We all say and write things we later regret.  We change our minds, we temper our more strident opinions, we gain a little wisdom and rethink our naive viewpoints.  We hope for forgiveness regarding our more egregious statements, and we pray that our more regrettable thoughts will be lost with the passage of time.

But for those of us who ever wrote under a byline, well, we must face facts:  Everything is still there in print to forever haunt us.  (These days, every email/text/twitter remark is apparently saved in data banks forever and ever, so I guess I have a lot of company now.)

From 1979 until 1994, I wrote as a staff writer and freelancer for the Sun Newspapers and Scene Magazine in Cleveland, Ohio, writing reviews of local concert appearances and new album releases.  For a rock music fanatic like me, it was a dream job.  Not only did I get to see the best bands, from great seats, for free, I was sometimes even paid for my time “working,” with free parking to boot.

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