News Photo by Darby Hinkley Alpena columnist Doug Pugh has published a book of his columns, “The Best of Vignettes,” available for purchase at The Alpena News office.

Reading this book is like sitting down for lunch with an old friend.

“The Best of Vignettes” features 45 of Doug Pugh’s columns, chosen from those published regularly in The Alpena News, primarily between 2015 and 2018. His column is titled “Vignettes.”

As summarized on the back cover, these columns are “those that kindled the most memories, engendered the most comment, warmed the most smiles. They will take you to mellow places, places you may wish to linger for awhile.”

“What I write, and it’s an old tried-and-true formula, I’m sure, is you take a spotlight on some simple thing, found in an ordinary place that impacts the lives of ordinary people, yet is somehow endearing,” the retired probate judge noted. “And that’s what these are.”

Some works in the book are “Our Old Cannon,” “The Camp Tractor,” “#1 Kiln Room,” “Downtown On A Monday Night,” “Back In The First Grade,” “His Baseball Coach Did Well,” “Searching For Tonys,” “Moving Through Time In Bolton,” “A Presque Isle County Hung Jury,” “Serving What’s Important,” “Comparisons That Define Obscenity,” “Summer Sounds From An Earlier Alpena,” and 33 more.

“‘Spinning But Going Nowhere’ is about an old car and a bunch of guys when I was a teenager,” Pugh said.

These stories are all relatable, especially for those who have grown up in northern Michigan and are familiar with the area’s history. But everyone who picks up a copy can appreciate the vivid descriptions and anecdotal humor peppered throughout Pugh’s writing. When he describes a barn, he takes the reader by the hand into the barn, where the sounds and smells are as real as the book you are holding.

“All of them follow that same sort of formula,” he noted. “Something simple, but try to weave in a little bit of a lesson, or an observation of some sort, and then end with something that’s meaningful.”

Pugh’s writing provides a fresh perspective on how tales from the past apply to the present and lead to the future, offering ideas and lessons along the way.

In “The Smell Of A Live Auction,” Pugh draws conclusions about consolidation in business and personal life.

“Now, there’s more gossip than ever but it’s all consolidated into a single phone that, paradoxically, provides less privacy. Google, Facebook, Twitter, and others now share your information with far more people than ever listened in on your party line.”

Pugh has been a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists since 2016. He has attended the national conventions in Manchester, N.H., where Maureen Dowd spoke in 2017, and in Cincinnati in 2018, hearing from seasoned journalist Nick Clooney, who is famous actor George Clooney’s father. This year’s convention is in Buffalo. At these conventions, Pugh has engaged in discussions with well-known columnists Dave Astor, Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune, Rochelle Riley of the Detroit Free Press, and many others, including Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists.

“The job of the columnist is to connect,” the NSNC website states. “To create a bond between reader, writer, newspaper and community.”

Pugh approaches his job as a columnist with integrity and views it as a privilege.

“We’ve been given a voice, and we’ve got to do our best with it,” he said. “We have to make what we say meaningful to the people in Alpena who do us the honor of reading what we have to say.”

He said journalistic integrity is especially vital in these current times.

“Everybody feels an enhancement of responsibility because communication is under such assault,” Pugh added. “We have to do the best we can, as accurately and as timely and as professionally written as possible, so the public is given a quality product they can trust.”

The book is published by Sarge Publications and printed by Allegra Printing in Alpena. Copies are available at The Alpena News office, 130 Park Place, for $14.95 apiece. Copies can be ordered by mail at thealpenanews.com, for an added $3.50 for shipping.

Reach Darby Hinkley at 989-358-5691 or dhinkley@thealpenanews.com.