This column took me forever to write. I can feel your surprise; after all, it’s pretty short and I’m not exactly Steinbeck.

I’ve been terribly distracted … not that that’s anything unusual. If I start out to water the flowers, I end up defrosting the freezer (not even kidding). However, this latest has been a very happy distraction.

I’ve been spending hours loitering along Memory Lane through 18 years of the Kingston Community News — and four years of the old Kingston View — in a summer clear-out of my office.

Golly, I love the Kingston Community News. And I’m not just saying that because they put up with my nonsense. KCN is a perfect example of a down-home, come-as-you-are, hometown newspaper. It’s the sort of publication that puts its feet up on the couch and its coffee cup down on the table. It’s all about us!

If you haven’t had your picture in the paper, what are you waiting for? You don’t have to have to be a rocket scientist, although astronaut Richard Gordon (for whom Gordon Elementary was named) has been featured several times. If you find a cause, join in, have a hobby, help a neighbor, let us know and your story, too, can be shared in KCN.

It’s now been several hours since I finished the preceding paragraphs. I was suddenly possessed of the urge to find every issue with a story of Richard Gordon in it.

In one (November 2007), the former astronaut is posing with several members of the Gordon Elementary staff. Among the group is my sweetie, Mel Gallup. Surprise! Which leads to the greatest pleasure in perusing past issues of our hometown paper: finding unexpected pictures of people you know, used to know, or know now but didn’t know then. I’ve been spending lots of time lately delighting (or horrifying) these people by sending them pictures and news items of themselves from years ago.

Does anyone remember the Kingston View? It was a supplement to the Herald that ran from 2001-04. The View was the Sound Publishing’s answer to (and practice for) the Community News. When KCN came up for sale in 2004, Sound Publishing quickly purchased it and discontinued the View, merging the staff.

It was a propitious union. You may not realize it, but a newspaper staff — even a mostly volunteer, small-town one — becomes something of a family, albeit one that may have met only through emails or the occasional gathering.

Over the 16 years that I’ve been part of the View and KCN, we’ve had our granddames (Sammy Quinn, Jacque Thornton, Donna Lee Anderson), eccentric uncles (Pete DeBoer, Walt Elliott, Tando Mando), rabble-rouser (Marilyn Olds), historian (Harriet Muhrlein), prodigies (Kayla Campbell, Kyler Lacey, Nathaniel “Nate Dog” Orwiler, Meagan Rasely), voices of reason (Michèle Laboda, Naomi Mossberg), ambassadors of commerce and tourism (Thomas Lamar, Jan Zufelt, Shana Smith), and our favorite mom (Denise Roundy). That doesn’t even include all of the talented, fun-loving, hard-working editors and reporters (’cause you’ve all got those fabulous salaries, so there).

By rough count, I began summer with more than 200 papers in my “clip file,” which works out to — like — 5,000 pages. How many other careers do you suppose constitute a home fire hazard? I guess I can think of a few, mostly illegal, but my point here is that it’s time for a few thousand of these pages to go. But I’m focused now and …oh, look … an Apple Tree Pharmacy ad.

— Wendy Tweten is an award-winning writer and author of “Gardening for the Homebrewer.” She has contributed to Sound Publishing publications for nearly two decades.