Death notice on Tuesday

Too many of us, when we accomplish what we set out to do, exclaim, 'See what I have done!' instead of saying, 'See where I have been led.'

Henry Ford

Monday I got to work late. Then when I got there I had to edit an article about DUP that I had written. I had given TOO much information. Although it is true, Kelly (Mickelsen, the publisher) doesn't want the whole world to know. I have found that so often in journalism. You never tell the whole story.

Anyway, our cell phone bill was past due & Nick was stressing over paying his car loans & credit card bill. I took a lunch break about 4 o'clock & actually took .9 hour. There just wasn't time to take that long, especially on a Monday with an 18 page paper. I was trying to pay Verizon & help Nick with his payments. Thank goodness Nick was here & could take over when I went in to overload. I got back to work & things were just skimming along. I had to check something online & while I was online I decided to check Facebook.

I don't know what possessed me. I NEVER check my online communities at work. But ... Facebook is new & fascinating. We run MacOS 9.1, most internet communities don't even support 9.1, it is too out dated. I COULDN'T log out. Finally, in desperation, I called Amy (Peck, my job share partner). She said she just logged out. Well, I couldn't find anyplace to log out. She told me to close Mozilla. I had done that & then opened Mozilla again & checked Facebook to see if it had logged me out, I was still logged in. OMG! I was in a nervous sweat, which is why I called Amy. I closed Mozilla again & again opened it & checked Facebook. I was out. I don't know how much time that ate up, too much.

By the time I noticed the time again, it was 10 o'clock. I'm supposed to be out of there by 8 p.m. I looked at that last page & KNEW it was going to take time. I really didn't want to come back in Tuesday morning for ONE page. But, on the other hand, I didn't want to stay any later. I was hungry & tired.

I went home & just missed Don-Mike. He had already gone home. I wanted to find out how his day at Big J's had gone.

I went in to work Tuesday morning & was working on page 12, the sports page. It was awkward. By the time I made the needed corrections, I had a hole at the bottom of the page & not enough room at the top. I really didn't want to rearrange the page, but I knew if it were just flip-flopped & the picture cut down to a 2 column picture instead of 3 column, everything would fit better. I was just finishing, still didn't look great, but hey, 2 hours of fighting that page was 2 hours too many. It should have just taken half an hour.

About this time, Kelly came out of his office & asked about the Roley death notice. I said, "What death notice? We didn't get a death notice." He said, "It's from Dayton. I thought we'd have it." Roley? I asked how old the guy was, wondering if it was Zach Kent's friend, Jonathan Roley. He said he was 20. I asked if it was Jonathan, he said he didn't know, he thought it was Jon. So, I got up & went in his office & we looked at the death notice in The Herald Journal. Yes, it was Jonathan, but the name at the top was Jon Roley, & Webb Funeral Home was handling the funeral arrangements. I said we hadn't received it. But, I really didn't know if we had or not, I hadn't checked the email. I was so focused on getting the paper done & that last page out of my way. I checked, nothing new since the day before.

I sat there at the computer, still trying to get that last article to fit so it didn't look too stretched out. As I sat there, I started thinking about all the times that we've fought a page & something like this has happened. So, I gave in. I got up, called Webb Funeral Home & Ron (Smellie) answered. I asked if he had a death notice he needed to give me. He said yes, but they didn't get finished with the family until 6 the night before & he said he commented they had missed The Citizen deadline. I said yes, they had, but we could usually fit something in. He said he thought the paper would be finished. I said normally it was, but I had just spent 2 hours on a page & had opened up enough space for a death notice. I told him to just give me the information & I could finish the paper. He said he could give me the funeral arrangements now. They hadn't had the information to give The Herald Journal. So, I took the funeral information, put the death notice in & the paper was done.

I am still humbled every time it happens. It might sound like I'm bragging, but I think it is SOOO cool, I still have to tell it. Like, "Look what the Lord did!" It just amazes me that I can be an instrument in His hands. It's been quite a while since it has happened & I truly was not thinking about opening a space for a death notice. I was thinking that Kelly has told me one of my big failings is being too picky about style. I was trying to get past the OCD & just let the page go. It still didn't hit me until I sat down at the computer again. Even then, I tried to argue myself out of it, but it just wouldn't go away. It was almost with resignation I stood up & called.

There were several pages that needed corrections. The biggest failing was dates on each page. Another big error was caused by my hearing loss, sigh. But it was caught, a headline on the front page that had jumped to the photo journal page.

I do the legal notices also. One time a friend had warned me that they were being foreclosed on for their house. She didn't want me to get it & be surprised. So, I came in one day & I stood there at the desk looking through the inbox. I said, "I knew this legal was coming." Jessi (Holt, my supervisor) looked up & said, "Are you being warned about legals now?" I laughed & said no, my friend had warned me.