.