Life among the ink-stained wretches

You may have noticed on the right side of your screen that the blog is now carrying headlines from the News-Herald, our local newspaper in Willoughby, Ohio.

This was the small tradeoff required to have "They Still Call Me Daddy" listed in the Herald's Community Media Lab. Being the latest addition to the Media Lab, the blog is listed waaaaaay down at the bottom of the page, but hopefully it will bring in a few new readers from around Northeast Ohio and parts unknown.

As many of you know, I spent the first part of my career as a sports writer for the News-Herald. I started there in the summer of 1988 as what was known as a sports agate clerk, taking little league and high school sports scores over the phone, writing up small articles on community athletic events, etc. It was a great job for an 18-year-old sports fanatic, and I loved being around the newsroom every night.

Because it was a night job, of course. Sports tend to happen at night, so sports writers tend to work at night. By the time I was a sophomore in college, I was working there a solid 30-40 hours every week, occasionally doing the 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. shift. The News-Herald was an afternoon paper at the time, and the presses didn't roll until 3 in the morning or so. A couple of us would always work late to make sure the sports section articles and photos looked good and didn't contain any obvious swear words.

TRUE STORY: One time a classified ad ran in the News-Herald for a house that someone had put up for sale. The ad described every feature of the house, including a "party-sized deck." Only the ad didn't say "deck." Instead it had a word that's very similar to "deck" and is in fact only one vowel away from "deck" and which made the ad absolutely hilarious. I'm going to let you figure out the word AND perhaps come to some understanding of what exactly constitutes "party-sized" in this context.

Anyway, I left the News-Herald for nine months during my junior year at John Carroll to take a similar position at the Plain Dealer, the large Cleveland daily paper, working out of the Lake & Geauga County Bureau. That was a good experience, but as I neared my college graduation, knowing I was going to get married, I realized I needed a full-time job with benefits. And while the 32-hour-a-week Plain Dealer position was fun, it didn't include insurance and the like.

So the News-Herald graciously accepted me back on a full-time basis, and I worked there for five happy years from 1991 through 1996. I got to cover a lot of sports in that time, mostly high school but with doses of college and professional assignments to keep me happy.

ANOTHER TRUE STORY: One time I was standing in the Cleveland Indians' clubhouse waiting to do a player interview, and third baseman Carlos Baerga walked by me carrying a plate of food from the sumptuous clubhouse buffet. With his mouth full and still chewing, Baerga looked at me and said, "You want some chicken? It's good!" I politely declined, but I love the fact that it even happened (plus, I don't think media members were technically supposed to have any of the food anyway).

I figured I was set. I would work in newspapers the rest of my life, eventually taking over a pro sports beat and traveling with the team I covered. That was my professional goal and it seemed a worthy one.

But three things got in the way:

(1) Terry and I started having kids. Kids cost money. Sports writers don't make a lot of money.

(2) Terry and I started having kids. As a parent, I wanted to spend time with my kids. Looking ahead to the time when they would be in school, I realized that working night hours would not be conducive to attending their sporting events and concerts, helping them with evening homework, etc.

(3) Newspapers and their budgets began shrinking, and beat writers no longer traveled to all of the road games, thus taking some of the luster away from what I had considered to be among the most glamorous professions.

And so I moved into other types of writing and journalism, and eventually got into marketing and PR. I still miss the newspaper life from time to time, but I know I made the right choice.

As I've mentioned previously, I also still read a newspaper every day. I like to think of it as my small contribution to a rapidly evolving (some would say "dying") industry. But honestly? I also really appreciate being in my bed at 3 a.m. these days instead of in a newsroom.