You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
Drowning and Indians, in the colonial era.
Remember, though, that was from the English settlers’ point of view, and nearly every family was affected.
There are no records from the Indigenous people’s perspective, as far as I know. We are told, however, that diseases imported from Europe took a heavy toll. Just for starters.
The year 1979 opened with more unsettlement than I’ve recalled.
11 Jan
All-day session yesterday in the downstairs conference room. I’m feeling depressed as a result. The day news editor situation hasn’t been working out as well as I had hoped. JMack’s feeling overworked, night rim’s complaining about all the copy, everybody’s p.o.’d about my “planning time. In addition, Wallace is upset about “lines of authority,” i.e. I don’t speak to Spuler and my use of the artist to do TV mag covers. If we took an attitude survey right now, we’d be in trouble on the news desk.
So much of what we — not just me? — do these days is divorced from any larger context: meaningless work for corporations or other exploiters: no character or expression of the divine: no wholeness.
Are articles unnecessary baggage? Belcher’s “the weather” reduced to “wear,” after taking all the “the” out.
Whiz, over beers after work:
“You think you and Kitty would be happier in Seattle?”
And then: “You shouldn’t be in the slot or working on the daily. You should be doing long-range projects. Your best job is just thinking.”
Almost as pointedly, with a laugh, after hearing of my bumping into GS: “You ever been able to talk to your hero?” Followed by his own attempts in real life.
Last week and this, all office — 50-55 hours … Gayman off, I’m so damn exhausted … [apparently, was in charge at night and still had my other responsibilities to fulfill] …
Asked about the Real Work: “Can you Quake in Newspaper?”
Ace reporter Nick Provenza noting how the editorial page would take stans on his series exactly the opposite of the way he feels about the encounter.
Isn’t there an honest way to get rich fast?
Or what later shows up as smuggling? What New Englanders call opportunity …
20:VI:79 (Wednesday)
As I said to Whiz over brunch, “The trouble is, this isn’t isn’t fun anymore — not for you, for Roger, or for me.” The news biz, that was.
A long day of employment: rush off to work, come home, have dinner, go to bed. Get up again and repeat.
Had a super applicant we wanted to hire as Purdy’s replacement — strong graphics, good headlines, Louisville Courier-Journal experience. Tried calling Friday and Saturday, no answer. Monday he phoned us, saying Friday was his last day, he took a job in Spokane.
31:VII:79
At the office, a session with Kent and JET on “what I want to be when I grown up.” JET asked about the ashram, surprised about Quakers. Some things cannot be discussed fully.
Essential concepts so common, like brand names, you don’t even notice them: stars in daylight at full eclipse: they’ve been there all along.
Cloud-caps like this one on Mount Adams were common on the stratocone mountains. Photo at Pexels by Blue Ox Studio. Glacier-clad Adams dominated the western horizon of the valley, peering over 6,000-foot-ridges of the Cascades, though it was more than 50 miles away. I saw it nearly every day as I drove to or from the office. The summit was, however, much harder to approach than Mount Rainier, which was some 2,000 or so feet taller.
Monday, 10 sept 79
Weekend, UPI meetings at Yakima Holiday Inn — sallow-faced, burned-out looking editors, lower-middle-class seedy … [where stood I among them?] … do I want to be there in 30 years? And these are the folks who make this a how many billion-dollar a year industry and the reason we’re in trouble?
Mrs. Stone’s “overtime” despite two-hour lunches and hair appointments. Per instructions, I took time off her timecard. “Today’s an unfavorable day,” according to my Astro Calendar.
19 sept 79, Wednesday, personal day off work — had to get it in by Oct 1 or lose it. Thought my parents would be here. Shot, though, something about the office — ANXIETY. Yesterday, was 6:30 before I could spring free, a special Energy Section: the photos didn’t even come up till after 5, quitting time. Next week, an AgMag and a supervisors’ meeting.
[Much of my “time off” was ultimately “comp time.”]
