More Stories of the Paper

During the first few months I was at the News Messenger our Editor moved on to another paper. Stacey began interviewing to fill the position; I was honored and a bit surprised when she actually asked my opinion on a couple of the potential candidates. We both agreed on one of the last interviewees, his name was Troy. Troy was awesome and a great addition to the office, he was also a bit of a risk taker at times. I don't think it was because he was actually seeking to take risks; sometimes he just reacted and did what needed to be done. 

One morning as we were busy working, and not too long after the Oklahoma City Bombing we heard an explosion just outside of our office. We all ran to the door to see what happened. There was a car parked in front of the bank next to us and it was on fire. There was a woman in the car trying to get out. Troy ran out of our office and helped the woman get out. Once she was out of the car, which was still in gear, the flaming car began to roll across the street headed for the busy Barber Shop. Troy, jumped into the car, threw it in park and jumped out stopping the car in the middle of the street before it could reach the barber shop. The Fire Department showed up at that moment and took over, but not without first telling Troy not to ever do anything like that again! 

Richard, our Outside Sales Rep and I were standing at the door, Troy walked in and the first words out of his mouth were, "DO NOT tell my wife about this!" They were expecting their first child and I am pretty sure that although her husband did a very heroic thing, would not have been pleased about the chance he took! 

Even though Lincoln was a pretty small town we had our share of excitement, sometimes good and a lot of times not so good. 

Our office was one of several along Main Street; the buildings were rustic brick with some great old architecture. Our section of buildings contained the local café, and a bank. Across the street were various businesses with a beautiful courtyard in between the section of buildings. One block down on the other side of the street was another bank; just around the corner across the street was our Police Department.

Of course being the only local paper we had a police scanner in our office. One afternoon we heard a call go out about the bank down the block being robbed! Troy went running out of the office, without his camera and headed to the bank. There was a man inside the bank holding hostages by shotgun. Richard and I stood at the door and watched him run across the street headed for the bank. At the same time we both noticed he had forgotten his camera. I told Richard, you should take him his camera to which he replied, “I don’t think so, you take it to him.” Before we finished the conversation, Troy came running back into the office to grab his camera. We could hear on the scanner the police had the building surrounded and were trying to talk the man out without hurting anyone.

I asked Troy if he thought it was safe for him to be going back over there. This was going to be another, “don’t tell my wife about this!”

A couple minutes later Richard standing at the window says, “Hey Cindy isn’t that your son running this way?” I looked out and her came my youngest son Chris running through the courtyard heading for the office. He was white as a sheet! He was about 10 years old at the time.

He ran into the office and I asked him, “What is wrong?” He kept saying, “Mom we didn’t know he was really going to do it, I’m sorry mom we should have gone to the police. “We didn’t think he was really going to do it!” I asked him what on earth he was talking about.

He proceeded to tell me that he and a couple of his friends were walking down the street, this guy who was holding the hostages happened to be related to one of the kids Chris was with. He was drunk and told the boys he was going to rob the bank and showed them the shotgun. He had also told him he didn’t care if he got out alive.

Apparently this guy had just recently gotten out of jail, found out he had cancer and his life had not been going too good. My first thought was for the people in the bank. If this guy didn’t care anything could happen.

Chris was terrified and thought he was going to be in trouble because they didn’t tell anyone what this guy was going to do. It wasn’t long between the time he showed them the gun and then walked into the bank.

It took them close to an hour to talk this guy out, and thank God he gave up and no one was hurt. The police chief told Troy they were gonna have to give him his own bullet proof vest if he didn’t stop doing stuff like this!

I told Troy when he came back into the office what Chris had told me, he talked to one of the officers and they asked Chris if he would identify the man. I thought they would have him identify him from a distance, you know like they show in the movies! However to my complete dismay the officer told Chris to come over to the car they had the guy cuffed and sitting in. He opened the door, so the guy could see Chris and asked Chris if this was the guy who told him he was going to rob the bank.

I couldn’t hear what exactly the guy was saying to Chris, all I could think was are you serious??? You put a little boy in front of a man who just held people at gun point and you want him to indentify him for you? The officer told the man to keep his mouth shut and stop talking to Chris; a little late considering Chris was already scared to death.  Chris of course had to say yes it was him.

For the next few weeks Chris was worried because apparently a couple of people had made some threats against him a few days later as he was walking home. I told the police chief and he said I shouldn’t be too concerned because Chris wouldn’t be called to testify or anything because the guy plead guilty ...alrighty then easy for you to say it’s not your child that is terrified right now!

Such is life in a small town I guess. 

