I was at a public meeting not long ago when a woman sat nearby and said she recognized me from a picture, presumably the one embedded in this column.
She asked if I was covering the meeting for the newspaper and I said I was.
“Good,” she answered. “I read your editorials and I think, ‘This (stuff) isn’t important.’”
“Nothing’s more important than football,” I informed her, referring to the subject matter of my column that week.
She told me that was a matter of opinion and we left it there, partly because my companion wasn’t amused and partly because she was right.
In this space I write  mainly write about sports, politics and the banal events of my personal life. We can agree that politics is important, but there is little more trivial than the other two.
We are, of course, living in an era of true challenges: an economy that is improving but has claimed many casualties; the threat of multiple school closures in our community; and of course disease, famine and natural disasters in the Third World.
In fairness, I write regularly about those types of things in the Times-Advocate, though not in columns such as this (which people sometimes refer to as “editorials”).
I steer clear of the economy in part because when things are bad, people don’t need to be reminded that they are bad.
I steer clear of school closures because I think it’s my place to report the facts about local events but not to influence public discourse on matters that could have serious consequences for those involved.
And I’m not sure I have anything meaningful to say about disease and famine and natural disasters. Others do, and I think it wise to defer to them.
It’s true there are few things more trivial than sport these days - even football. It’s up there with Hollywood gossip, box office statistics and “American Idol.”
But that has pretty much always been the case. Sport has always been trivial, but it has never been unimportant.
One needs only to gander at obesity statistics in Huron County (or glance at my own midsection) to learn we could do with a few more bodies chasing balls and hammering pucks these days.
And of course sport, like gossip, movies and reality television, has always provided an escape from the drudgery of everyday life.
For most of us, athletics and entertainment aren’t reasons for being, but they’re things that help us make it through a day, a week, a year.
I doubt my companion would dispute that, and I’m certain she didn’t intend to open this can of worms with an errant comment at a public meeting.
Suffice it to say I ran through many drafts before arriving at this one, trying to tackle issues that would be considered more significant than sport.
For better or worse, this is where I ended up. Writing for a newspaper is like a lot of jobs: you have to have something to show for a day’s work.
Some days are better than others, and some days you’re left wondering if you’re going about it the right way.