Business-side changes: Jay White, Pat Carey, Jean Downs promoted (advertising, marketing, circulation) under Craig Moon. Strange, cut-throat vibes. John Lamphiere, offered a position cut, quit. Steve Macke, nearly the same. Surprises, until you detect the brown-nosing. Moon aping Jack Williams, becoming his “best friend.” Jeane sticks close to HR chief. What happens when Tonkin steps down? Neither Whiz nor I like what we’re seeing. I pray we be wrong: wait for proof.
GRAND PLAN REDESIGN
The Big Decision came down Thursday and I found myself left in a lurch. No more italic headlines, for starters. Me, already hog-tied in layout, it’s no fukkin’ fun anymore, just two basic layouts as it is. The 3-column picture versus the 4. Italic was my trademark after high school because we didn’t have the option. (I won’t enter the Harte-Hanks contest next year; no individuality, no mo’ pride, son.) — and stuck with the damn AP “stylebook” on names of plays, opera, etc. — AP has no style, doesn’t follow its own rulebook anyway. Another contradiction, like Postal Service. … Now one-point rule goes on boxes but two-point on photos. I don’t even know what column logos I’ll have by Wednesday a.m.
21:XII:79
Saturday night dinner at the Kents’ after a day of company activity at the Holiday Inn, one that began with breakfast there before a Media Law seminar, where Kent showed up and then began trying to pick out our guest, Dan Rivera, the P-I’s attorney, among the strangers. A good presentation, candid and entertaining Including a luncheon, on the company. As we left, new snow falling, a slick drive home. Over b’fast,Kent filling me in on Jim Tonkin’s decision to retire April 1 or so.
Back to town that night, slickest roads, cars in ditches, we show up late but alive. Leave at midnight, the roads already improving.
[Frank] Gayman surprisingly informative about sheep and firewood, his working the latter with Lou Witkin (we’d bought our first firewood from him) …
~*~
So, in a nutshell, that’s how my professional career year would go.
~*~
From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.
Never met an ex-farmer who left the land by choice.
I think it’s the taxes, ultimately, that swayed their decision. Or more likely, offers too good to turn down from developers.
So many places sell expensive recordings or stereo gear but no needles or other support items …
Ear of Oats, from Book of Signs. Which I now read as Earl of Oats.
Saturday, starting to install plastic around doors and windows on the back porch — our new winter room, with plastic under the rug, too …
Calling for a blessing
~*~
From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.
As I immersed myself in preparing excerpts from my early journals for serialization at the Red Barn this year, I found myself delving online for tidbits relating to what-happened-to-so-so in the years since. In many cases I was stymied because I didn’t know or hadn’t recorded their surnames, and finding anything from the early ‘70s could be elusive. Remember, that was well before the Worldwide Web appeared in 1995. Yes, that recently. As you’ll find, there are gaps in the online archives covering that period.
Yakima was a little less problematic, in part because I lived there longer and noted a bit more, but also because more of the figures lived long enough to receive online obituaries. I’m still surprised, and also shocked, by how many have fallen into that category. Well, this is a half-century later.
One character who has been rattling around in my brain was the “society editor” when I came onboard. Daphne, as I’ll call her here, was among the established old-timers who were less-than-enthusiastic about the more competitive, more contemporary direction the new managing editor envisioned. I, on the other hand, was a key in his thorough reorganization and refocusing of the newspaper. The situation came to a head with the creation of a photo editor position and the arrival of a whiz-boy of excellence in charge of the visual appearance of our daily editions. Despite her grumbling, or maybe because of it, her department soon lost its independence within the newsroom and its staff of three or four was reassigned to the copy desk, where I was moving up, or to the reporting staff under the city editor. Quite simply, Daphne soon found herself responsible to me on the organizational chart, and those pages, especially the Sunday section now known as Femme, were shifting from “women’s news” to more inclusive lifestyles topics, things like Taste, Style, Health, Relationships, Personal Finance.
I never knew quite how to take her. I assumed she had been brought up in the Happy Valley, since she had that locals-versus-outsiders attitude, but was surprised to see in her obit that she was born in Los Angeles and had arrived only a few years before I did. She was always fashionably dressed with a breezy flair, and rather flitted about the room, often with “Oh, sigh!” as her signature retort. (Can you handle these stories, please? “Oh, sigh!”)
