My journalism journey Part 35

I gave my two weeks' notice and began to prepare my move to Grand Rapids, Michigan. In the meantime, my coworker, Alan Gibson, was preparing to close on the house in which I lived. He was closing May 24 and planned to move in May 25. I hoped to be out of there by May 25. It was cutting it close.

I decided on the movers this time, and they were awesome. Two packers came by May 24 to pack everything. The two men were there at 8 a.m. and left at 5 p.m. By the time they were done, nearly everything I had was in boxes and marked well. I was ready to go the next morning.

The next day, the moving van was there bright and early. All my stuff was packed on the van by 3:30 p.m. and we were ready to leave. Alan came by to check out the place and get the keys, and the kitties and I were in the car headed north by 5 p.m. We had gone a block when Kittle threw up in the cat carrier. "Sorry, buddy, but we're not stopping for awhile. You're just going to have to hang on for awhile," I told Kittle. He meowed back at me, clearly distressed by having to make yet another move and in a now soiled carrier.

As I headed north, I got confused going through Atlanta and wound up going through downtown instead of taking the bypass. So I was stuck in rush hour traffic for a good long time. As night fell, and I got through the mess of Atlanta traffic, I started to look for a place to stop. Obviously, so did Kittle, who pooped in his carrier. So now I smelled vomit and poop in the car. Pulling over became even more desperate.

I finally found a gas station that had restrooms with entrances on the outside. I got the key and took Kittle inside with me and let him out, cleaning out the carrier, then wiping off his butt and paws. It wasn't perfect, but at least he didn't smell anymore.

I wanted to get to Chattanooga, but that didn't seem possible. So instead, I stopped just past Atlanta, at a small motel where I could pull up to the door. I got the cats settled and then looked for some food. It would be an early morning on the road.

The next morning, we hit the road again, getting somewhere into Kentucky for the day. It was a short day on my last leg to get into Michigan and up to Grand Rapids. I contacted Andy Angelo, my new boss, who had told me to check into the Residence Inn and then call him. Well, when I got to the hotel, I found out I was going to be charged a pet deposit. So that really concerned me. I didn't have that money after spending most of my money to travel north. Andy assured me the paper was taking care of the pet deposit. That was a load off my mind.

The room was great. I had a nice bed and a sliding glass door that looked to the outdoors (but wouldn't be opened). Kittle and Cinnamon enjoyed watching the birds and other creatures. I also had a couch in front of the TV and a small kitchen so I could cook and eat at my "home" instead of always have to eat out.

On Saturday, I met with an apartment search company, and the listing agent helped me find some places to look for my new home. I went to Beckwith Place Apartments, a complex on the East Side of Grand Rapids, for my first look. Along the way, I learned about Michigan left turns. In Grand Rapids, you make a legal "U" turn past where you'd make a left turn, then you turn right. If the leasing agent hadn't told me, I wouldn't have understood.

I like Beckwith Place; there was no pet rent unlike many other places. I was renting a second-floor apartment, which I would regret as my knees deteriorated. But at that point, it would be good enough for a place to put my stuff when it came up from Georgia.

Andy invited me for lunch on Monday, and we discussed how things had gone so far and what would happen in the coming weeks. I would go through some training when I started before I got into working on the desk.

My stuff came on Tuesday, and then I spent a lot of time unpacking and putting stuff away. I swear, I have never been totally unpacked since I moved to Grand Rapids. I am still finding things in boxes moved from Macon even now.

The following week, I began my training. Over the years, I have trained on so many systems. The first system I used as a part-timer on a newspaper in Oak Park was obsolete the day they started using it. It was an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) system, where you typed on special paper using a special Selectric typewriter ball (people my age will remember those; youngsters, look it up). Then you took the paper and fed it into a reader that spit out the type. Bad system and, as I said, obsolete very quickly.

Fast-forward to 1999 and pagination. This system was made by Harris and I learned quickly nobody liked it. I would soon learn why. Over the years using Harris, it was tweaked and got a little better. But it was never great and usually caused problems. But while I was training, I got the hang of it fairly quickly.

My last couple of days, I got to do some actual pages and worked with Dan Hawkins, the wire editor. Dan was very intelligent and had a droll kind of wit but I liked him immediately and we hit it off right away. I did an advance wire page for him and he gave me some clues as to what this paper liked, so I made changes and noted in my mind what to do and what not to do.

The Press was an afternoon paper, so when I did start working, I was getting in at 6 a.m., to start. That's when I worked "the rim," basically the worker bees who did the inside pages. Dan, as wire editor, was the first in at 4 a.m., checking the wire budget to see what had happened overnight, what the top stories were, assigning stories to pages, etc. The local editor, Scott Langford, was in next, followed by the front-page editor, Tom Nowak, and the person doing the jump page. Then everyone else followed at 6 a.m.

Over the years, I did just about every page. When I started there, the business page was done overnight, but that changed, and then I did the business pages. Eventually, I even did some sports pages. It was a lot of variety during the early morning hours for several years before our schedule changed.

These years were among the happiest of my life. I felt fulfilled and appreciated. I worked with very talented people who felt I belonged there, which did wonders for my self-esteem issues. I loved the Grand Rapids area: it was metro enough but not overly large. And it was four hours from the Chicago area, not a long drive to get home to see my family.

I wanted to stay there and put down roots. I bought a condo even, showing this was where I wanted to retire.

So what happened? Somehow I was forced to move on. But more on that later.