I love newspapers!
Please don’t imagine that means I, personally, love news. What I treasure is local newspapers, which contribute so much to the glue that holds communities together. In a time when we are quick to forego neighborliness in the righteous pursuit of Truth, we need the connective influence of our local papers more than ever.
That said, I swear to you on a bar of dark chocolate, that I was totally minding my own business when I fell into conversation with a friendly stranger down on Main Street recently… an interesting stranger, who turned out to be… but wait: first a bit of context.
I had been tenting up at Plumas Eureka State Park with friends for a few days – singing around the (propane) campfire, listening to the wind in the trees, taking small hikes and sitting quietly watching granite crumble. Naps! Eating junk food and noticing how the light changes on furrowed cedar bark as the day wanes.
Reluctantly heading back to Grass Valley, I stopped at Sabrina’s for a cup of coffee, bought The Mountain Messenger, and settled into a front row seat at the little table out on the sidewalk.
After a bit, I folded up the paper, and started strolling along the shop fronts, aimlessly curious.
Flashback: In the late nineteen seventies, needing a job, I ran my finger down the want ads (of a local newspaper, of course), which was a promising way to look for work in those days. Discovering that the Colfax Record (RIP) needed a phototypesetter, not even sure what that was, but knowing I was a top-notch typist, I applied. I was hired, and suddenly I had a front-row seat from which to observe the innards of a business to which I’d never given a passing thought.
Soon enough it occurred to me that, as a passionate foodie, I could write a weekly recipe column for them. And at some point, the editor asked me to write up the school news. Friends, it was a slippery slope! In due course I also wrote and set type for The Western Slopes Connection (a Nevada-City-based outfit, long gone). More gigs followed, including a bit of work for the short-lived Nevada County edition of the Messenger (RIP). But I eventually got side-tracked by other kinds of jobs, and soon enough, newspapering was just part of my colorful, peripatetic work history.
Until that fateful afternoon two weeks ago, when a Downieville stranger and I struck up a casual conversation about architecture. He turned out to be the Spirit of The Messenger, and… !suddenly!...
I never saw the job offer coming. I’ve been retired since 2009. I love not working; I regularly tell folks it’s “the best job I ever had.” I’m as startled as anyone to find myself newspapering again. Delighted by the possibility of helping my neighbors, I think this is gonna be fun!