Sunday Morning Mackin: How 29 years worth of BND columns ended up in a book
I didn’t have a plan to publish a book of my favorite columns.
Sure, I had thought about trying to write a book someday. Maybe a sports autobiography. Maybe fiction. Maybe about growing up at the right time, in the right place, with the right people.
A year or so ago, my friend Andy Kinsella asked what I did with my columns after they were published? I explained that I put a hard copy of every column in a folder and file them in a cabinet, in my home office. Hundreds of them are in there, by years, since the weekend column started in summer 1997.
“What are you going to do with them?”
“Well, they will be there for my two kids someday, …”
Along with all my other keepsakes that i keep around. The bobbleheads. Holy cards. Thank-you cards. Music albums and CDs. My stuff. Stuff I just can’t pitch.
“I think you should put them in a book,” said my friend.
I laughed and said something predictable like, “And who would buy that?”
“You might be surprised,” Andy said. And we moved on. But I didn’t shrug it off.
A few months later, the book conversation resumed. We tossed around ideas. I had no idea where to start. Andy had helped his dad publish a book many years ago. We contacted Village Bookworks of Belleville. An agreement was reached.
My first step was to go through 29 years of columns. It was harder than I envisioned. I had forgotten writing some of them. A lot had changed since summer 1997 when I wrote about fatherhood. My son, Corey, was a toddler.
It’s been one column at a time, for 29 years.
I chose my favorite columns, for one reason or another, for the book.
“Sunday Morning Mackin” has been published, thanks to publisher and organizer Village Bookworks of Belleville. All proceeds from book sales will be donated to charity toward cancer research. That was important to me.
Why a book of my columns? It was more about legacy, mixed with some vanity and history. A book will be here for generations of little Mackins. My grandson, Reed, can share it with his family someday. I hold keepsakes from my parents and grandparents close to my heart. Maybe this book will be one for them.
There are 116 columns in the book, in chronological order. That is a lot of Mackin. It’s not the kind of book that you read, from cover to cover, in order. More likely you can read a few columns at a time, from various pockets of my life.
There are columns about my family and friends, I’ve written a lot about my parents, Bud and Betty. The book is dedicated to them. They were both gone when I started writing columns. Being able to write about Mom and Dad helped me deal with their absence. My dad once joked that he wasn’t important enough to be in the newspaper. A little late, but I showed him otherwise.
I wrote about my two kids and grandson. Everyday life. And my grandparents. And two brothers. Friends. And their parents. Old and new stadiums. First cars and concerts.
My old schools are in there. As well as stories about my former coaches, teachers and friends. There’s plenty of baseball. One of my favorite columns is about my thoughts on baseball heaven and who would be on the field and in the bleachers. Another favorite is one of my first columns about my dad and I putting up a basketball hoop in the driveway. We used way too much concrete.
Todd Eschman wrote a foreword. I am grateful the Belleville News~Democrat gave me their blessings to publish a book. And they have allowed me to write a column for the past three decades. Many talented reporters, editors and writers have worked at the BND. I think about them each time I drive past the old newspaper building at 120 South Illinois in downtown Belleville.
To kick it all off, copies of “Sunday Morning Mackin” will be available on Saturday, April 11, from 10 a.m. to noon at The Abbey, 5801 West Main, in west Belleville, and on Saturday, April 25, from noon to 2 p.m. at LongStory Coffee, 732 South Illinois, downtown Belleville. I’ll be there, too, to sign books (but not mandatory!).
We are hoping to make the book available at local bookstores soon. Information will be made available on social media once confirmed.