She did trigger me to explode in the newsroom one time, something I wish to apologize for. I would hate to see the replay. But somehow after that, we got into a working groove. Don’t cross me, OK?
Like many workplace relationships, there was much I didn’t know about her. It turns out that she wasn’t simply older than me, she was 22 years older – making her senior to the managing editor and the city editor, too.
She had a kind of style that suggested a comfortable upbringing, which I found confirmed in her undergrad degree from the University of Southern California and membership in Chi Omega sorority (or women’s fraternity, as it’s now called). From there, here background story is one you wouldn’t believe as fiction or, for that, reality.
While working as a stewardess, back when they were known as such, on a regional airline, she was filling in on an extra shift when she was charmed by a male passenger from Colorado. Evidently, sparks flew. They married a month later and settled in the Seattle area. Apparently, it wasn’t a frivolous flash; they were married 60 years, till the death-do-us-part part kicked in. He had served as an Army-Air Force pilot in World War II and would eventually retire from the Reserve as a lieutenant colonel. After their marriage, returned to college to become a civil engineer. To round out the picture, he was a deep fan of Wagnerian opera and eventually sailed a small craft from New Zealand to Hawaii. He also was flexible enough to relocate inland after she was hired in Yakima. Upon her retirement, the resettled on a houseboat back in Seattle.
What I didn’t expect to find was her identification as antiwar, feminist, Episcopalian, Democratic precinct captain – all pluses in my book, although journalists generally stay clear of political party activity. Nor did I have a clue about her own passion for theater and music, including opera.
As one of her longtime friends summed it up, “She had a theatrical flair for costume and loved to dress up. She was among the first women who dared to wear pantsuits – albeit very elegant ones – to one of Seattle’s big formal events. We called her Brenda Starr after the then-popular fashionista/reporter of the comic strip.” Yes, I know about the comic strip, which could be rather racy – I later represented it for the Chicago Tribune’s syndicate.
Some big holes in her story do intrigue me, though. Her parents are not named in the obituary or related stories. Was there some scandal or big breakup? What emotions did she carry from that? How did it lead to the cavalier or chirpy mask she so often wore?
Nor do I quite see her as a mother, despite the one son.
Oh, sigh.
Two Charles Ives quotes had me remembering that I borrowed the 2nd symphony from the Binghamton public library, but think it was the same Bernstein album of introduction I had perhaps taken out at my dorm’s library in Bloomington earlier or even before that from the Dayton Public Library while still in high school. It had a cool collage for a cover, which I’m unable to find online. Push Pin Studio? Oh, the days of vinyl, scratches and all!
I do remember being disappointed when the Cincinnati Symphony’s scheduled performance of the work conducted by Max Rudolf, which I could have heard on spring break, was instead replaced with a young James Levine at the helm in a different program, which a dear friend steered me away from. I still wish I had gone.
I would still love to hear it live, though that’s highly unlikely, at my age and remote location. It and its siblings should be in the repertoire of every American orchestra, the way Beethoven, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky are.
Still, I’ve had a custom of listening to the four symphonies each October, a private festival that usually spreads into the string quartets, piano sonatas, and so on. And I can even admit how much fun performing the songs in public can be.
~*~
As you can see, I admit to being a big Ives fan. He was not just a pioneering American composer but also a giant in the emerging insurance industry. If you want to know more, check out my longish Reflections at Chicken Farmer I Still Love You.
It’s a fair question to ask in looking back at this period. What were the possibilities and consequences if something had turned differently? For instance, what if?
I had found a girlfriend? Someone more supportive of me and my direction than I was finding in my tenuous marriage?
Agreed to a divorce? At the time, it was out of the question on my end, at least in my strict upbringing, but she clearly wasn’t committed to us. Or, as I’m sensing, even what she saw as her calling of fine art.
Where would Kitty have turned/gone if we split? Not my problem, apart from the ways she was relying on me for financial and emotional support – something I could now argue was draining me.
We had children? It would have meant less time to write for me for certainly demanded growing maturity. Would I have resented their intrusion and limits? I was yearning for something more than sex in our connection.
Moved to Ellensburg and commuted? I would have been physically and mentally exhausted. There would have been less time for writing or anything else, actually. I saw that in an esteemed coworker.
