It’s National Newspaper Week. Feature writer Gordon Cotton, also a historian, author and former director of the Old Court House Museum, prepared a five-part series on his more than 50-year association with newspapers. It concludes today.

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It was my second day on my new job as director of the Old Court House Museum, Eva W. Davis Memorial, Sept. 2, 1976, and Charlie Faulk was on the phone. Miss Eva had written a weekly column for the newspaper about local history. Would I do the same?

The ink swelled in my veins. I couldn’t say no, didn’t want to say no, and so on most Sundays for the next 30 years I wrote “Old Court House Comments,” which was usually about local history, but I soon found my occasional cat stories outpolled our heritage. At my request, the column was gratis. I hoped it would be popular in the papers and I knew we could never afford the advertising for the museum it would provide.

And I did remain a part of the Evening Post family.

I remember one evening when I picked up Mary Louise Cashman and headed out Clay Street to an office Christmas party at Maxwell’s. She was dressed to the nines — black dress accented with a string of pearls. As we approached The Book Store she told me to pull in. I didn’t know what was going on, but I followed her inside. It was closing time, and Donnie and Myra Smartt, who owned the store, were about ready to lock up.

“Are you ready?” Mary Louise asked an obviously bewildered Donnie. Was Myra ready? He looked like a scared animal caught in the headlights as he wracked his brain trying to figure out what he had forgotten — what he had not told Myra, what they were supposed to do that night.

Mary Louise played the game to the limit when she decided he had suffered enough — and told him of her spur-of-the-moment practical joke.

In 1983 Mary Louise volunteered my services and forgot to tell me. The newspaper was going to celebrate its 100th anniversary, and she assured her father I would be glad to do the research and writing for much of it. Of course I did — it was right down my alley. I learned so much about Vicksburg and its former citizens.

I really would like to have known John G. Cashman, who founded the newspaper in 1883. He was a one-eyed Confederate veteran who worked for other newspapers before he started the Vicksburg Evening Post. During the military occupation of the city, he helped establish The Daily Vicksburger with the avowed purpose of running the carpetbaggers out of town — and they did.

He was a gutsy guy. When some public official threatened to sue him for defamation of character, wanting $150, Cashman taunted him in print basically saying “Is that all your character is worth?” On another occasion someone threatened to sue him because of something he had in print that was uncomplimentary. It didn’t amount to much, and Cashman’s reply was in so many words “If you were upset about that, just wait until you read this.”

Sometimes his words got him into trouble. Charles Wright, editor of the Herald, challenged him to a duel. Wright didn’t show up on DeSoto Island for the affair of honor, and Cashman took delight in goading him in print. On another occasion after the editor of a small weekly paper threatened Cashman, the Post editor pulled a pistol and killed him when the man stepped out of a darkened doorway. Cashman was acquitted, the trial being held in the courtroom of the Old Court House. My grandmother’s brother, James S. Lee, was on the jury, so I always reminded Louis Jr. that he was indebted to our family for keeping Grandpa out of jail and off the gallows.

I don’t remember this event, but Charlie Mitchell says that when he came to work at the Post in 1975 and we were introduced I made reference to the fact that Nancy Andrews had chosen him as a husband so he must be all right. Like I say, I don’t remember it, but it sounds right.

When I retired from the Old Court House — 30 years to the day after I began my job there — I thought I would quit my routines including writing for the Post and so announced in a Sunday column. “This is it,” I said. “I’m writing 30.” (I don’t know where that old journalism expression — 30 signaling the end — comes from — or if anybody else uses it).

There was not a public outcry or exactly a groundswell, but some friends — and some folks I didn’t know — asked me to continue writing. I confess that after a month I missed it — there was that old printers ink theory again — and Mitchell and Karen Gamble, the Post’s executive and managing editors, talked me into resuming Sunday stories. I’ve only missed one week, and the fun has been in writing about people.

I knew I was still part of the newspaper family when I retired from the Old Court House and there was a reception. My mother loved to wear hats — and so does Barbara Cashman — and I had given Barbara a few from Mother’s closet. Nothing touched me more than when Barbara walked into the courtroom wearing one of Mother’s hats.

I owe a lot to many people for making the journalistic part of my career so memorable, so much fun, so important to me. There was Mary Cain, the Keiths and the Cashmans, but most of all to Charlie Faulk,  mentor, who suggested the road I take 55 years ago and who, 44 years ago, hired me for just a few months until he could find somebody.

It’s been a wonderful “few months.”

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Postcript: No, I’m not retiring, just reminiscing.