About Me — Jeffrey M. Wetherington, Sr.
I’m a retired government employee who has been freelance writing professionally for the past 20 years. I got my start in April 2004 when a representative from Tribune Interactive Media Services (part of the Tribune Company, parent corporation of daily newspapers such as The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times) offered me the opportunity to write a hyperlocal blog, “Man About Town”, for their website in Orlando, Florida after reading my personal blog. I spent two and a half years writing about attractions, eateries, businesses, events and political happenings around The City Beautiful for them.
As a freelance writer and blogger I have written for, among others, Tribune Media Services (mentioned above), Suite101 (camping), Athena Guides (comic books) and CitySurfing Orlando (event reviews and artist interviews). My writing website is The Word of Jeff. In addition I have a travel blog, The Wandering Wetheringtons, which chronicles the journeys of my wife and Bella the Wonder Dog as we travel around the United States and Canada while living full time in our RV since June of 2021.
And, as if I didn’t already have enough writing outlets, I also have a personal blog at JMWetheringtonSr.com which sometimes suffers from neglect.
Which brings up the natural question; why do I want to add the Medium platform to the mix?
I guess, like most writers, we’re all looking for more ways to communicate our words.
And from the outside looking in, Medium seems to be a nice community of written communicators. So now I’m on the inside looking around.
On a personal level I enjoy reading just about anything, but preferably Science Fiction. Though over the last couple of years I have found myself gaining interest in historical biographies. Last year my Goodreads account showed I read 104 books…which was a LOT of books but doesn’t include magazines, newspapers and comic books (almost all digital) that I also consumed.
My TV and movie viewing is likewise partial to Science Fiction but I also enjoy action and occasionally comedy. Sometimes my wife and I watch shows or movies together on TV and sometimes we each watch our own thing on our iPads.
I grew up reading comic books in the 60’s 70’s and 80’s (Superman was, and is, my favorite character while Marvel was my favorite brand) but stopped in the 90’s when I sold most of my collection. Most modern-day comic books do not appeal to me, both in aspects of writing/art and price. My hometown public library, in conjunction with Hoopla, allows me to re-read digitally many of the old comics I used to own.
Growing up I was a huge fan of professional wrestling. In fact I attended my first match in person before I was even born. My dad loved the “sport” and he and my mom used to go to matches held at the Fort Homer Hesterly Auditorium in Tampa, Florida to see greats like Eddie Graham, The Masked Medics and Jack Brisco. And so it came to pass that my mom was pregnant with me while they attended some of those matches. Years ago I even wrestled “professionally” for a while when I trained and performed with a local wrestling promotion. About 5 years ago I stopped watching wrestling altogether, though I do still enjoy watching some of the old wrestling matches from the 60’s through the early 2000's.
My music tastes run to 50’s and 60’s rock n roll, but I also enjoy some pop, some heavy metal, some classical and even some small amounts of country. Favorite group is probably The Beatles, but Huey Lewis and The News are a very close second. The only musical instrument I’ve ever played was the trombone, but I think more and more lately about learning to play an acoustic guitar.
I look forward to meeting more of you here on Medium and contributing to the community.
