Same old column – new format
Welcome back … to Vintage Berry Wine!
After 15 long years, it is returning in a new and more modern format – online, for the world to see. Born in 1987 in Preston County, West Virginia, during my first job as a newspaper reporter, “Vintage Berry Wine” was my weekly column, about the humorous antics of my (then!) four small children. At times, space was also devoted to discussion of personal topics, such as divorce, single parenting, love the second time around, and mental illness.
Weekly readers used to say they couldn’t wait to receive each new issue of the Preston County News, and often told me it was the first thing they read upon opening their newspaper. While the column stopped after I left in 1991, many loyal fans of Vintage Berry Wine would stop me (or my family) on the street, to ask when publication would resume.
That didn’t happen, but the original weekly column was briefly reborn in 1997, when I went to work for The Dominion Post, a daily newspaper in Morgantown, W.Va. There it was called “In the Out Door” and readers’ responses were just as enthusiastic. A relocation to California ended that column’s brief stint, and it has been waiting for a resurrection of sorts ever since.
In time, I plan to publish some of the original Vintage Berry Wine columns here. In the meantime, this new Vintage Berry Wine is dedicated to two people: Charles, my first grandson, and Jane Stewart, a loyal reader, wherever she is. Charles was born in 2003, and is already a heartbreaker – he broke mine the first time I held him!
Thank you for believing in me, Jane. Your faith and that of many other loved ones have sustained my writing efforts during all these years. I hope you find this new format, and that you will let me know how you like it.
3 Comments
Bopper · January 30, 2006 at 7:03 PM
Welcome back Vintage Berry Wine, I think? Now come all the nightmarish tales my mother used to publicly chastise her children. I guess we are blessed that so many people took an interest in reading about us weekly. I still have people today, almost 10 years after her column ended at The Dominion Post asking me about Vintage Berry Wine, wanting to know where she went. It’s a privlege to hear that time and time again. I wonder though, if she would mind if we, her adult children, or so we like to think, posted our own contributed words on her life as we grew up. The countless, lost keys, running out of gas, locked out of her apartment, and so on and so on. Oh, how I’m sure you would find the same humor in our writing. Brilliant, now if we can just sneek something on here to embarass her with, the same kindness she showed to us. Ok guys, well Mom is yelling dinner is ready and that she burnt my quesadilla. No big suprise, she generally burned the pot of water for our spaghetti before dinner. Gotta go, hope to hear from you all soon.
Lisa E · February 24, 2006 at 11:02 AM
Welcome back Vintage Berry Wine. I never had the opportunity to read it, but i’m sure I would love to. The author is a good friend of mine and always has interesting take on life. After having taken a ride through her website and reading some of her thoughts I think i’ll look forward to reading her column as well. Armed with a zest for life and writing talent to boot, I know i’ll be greeted with a few chuckles and maybe even a tear or two. Thanks Daleen for touching my heart and being there as my friend.
Vickie Warner · March 21, 2006 at 11:31 AM
Daleen, I had no idea. Lovely,lovely, lovely. Keep up the good work. Your ‘sis’