American Olympus been published by Copper Canyon? It would have been a breakthrough possibly out of my journalism career route. But poetry, as I’ve since seen, is a precarious life route.
There had been no circle of Quakers? Trying to bridge the distances between my “worldly” endeavors in the newsroom and my spiritual support in my private life was difficult enough. Unitarians might have inspired intellectual and even social progress visions but missed the essential intuitive grounding. Zen, as I’m seeing now, had its own limits. Living in isolation in the secular world, I would have been crushed.
A local poetry circle actually existed other than the rhyme tasters? I was truly in a wilderness here, chiseling away on a number of fronts, clueless about what was actually working apart from the reactions of a few editors off on the fringe.
I had not gotten the newsroom promotions? They did give me four weeks of vacation each year, which I’m seeing as the high points of my Yakima experience. But they came at a steep price during the rest of the year and gave a false promise of professional glory off somewhere later.
Had I followed Gil to New Jersey? He would have created me a step up the career ladder, though in the end, the route crumbled under him, too. There would have been no wilderness at hand for me, though a promise of reconnecting with the ashram. On the other hand, there were major Quakers and cultural activities. As for Kitty in this leap? It would have been one more upheaval before completing her degree, though maybe not all that different from the route that ultimately opened.
~*~
Once again, in reviewing these volumes: How much my sense or memory of the timeline of these has been off and now stands corrected.
In Zen Buddhism, so I’ve been told, engaging in “what if” speculation is considered a waste of time and attention. What do you think?
~*~
From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.
By now, our changes in the newsroom were in high gear. We had a young, aggressive, talented core of reporters, our photojournalism was outstanding, our crisp visual design included a unique style for headlines. Our circulation was even growing, not a given considering the population limits within our area.
6 sept, wed
SK popped his plan that I go to the UPI regional meeting in Portland this Saturday in his place … so Friday night, Celeste and Neville were at our place without me, and I had been unable to reach them beforehand to alert them to the change …
Seems so long since I’ve flown anywhere. [I didn’t drive? Guess it was because I was working Friday?]
Vol. 52, 9 Sept.
(“Portland — Didn’t I start another journal in this town?” Rain.)
UPI meeting, arrived last night, Jantzen Beach Red Lion Inn.
Flew in on Cascade [a puddle-jumper] through gray soup, my ears plugging as we descended. Takes four hours for my hearing to defog.
Crazy American airport hotel air again syndrome: all cities look the same, more or less.
“Hospitality suite” last night, others getting too drunk. Jacuzzi with a color TV above the water, a telephone in the toilet room within the bathroom.
What am I doing in a $35-a-night single with a bed big enough for four? Four pillows side by side across the headboard, two sinks, a bank of lights over the bathroom sink, AM-FM-alarm radio etc.
Meeting dull-eyed, weary-eyed news executives with so much “police-mentality,” crude, insensitive to other ways: “suppose he’d want an avocado sandwich.”
One young managing editor critical of UPI, whispering behind one of its workers: “Why don’t you quit and go back to the other outfit?”
But a chance to meet some sensitive journalists, too, including the Seattle and Portland bureau chiefs and some top Oregon Journal editors.
And then somebody from NYC trying to sell everybody DataSpeed, going from 1,200 to 9,600 wpm.
“Bring me a lemon with bitters on it.”
On my return:
“Hey, Steve, you want to get off UPI faster?”
“Eh?”
“Well, next year’s meeting is Washington’s and with only Chris Anderson from the [Seattle] Times and me there — Centralia had snuck out and Bremmerton, no way — they were zeroing in on me, so I nominated you. Congrats.”
Meet in Yakima? Would it push our publisher to pull the plug beforehand?
~*~
Saturday, landing in Yakima in rain, DC9 flight from Portland via Pasco, some clearing in the clouds to see Tri-Cities amid circular cornfields and later, Konnowac Pass on the Moxee side of the ridge. Kitty met me alone at the airport, no Iris or Neville (they hadn’t arrived). Kitty was delightful.
Getting home, somewhat dizzy from flying, they were there. “We have a surprise,” meaning she was expecting in April. However crazy that is.
