News Reporter in Packrat

Again. Temporarily, although the job was offered to me on a permanent basis. I said I’d help out, as I always do between reporters, but, although conditions have improved since the job was actually mine - OMG 23 years ago?! - they are still less than ideal. There are still too many hours for which the reporter doesn’t get paid, still tribal community activities on the holidays; our current editor puts in weekends and long nights. I had to do that as well and don’t want to do that again, and the powers that be don’t ever understand that the newspaper is not a 9 - 5 job.

My supervisor was a newspaperman and said he’d help me put the paper out; our current editor is still here, wanting to retire, and he’ll teach me the program our paper uses now. He said it was really easy, and he’s already talked to our publisher. The staff already offered to come to our offices to offer assistance. I’ve already worked with the staff, so this territory isn’t totally unknown. Editor has too much leave time and has to use some of that because he can’t get paid for all of it (red tape sigh) so he’ll be gone for two weeks after the December paper comes out. During that time I’ll collect stories so that when he returns we can plop them into the paper, and he can show me how to do it.

When my supervisor and I had our first meeting we talked about the paper until he acknowledged, “But we’re not here to talk about that.” I said I hadn’t done the job in decades “but just can’t seem to keep my fingers out of that pie” (I still do stories for the paper). He commented, “Yeah, when ink gets in your blood, you can’t wash it out.”

In that first meeting, considering that we traveled in many of the same circles, he said he thought he may have already met me; I said no, but his paper printed the articles I sent him about NAGPRA issues “so I knew you were a smart man”.

I even knew he met his first wife through dancing; he was the head man dancer at a dance where she was the head lady dancer. I was at that dance. I didn’t mention that - I did say she was his first wife. She started the newspaper with him but there is now a different Mrs. Smart Man.

I don’t even know how I know all this.

I’m energized by this - I liked working on the paper, but the politics, low wages, too many hours, and working holidays and weekends killed any possibility that I would ever do it again as my permanent job. But I like working on the newspaper on a temporary basis.

I like Smart Man, and working on the paper together would be fun - “like old times!” he said. We still have our regular jobs, which can be frustrating sometimes, but doing the paper would be a welcome respite.

Temporarily!!!!