WARM MEMORIES LIFT THIS GUY INTO BLOGGING
My wife left Friday for a business trip to Las Vegas, leaving our two cats and I to fend for ourselves for almost a week. My wife travels frequently for business, often for a week or so. And while this may conjur up visions of free-male enjoyments such as: not cleaning the house till she gets home; dining on whatever; cranking the stereo and playing the bongos to salsa-merangue music; watching hockey all night in your underwear (you fill in the blanks), I have found that after a day or two, I miss her terribly and become bored.
The cats get anxious, too and spend most of their time hounding me for attention or finding a spot on my body to sleep upon. The older one begins to incessantly “talk” after a few days. He walks up to me every 10 minutes, looks sadly into my eyes and meows a whine that can surely only mean, “Where’s that other alpha-person that pets me sometimes, damn it?”
So it is…….But last night, still in Phase One of my freedom on a Saturday, I decided to drink some special scotch I won at a golf tournament and take on the daunting task of cleaning my office and search for the title of a car I’m trading in tomorrow. Heck, it was even time to gain an hour due to Daylight Savings time’s need to set the clock back an hour, so what the hell. The reggae music was fine and flowing. The project was going well and after filling two trash bags with paperwork dating back to 1985, I opened my desk drawer containing some copies of The Daily Californian where I was managing editor in the late 80s and early 90s.
I only saved two editions in that drawer, one from the first day the US attacked Iraq in 1991 and the other from the day a man walked into a fitness center a couple blocks away from the paper and killed five before offing himself. But there they were, my byline under a blood-red headline about the murders ordered by the publisher after I tragicly and sadly performed the ritual every journalist dreams of — actually stopping the presses. The other edition had the same color headline (the only two times we used red in a headline, Zinman as we called him thought it would sell more papers) that screamed: ALLIES STORM INTO IRAQ. That headline met the stringent size requirements the publisher had barked out during several phone calls to our San Diego office from his upstate New York office. Had to be 64 points and run banner-width, he said. An hour later he demanded the headline incluse reference to our partners in the attack. An hour later he called to demand red, all caps and no more than four words………and so on and so on……
There can be no explaining the adrenalin rush one gets in the news business when covering major or breaking stories. All energies are devoted to thinking like a newsperson until the job is done, with only few minutes to reflect on a personal level. Some of those memories flowed instantly to my head as I recalled the people and events at the paper on many other occasions.
Having long-reconciled the missle attacks launchd by him against me when he saw the final product and saw fit to wake me up at home after the newsroom spent a grueling 20 pounding out a fabulous special product as troops headed for Iraq, I was not interested in thinking about the negatives of those days. Instead, the papers in front of me conjured up warm fellings about some very special people that I had the honor of leading and working with side by side for some short, fleeting years.
One story in that section described the activities of the newsroom on that day, how we huddled together to cover the story on a local level since so many military families are based in San Diego. Another, op/ed piece written by a man who taught me to harmoize like the Beatles and lived in my home for a few weeks while sorting out his direction, warned that this war on Iraq in 1991 would only lead to another later as that is the nature of war. Reading that piece today only pointed out what a forward-thinker Kevin Featherly really is and how well he rounded out the team with his devil’s advocate pieces.
After reading the stories, I felt something I had not felt since the days I worked in editorial, a family-like editorial bond that makes good newspapers develop into great ones. I realized that while I always loved the paper we worked for, it truly was a GREAT paper from top to bottom except for how it was managed from the top. I had dimmed the lights and instinctively flipped to the masthead to make sure my name really was still there as Managing Editor. It was and I felt a sense of accomplishment.
Then, I saw the name of a colleague — someone who I had regained contact with only recently. There he was Wire/Weekend editor and I again felt that feeling of pride. Proud to have worked with him, glad we had regained contact after almost 10 years of my departing California for the midwest.
Howard Owens is a journalist who has a brilliant grasp of all aspects of life. He’s not the kind of man to every be satisfied with letting his mind grow stagnent, has a heart bigger than California itself and loves the world enough to share his thoughts on a blog site called hbo3.com. Hell, until I saw his site, I didn’t even know blogging existed. A day after I visited it for the first time, the paper I work for now, the Detroit News, ran a full-page spread on blooging on the tech cover.
Coincidence?
No matter what you believe in or what religion you ascribe to or not, can you say that all that happens in merely coincidence?
That’s fooder for more words than needed for today. But checking my email, I found this short message from Ho
Vince:
This evening, Billie and I went to dinner at a very nice restaurant in town.
It was very romantic.
We started talking about the old days — the days we met.
I’ve never forgotten the first time I saw Billie. I was working the wire
desk, and I could see into your office and you were interviewing her for the
job. I was transfixed. I remember I told you to hire her 
.
That, my friend, is the best thing you ever did for me.
Best,
H.
I then remembered the interview exactly. I liked Billie from the start and was glad to have someone with her experience join the team…she had the fire in her eye and was hungry to do good work. And it’s true, Howard did come into my office and tell me to hire her although he had never met her before. Strange as I thought it was at the time, his word was the final cap on my call…..it also felt like a meassage from above — I could feel the direction coming for whatever reason from above.
Now, years later, we both know why and I am blessed I could be a part of it.
Howard’s note reminded me not only of how hard he and Billie worked at their relationship and joyful it is still fabulous for them, but of the life my own wife, Sheila, and I have shared in the last 13 years.
Sometimes, it’s the short reminder that can change a direction in life. Thanks for the note Howard, it helped remind me of what’s important while all this news floats around us.
