My journalism journey part 33

After a rough departure from Aberdeen, I rested overnight in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and headed out Sunday with plans to stop in Franklin Park, Illinois, to stay with my mom overnight. She was happy to see me; not so happy to see the cats. But I let them out in the room with the litter box, put ou****er and food for them and closed the door. They were just happy to be out of the car for the night.

The next morning, I got up for breakfast and didn't plan to leave until after rush hour. I watched "Good Morning America" and learned one of my favorite singers, John Denver, had died in a plane crash the previous day. I remembered I had seen Denver perform in Billings, Montana, one year. I was sick with diarrhea that day as I drove and had to make several stops, but thanks to Imodium, I was able to enjoy the concert. And now there were three people I had seen in concert who were dead: Harry Chapin, Steve Goodman and John Denver.

So I got the cats back in their carriers, my suitcase back in the car and after 9 a.m. we were back on the road to Macon, Georgia. It was an overcast day and already starting to drizzle when I left mom's home (my childhood home). The Triple A Trip-Tiks (which is how you got places before GPS) sent me down U.S. 41. Funny, I would be going this way later in my career.

I would have loved to stop and see some places along the way: George Rogers Clark National Historical Park in Vincennes, Indiana, for example. But it was pouring rain as I drove through these areas, and I could hardly see the road at times. I stopped along the way for lunch when it got too bad. Eventually, I turned off around Nashville for the night because my stuff wouldn't get to Macon until a couple of days, so I might as well take my time.

I dragged the cats up to the second floor in this one Days Inn outside Nashville; at least someone helped me and got me a cart to haul up the suitcase, cats, litter box, etc. The next day, I had to do it all over again and bring them down to the car. It would be nice when I could stay in one place.

 As I neared Nashville, I ran into traffic. Turns out there was an accident. That wound up getting me in late to Macon and I missed getting into my apartment that day - we arrived after 5 p.m. and the office was closed, so I had to stay at a motel. There was a LaQuinta Inn across the road that accepted pets, so we stayed there and one of the front desk people got me a cart and helped me get my luggage to the room (at least they had an elevator). They also had free popcorn and a breakfast buffet in the morning. It has been several years and I don't know if the place is still as nice, but I would recommend that LaQuinta Inn.

The next day, after chowing down at the breakfast buffet, I packed up and headed over to my new home. The apartment complex wasn't too far away. I got there not long after it opened, brought the kitties inside with me after I told the leasing clerk about them in the car and we dispatched with signing the lease. Then we went over to the apartment.

Later that day, I would learn my stuff wouldn't be delivered until the next day. So I'd spend one day sleeping on the floor. I told my new boss, Alan Gibson, about that, and he said the paper could put me up at the hotel where I stayed when I interviewed. But then the cats would be alone. So I spent the night in the apartment on the floor listening to music and reading with the cats.

Alan did take me out to lunch with some of my new colleagues to welcome me to the area. I was enjoying some Southern hospitality already.

My first couple of weeks at work was spent in training. I already knew how to use QuarkXpress, which was the Telegraph's pagination program. But I had to learn their database and writing program, so I could edit and transfer the stories over to Quark. We wouldn't get a pagination/database system for another year. It would be called DTI/Pagespeed.

I got along well with my new coworkers. I sat between two women, Ella and Jackie, who were the black. Ella was a very interesting woman. She contracted polio as a very young child and was in the hospital as an infant. Of course, it was the black hospital because Georgia was segregated at the time. While in the hospital, a deadly tornado ripped through the area. Her parents were killed. She was brought up by her grandmother. Ella was picked as the March of Dimes child one year and some in Georgia, of course, weren't happy.

Jackie also was an interesting person. She had been a paste-up person but when the paper started paginating, she was going to be out of a job. She learned to paginate. At times, the wire editor who gave her work would stand there and spell things out for her instead of just giving her the page as he did for me as if she couldn't do the job. But Jackie knew her stuff.

Then there was John, who liked to talk like a pirate. "Let's edit like a pirate," he'd say. Or, "Let's edit like Elvis." He'd keep us laughing.

Jenny Gordon did obits as well as some other pages. I got to be good friends with her, and she helped out with cat sitting when I went home to Chicago.

One night, after we had gotten PageSpeed and were working on the night's work, the system suddenly went down at about 7 p.m. We were a morning paper, so this wasn't good. Plus, we had a 10 p.m. edition to put out. Well, it turned out the DTI people in Utah thought it was a good time to update the system. Because it was in December, some of us went out to look at Christmas decorations. The system went back up at about 9:30 p.m., and we hustled to get out the first edition.

And of course, now I had time to get to know my new cousin, Doug Briesch. I learned Doug used a wheelchair because of a childhood illness. We went to movies and dinner together. We both liked science fiction movies (Star Wars and Star Trek) and sports, and he liked my cats. Any guy who likes cats is a winner. And we got to Turner Field for a baseball game. Another thing about that game: Andruw Jones of the Braves was pulled from the game when he didn't hustle.

I moved into a former editor's house after a year at the apartment. She was moving to a new job and didn't want to sell the house yet. The house was great. It had two big bedrooms, a Jacuzzi and walk-in shower, a screened-in porch, a fireplace and built-in bookcase and built-in cabinets in the dining room. I loved the house. So did the cats. They'd beg to go on the porch.

Not long after I got to Macon, Kittle was diagnosed with diabetes. It took awhile, but I got his blood sugar near normal as I learned to give him insulin shots and learned to check his blood sugar. The first veterinarian I went to didn't want me to test his blood sugar myself; she said I could damage his ears (I took the blood from his ear tip). The second vet was OK with my testing; he said it was probably better if I did it. Kittle got used to it and would even purr when I did it. His blood sugar went down from 600-plus to 150. He even caught a gecko (or some kind of lizard) crawling around the living room bookcases. I always said it was a newt (hey, we were in Georgia ... you know, Newt Gingrich).

I was in Georgia a year and a half and I noticed most of the longtime writers and editors at the Telegraph were leaving. That didn't bode well for the paper. Plus, my landlady, Audrey Post, who owned the house, now wanted to sell the house to Alan. And he wanted to move in right away. So I thought if I had to move, maybe I should get a new job. So I started looking.

My mom and Aunt Bernice were down visiting me around my birthday in April, and I was getting phone calls from papers. I had several phone interviews. I don't ever remember being so wanted in my career. One evening, after driving them back to their hotel, I got a call from Andy Angelo from the Grand Rapids Press. Of all the calls I had, this one was the best.

 I might be on the move again.