My Newspaper Years

There are times like the last couple of days when I just feel like writing something, yet seem to be unable to focus on just one thing. With so many things going on in the world and in my family trying to narrow down one subject can be impossible. I have always seemed to get "inspired" in the middle of the night but have decided getting up at 2 a.m. just isn't something I want to do now.  

I use to work at a weekly newspaper when I lived in California. I loved that job, I learned so many things about newspapers, and how they are put together, although 15 years later I'm sure it's a lot more technically advanced than it was. We use to lay the paper out by hand, printing the editorial stuff, the photos and the advertisements. Each piece was laid out on boards in the back of our office, headlines were measured and placed, and all content was laid out before us. Each person in our small office was responsible to proof all copy. The more eyes on it the better usually. If someone missed a mistake chances are the next person looking at it would find it. Although there were a few times mistakes were missed.  

We had a New baby section, Obituaries section, Engagement and wedding section and a Police Report section. The last one always seemed to generate phone calls from people who had been arrested or the family members of those arrested, calling to complain and in a few instances make personal threats against our Editor or our entire staff. It did make for some exciting times, well maybe exciting isn't the appropriate word.  

One week when everyone was exhausted from trying to meet our deadline, I walked into the office to open up as was my routine. The answering machine was loaded with message, not usually a good sign. Apparently our graphics art/photographer placed the Obit headline over a Birth announcement! Not good! We of course apologized and then gave the family a quarter page birth announcement to make up for it. 

When I got the job at the paper, which was called "The Lincoln News Messenger", I had not worked in about 10 years. I had been busy raising kids and four years of that time was when we lived at the Cabin. I had just recently learned to type and work with word processing programs. When we had moved to Lincoln, Ca I had read the local paper once or twice but thought it was kind of wimpy; meaning it at that time was mostly fluff news. Anyway, on one of the days I had bought the paper I decided to check out the classified section. There was a help wanted ad for receptionist at the paper. I decided what the heck I'll apply and see what happens. At the time I really needed a job because my husband at the time worked seasonal and had drug addiction issues so we needed the money. 

I applied and got called in for an interview. The Publisher at the time was Stacy, I met with her and the then Editor Ellen. (I think that was her name). They asked me how fast I could type and then why I wanted the job and why I should get the job. I told them I had always wanted to work at a newspaper, that I would be a hard worker, learned things quickly and would be a loyal employee. They asked me to type up a small classified ad and then print it. Because I had just learned Microsoft word I had no problem remembering how to print. What threw me was I did not know the printer was in the back of the office so when I hit print I thought I had done it wrong..lol Stacy told me months later that the reason I got the job was because out of all the people they interviewed I was the ONLY one who knew how to print!

Stacy told me they would like to offer me the position but that I should know what the job actually entailed first. I would be responsible for typing up and proofing classified ads, answering the phones, helping to proof editorial copy, enter subscribers into the data base, make some inside sales for display advertising, making deposits, and helping with the paper layout on Tuesday evenings to get the paper off to the printer by Wednesday morning for Thursday's delivery. I was also responsible for measuring the advertisement versus editorial content on Thursday mornings to determine cost of postage for the papers that were mailed out. A paper has to have a certain percentage of advertising in relation to editorial content. 

At first I thought, wow can I actually handle all this? But then I decided OK if the good Lord allowed me to get this job then He knows I can handle it, and if He knows I can handle it, then I can handle it. Stacy told me I would start the next morning, which just happened to be Tuesday, deadline day.  As we were walking into the office that morning Stacy told me she hoped I was not offended by swearing but Tuesdays were pretty crazy and I would probably hear quite a bit. I told her, "no it doesn't bother me". I mean I had a husband who was a truck driver and had a horrible mouth! 

She was not kidding about the language that flew through the office that morning! It was crazy but incredibly interesting to watch them all work. My job that first morning was to make sure they were not disturbed while they were getting the paper together, especially the editor. I was also told to make sure anything that came over the fax machine was priority because there were display adds coming from the graphics department of our parent paper that needed to be proofed and if needed corrected. 

It was pretty exciting. It was also pretty stressful at times. Like I said the police reports usually brought a few threats sometimes of a lawsuit, which there was no leg to stand on because arrest reports are public information, and occasionally we or I should say our editor got a couple of death threats or threats of violence. 

I was employed at the News Messenger for four years, during those four years I learned almost every aspect of getting out a local paper. I added to my job description taking occasional photographs, writing a column once in a while, inside and outside sales for special insert features, I covered a City Hall meeting, did the "man on the street" column and photos and got to be pretty good at the whole manual lay-out of the paper. By the time I left four years later that aspect was gone and it was all done by computer along with every body that had originally worked there when I started. 

