Every now and then, the hack is glad she is a hack

When I became a reporter, I was drawn to the little stories right from the start. Of course I understood why we wrote stories about powerful people like Jeno Paulucci and Mayor John Fedo, and why we covered crimes and accidents and other unhappy news. I did my share of unhappy stories, too--not just crimes and accidents, but layoffs and school consolidations (and if you think that's not an unhappy topic, you haven't interviewed people whose school is closing) and mine shutdowns and economic downturns.

But it was the stories of what we call "real people" (as though Jeno weren't real) that I liked the best. Stories about people who would not ever be in the paper, had I not dug out some interesting thing about them and shared it with readers.

When I moved to the magazine, this remained my stock-in-trade. My first year there, I wanted to write about what it was like to live on minimum wage. Lots of people do it, though not easily and not always without help. There was a debate raging at the time about whether or not to increase minimum wage, with the usual suspects saying the amount was already generous, and the other usual suspects saying no, no, nobody could live on this pittance.

I found a woman named Tracy, and I wrote about her.

Tracy was married, but she had not seen nor heard from her husband in years. They had five children, but, no surprise, he had not contributed a cent to their upbringing. She was doing it alone. She was smart, but unlucky, and she had made some questionable choices. (Not the least of which was choosing to have five children. But there you are. You could also look at it the other way and say she chose not to have five abortions.)

When I met her, Tracy was doing her damndest to get ahead. She was going to college during the day on a special program for single parents. She was working at night at SuperAmerica. The thing that held this whole shaky plan together was, oddly, her deadbeat boyfriend. He had a bad back and couldn't work. But he could take care of her kids, and he did, while she was in school, while she was working, while she was trying to sleep.

Without him, the whole thing would collapse.

And then it did collapse. Because even though they weren't married, even though he was not the father to any of the children, even though he wasn't contributing a cent to the household, the minute he moved in to help her take care of the kids her status switched from "single-parent household" to "two-parent household," and most of the government programs that helped her stay in school evaporated.

I wrote about how exhausted she was, trying to stay awake in class (she went from her overnight shift at the convenience store to home to get her kids off to school and then directly to class herself; she slept just for a few hours every afternoon). I wrote about how she knew she'd made mistakes and was trying to rectify them. I wrote about one busy grueling day in her life.

And then, like journalists do, I published the story and went on to the next one.

I wondered, from time to time, how she was doing, but I never tried very hard to find out.

That was, what, fourteen years ago? And then last week I got this email:

Hi Laurie:

I was going through a box of things, when I came across a photocopied article that you wrote about me back in 1994 actually. I never got the opportunity to thank you for all the great things that you did for me by writing that article “Scraping By” in February 1995 issue of Minnesota Monthly.

One of the things you did was get the attention of an attorney who helped me get my divorce and straighten out my child support issues at the time. You also inspired me to start keeping a journal and start writing myself. I have been working on a couple novels of my own as well as my own blog.

Thank you again!

You have no idea how much I appreciate everything you did for me!

Tracy.

Now that has got to be the coolest email this hack has ever gotten.

UPDATE (since so many of you have asked): Yes, I read "Nickled and Dimed." Yes, it was pretty good. But I would like to (ahem) point out that my story came first. By years.