Missing ‘Time on the Water’

Several men wet their lines in the Fox River near Slade Avenue Park in Elgin, Illinois, as the sun sets on July 9, 2014. | Credit: Ted Schnell

Sometimes the things that matter require sacrifice.

Some may scoff, but I have found that fishing is a spiritual activity in many respects.

Just as water is a focal point for life, a lake or river that is habitable to fish and other aquatic life is a focal point for the beauty of God’s creation. The reflections and the motion of the waves have an allure that is almost hypnotic, demanding inward reflection that can bring clarity to clouded thoughts, peace to troubled minds, comfort to broken hearts. Such is has been my experience when fishing, times I have used as much as for prayer as for pleasure.

I have not been fishing since late summer or fall in 2010, just a few scant months before my first layoff in late 2010.

It's not just news, it's people

Second layoff likely means —30— for journalism career

It was 2:30 in the morning on a late summer day in 1985 or ’86, I think, when the call came. The Carbon County Fair was in full swing in Rawlins, Wyo. that week, and until a tragic incident the prior afternoon, I had been tasked to “cover the fair.”

Instead, I was called away to cover a standoff in which a mentally ill man ended up being shot by police when he attempted to use a large knife to attack an officer. Authorities would not discuss the incident with another reporter at the paper, and my boss hoped I would have more success. And I did.

“Where do you get off writing stuff like this? You made my brother look like a criminal,” the caller said. The raw emotion in his voice was thick with anger, but also, I felt, with anguish. I recall imagining vividly that there must have been tears in his eyes as he talked.

“No, I don’t make anyone look like a criminal,” I responded, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and trying to keep my voice low so my wife, who had answered the call, could get back to sleep. “He did that himself. I accurately reported what happened.”

Maligned media, Part 2: The truth will out, but it can take time

Sometimes they shoot the messenger.

It’s an expression related to the idea of killing off the bearer of unwelcome tidings — as if the messenger really is to blame for unwanted or bad news.

To be clear, as I noted in Maligned media, Part 1 of this missive, sometimes the negative perception of the media is justified, such

Maligned media, Part 1: Sometimes the negative perception is justified

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Journalists often are a maligned lot.

I would blame some of that on the nature of the work we do, particularly in competitive markets or when a big news story breaks in a small town, drawing hordes of journalists.

In our most visible

Hospitals can be symbols of peace, great joy — and sometimes dread

For me, it’s kind of like water.

Gentle waves lapping at the shore can have a deliciously calming effect, instilling a feeling of peace and relaxation, a salve to the raw nerves of a tense day.

There are heroes among us: Meet Sgt. Tom Linder

For as long as I remember — perhaps it was growing up with John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart as TV staples, or Clint Eastwood, either as Dirty Harry Callahan or the gun-slinging cowboy — I wanted to be the hero, someone’s knight in shining armor riding in at the last minute to save the day.

Seeing possibilities again

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An apartment in the reddish-pink stucco house at 606 W. Cedar St., Rawlins, Wyo., was the first home my wife, Lisa, and I shared as husband and wife, the first place that we, as a couple, called home.

Confessions from prison

Back when I did time in Rawlins

 

(Vinícius Sgarbe | stock.xchng vi)

It had been less than two years since I had graduated from college with a journalism degree, and already I was in trouble.

I was about to take a seat in the empty bleachers of the recreation building of the Wyoming State Penitentiary. Nervously, I wondered about the road that had brought me to this.

Time out to mark a milestone

Happy 50^th anniversary, Guy and Pat Schreck

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I’ve dedicated this blog to writing about some tough times of late, but also, I think, trying to maintain a degree of optimism about the future of this profession I’ve called my vocation for nearly 28 years.

Today I take a break to celebrate, albeit from a distance — 1,203 miles, to be as precise as Google maps can be. I am in Elgin, Ill., and Lisa, the woman I married, has driven all those miles with our five children to be with her parents, Guy and Pat Schreck, on this very special day, Aug. 5, 2011.

Path of least resistance

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I do not think I am being cynical when I say that people, generally, are like electricity – we follow the path of least resistance.