He’s quite laid back — little talk, little motion, strange little throat laughter mostly. Records demo tapes for rock groups, mostly, in Seattle, stays away from radio spots …
Don’t think she knows what she’s getting in for (diapers, expenses like cribs, high chairs, or playpens) much less the 20-year-commitment (my biggest Q, is he ready for the long stretch?)
All this to watch ahead, though Kitty tells me my wife is more ready to be a mother than Iris is …
[So I met Neville … contrary to my later recollection.]
24 Sept Sunday
Thinking now I should have sent out the color art for farm mag and TV booklet last week, as well as ordering B&W from fair board. No wonder my horoscope has Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday looking bad (“unfavorable”)
Kent gone for the week, regional APME meetings in P’land, the publisher meddling in the newsroom, telling Wallace, “I can get a new m.e., a new city editor, a new copy desk, a whole new set of reporters if I want” — a room full of whores, including myself … what kind of living is this?
At work, everything going wrong. Hamilton on vacation, took color cover art with him. Farm stories fell through. Goz called to jury duty. Daly a daddy, today perhaps. A phone caller last week repeating, “I can’t believe what I’m hearing.”
24 Oct ‘78
Back on city desk, night shift …
Let me now confess that this matter of directing reporters on hard-news beats and seeing that they meet deadlines was never my forte, even before getting to the fact that it involved answering phone calls from readers and other strangers.
~*~
From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.
That time of the morning when there are neither stars nor sun and you wonder if it’s going to be cloudy.
THE CONFLICT
You will not forget
or learn
without forgiveness
HIGH COUNTRY
we don’t have to cross those glaciers …
the sharp air of clear feathers
Majestic Mount Rainier was the iconic center of the state. Photo by Kristen Ann via Pexels.
~*~
As I noted concluding another spiralbound of journal entries: Subterranean passages open only when it’s time or seeds sprout calling for blessing.
OK?
~*~
Something’s moving. Something’s always moving.
Often, you’re unsure of quite what.
How these journals begin is important. Each volume is seldom “ended” but rather trails off, running out of space or simply, somehow, sensing it’s time to pick up anew, afresh …
Photo of Yakima by Steve Groom via Wikimedia Commons.
~*~
TEFLON STREET
These people aren’t connected.
Materialism? “If you’re looking for someone with a perfect body, you’re never gonna get laid.”
Sometimes, if you listen
Frogs sing.
Depending.
20:V:79
Why is it called Dog Lake?
“Look at that face!”
Vol. 51, 21:VI:78
Another tall, tan-covered volume begins. A Progress “Big Un” from Bradner Central Co., Chicago
21:V:79
Looking back through these journals, how little office data I include: no dates for promotions or pay levels, for instance. Only the exhaustion. Perhaps that’s the real office.
~*~
From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.
The Harmonites (Rappites) believed Christ, in his Second Coming, will carry a golden geranium. It became their sign, though they also used red geraniums.
~*~
So we learned in a visit to New Harmony.
From a conversation with reporter Charlie Lamb:
Most of the Indians around here believe in Bigfoot. They all say they know him. My neighbor’s kids were fishing by the river in a January fog. They never go there alone. None of the Indians do. A big dark form came charging, rustling in the brush. They shot at it — the one kid’s gun backfired, burned his face. They threw their guns down and ran. Next day, a cow was found with bullet wounds in a pasture by the river.
Indians won’t camp near Satus Pass: the Stick People will stab them in the middle of their sleep. In the middle of town, they’ll steal your beer. Watermelon, too.
This is all I know of this.
In my journal entry, just noticed, my library book was overdue. [Only one?]
~*~
How to Survive
~*~
The city sat in the Upper Valley, separated at Union Gap from the Lower Valley. At the time, I was living near Wapato in the Lower Valley and commuting between the two. Photo by A. Balet via Wikimedia Commons.
~*~
First whites in the region arrived mostly as American stock. Most recent immigrants mostly from Netherlands and Scandinavia. Generally, little personal ethnic awareness.
Unlike the Midwestern Germans, or Irish, Italian, German, and Scots elsewhere.
~*~
American values
~*~
From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.