I loved Stacy, she was an awesome person and a great boss. Because my self-esteem was so low at that time, which is pretty common when you have been in an abusive marriage for 10 or 12 years, I was terrified of making a mistake! I just knew the first mistake would find me unemployed. 

I had been there a few weeks, Stacy had shown me how to measure ads and briefly went over the cost per inch as well as how to determine the cost of running an ad for a period of time. Display ads were sold by inch whereas classifieds were sold based on work count. Anyway, I was a lone in the office one afternoon and a customer came in. He was actually a repeat customer who was already familiar with how things worked. He asked me to give him some pricing on a display ad he wanted to place. I told him Stacy was not in the office and I was very new at doing this type of thing. He insisted I try to figure it out for him because he was in a hurry. I measured out the size ad he would need and told him what I thought the cost was, I also told him I did not know how accurate it was and that he really needed to talk to Stacy before we did the ad. He kept insisting so I wrote it up and took the order. When Stacy got back I told Stacy about the order she looked it over and I had seriously under charged the guy. She had to call him back and tell him we would not do the ad for that price. She was more irritated with the man who placed the ad because he knew what I told him wasn't correct but thought he could get away with it. I thought for sure I was going to be fired! 

After Stacy got off I told her how sorry I was and that I had tried to explain to the guy I was not sure about what I was telling him. All she said to me was, " Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, and you F---ed up, just don't do it again." That was all she said. I was thinking wow...she didn't fire me. Working there had a huge affect on helping me overcome my insecurity and low opinion of myself. Everyone in our office was supportive of one another and more than willing to help and teach me whatever I showed interest in learning. And I was interested in learning EVERYTHING! 

My Little Kissy Face

 Kellen is growing so quickly. It's hard to believe he is going to be two in a couple months. 


He talks up a storm, we may not always know what he is saying, but he does so it's OK. Although he is learning words very quickly. 


It was so much fun spending two weeks in Indy recently. The last week we were there I got to take care of Kellen for the week instead of him going to Daycare. I had a blast! 

He is so much fun now. He has the most amazing smile, although he has always had that. He blows kisses and gives hugs. There is nothing better than getting a hug from a little one especially when it's their idea. 

I taught him to say, bye bye see ya...it's so cute when he does it. He of course already knew bye bye but the see ya part was new. He is so expressive in his facial expressions, his mannerisms and even attitude. 

He loves to be outside. Every morning one of the first things he would do would be to go to the front door and say outside. Then he would go to where all the shoes are and start trying to put a pair on so he could go outside! Playing in his little pirate ship pool is one of his favorite things to do outside. Although he usually insists on having someone sit in the pool with him. 

I was wondering how Kellen and Maggie would get along, they were buddies in March when Kellen spent a couple weeks with us. It took a little while for Maggie to settle down enough but a few days before we were ready to leave, they once again became buddies. 

It's interesting to watch Kellen and Maggie grow and change over the months. Puppies and kids are a lot alike in that respect. Each month brings something new and exciting in their personality and expressions. 

I'll be spending a couple weeks in Indy watching Kellen while his mommy and daddy are on vacation. I won't be taking Maggie though because with Kellen's two huskies it would be just too much work. But I plan on having a blast with my little Kissy Face. I can't wait to see what changes have taken place between now and October. 


Every time I spend time with Kellen I always remember to thank the Lord for the miracle of his becoming part of our family. He is such a blessing to all of us and a true testament of the love of God for us. 

Maggie Meets Booker and Fritz

Maggie and Fritz

Perfect pose

Checkin each other out

A moment of calm

They look like they would be best friends..but not really! 

Maggie wants a hug

Let's play Fritz

Do you like me?? 

We spent two weeks at Sarah's, it was Maggie's first road trip. She actually did pretty well on the more than five hour drive. I was excited to have her meet Booker and Fritz, wondering how she would do and how they would accept her.

It took over a week before Booker quit trying to pounce on her, and not in a good way. Once I started paying more attention to Booker he seemed to become less jealous and a bit more accepting of Maggie.

Fritz and Maggie became friends, which is probably because Fritz is two years older than Booker and a bit more mellow. 

Maggie's First Road Trip

I took Maggie on a road trip to Indianapolis a few months ago where she got to meet her 'cousins' Booker and Fritz. She actually did great on the five hour trip, although not sure I would want to do it very often. 

It took a few days for her and the boys to get to know each other, and eventually her and Fritz became buddies. Booker...not so much!