 

This can be an amazing trait, because in many respects it helps us function more efficiently. We follow the rules or expectations laid out before us by law or societal perceptions of right and wrong behavior.

Can't turn a blind eye to this

If you have ever heard the expression, “turn a blind eye to …,” then perhaps you are familiar with its meaning, which several online dictionaries define as deliberately disobeying or ignoring unpopular orders.

The idiom has its roots in a rather humorous incident, if the United Kingdom-based website The Phrase Finder is correct. It attributes the expression to Admiral Horatio Nelson, the British Navy legend who was blind in one eye.

“The times they are a-changin’ ”

It’s not news – Bob Dylan wrote in the early 1960s that “The times they are a changin’.”

I got my start in community journalism in late 1983, the same year the woman who I would marry about nine months later first smiled at me and stole my heart from across a typesetting machine in the newsroom of a small newspaper, the Rawlins Daily Times in south-central Wyoming.

Encouragement in tragic memory

Sometimes, over the years, you lose track of people. We all do it, some more so than others: Folks we once were close to vanish into our pasts, separated first by distance, later by time.

Then, suddenly, from seemingly out of nowhere, their memory erupts fresh into your mind again, and you pause to regret losing touch, to rue the loss of that fellowship and friendship that once seemed so close.

Perhaps, as has been the case with me in recent years, the regret at losing contact is a result of middle age, when some of us look back at what could have been but wasn’t and wonder if the decisions so confidently made so many years ago were indeed the right ones.

More lessons from Main Street

You can't write a blog post suggesting a radical approach to revitalizing an industry without expecting some flack, and yet several days after suggesting that the national Main Street Program's four-point approach to bringing new life to downtowns also might work well for the newspaper industry, I have yet to hear a single response.

Not even a “Ted, what were you thinking?”

That surprises me for several reasons, not the least being that my March 23 post (“Lessons for newspapers from Main Street”) was the third most-read of my blog posts, behind “When your best ain't good enough,” which actually was my second most-read post since I started this blog on Dec. 14 My first post, “First stunned, then pain and grief,” in which I chronicled my layoff, continues to be the best-read post I've ever had.

I am grateful to you who jump on to read my posts. “Laid off at 51: Seeking joy in change” has been far more successful than I would have expected just in terms of page views over the past three months or so.

But it can be difficult to gauge impact. Few people add their own comments to my individual posts, fewer still send e-mails with their thoughts. And I'm surprised that at least a few copy editors haven't written to point out the typos that occur from time to time (any editor worth his salt will admit that perhaps the biggest challenge is editing his own work because he knows what he was trying to write and therefore is likely to skate right past mistakes without recognizing them).

Lessons for newspapers from Main Street

Over my years as a journalist, I've covered many events, both as a reporter and as an editor, that resonated within me, personally.

That was true again on Tuesday night as I covered a meeting at which the Downtown Neighborhood Association in Elgin, Ill., gathered with residents and business representatives to continue their look at ways of revitalizing the city's downtown, including battling the lingering perceptions some have about the area and how to combat them.

It occurs to me that what this group is trying to address has interesting parallels that newspaper industry leaders might pause to consider.

Age discrimination concerns, tough choices and the WIA

As part of my search, I am also having to come to grips with the possibility that the news industry may not have any room for a guy with my well-established skills but who may not be as tech-savvy -- or as cheap -- as the budding journalist right out of college.

Age discrimination is illegal but darned near impossible to prove in the job-search market. It's difficult to hide the practice in the workplace because people -- employees -- notice patterns, and sooner or later, someone will blow the whistle. No company wants to risk the financial liabilities associated with any kind of discrimination lawsuit.

But in the job market it can happen and no one is the wiser.

Job applicants send in resumes and cover letters, or fill out forms on a website, and all too frequently never hear anything back. Most, like me, assume their experience or qualifications just did not stack up against others among the myriad resumes employers find themselves sifting through in this economy. What many of us do not consider is that we may be giving ourselves away with a resume that show 27 years of experience, for example, or a college graduation date.