As the new year opened, I had been in Yakima as long as any of my other locations since graduating from college. There was no sense that this would be “it” for the rest of my life, but there was a sense that I was on the right track for a big move within a few years, likely to Seattle, the Queen City not just of Washington state but the entire Northwest.

I was still enthralled by the wilderness at hand and my explorations on trails or logging roads. Our Quaker worship group kept the spiritual flame alive that had been nurtured through the ashram, but this time with a peace and social justice awareness that the yoga center strictly avoided. My poems were finding publication in small-press periodicals, the way writers build their reputations. My wife was back on track toward earning her college degree, no matter the larger questions regarding our marriage. Despite its primitive condition, our shack in the orchard was a better fit for us than the quasi-suburban style of our previous duplex, and our landlords, Ivar and Phyllis, and their two sons also served as family.

All in all, I had much to feel excited about.

The key to all this, admittedly, was my income from the newspaper. Still low, compared to other professions, but higher than what I’d earned elsewhere. Credit the Newspaper Guild union for that, even if I was on a management track.

Quite simply 1978 would be a huge year for me as a journalist.

~*~

Soon after New Year’s, Kent posted Day News Editor spot for application, now that Maury had retired.

As I noted, Gil says from within, Kent’s leaning but not committed to me. My element of independence is a complication.

Feel myself in limbo again. By working as a cutting edge, have I cut myself and ended my usefulness here?

Am I just tired, tired of being “asst.” — desiring, perhaps, to just ride rim and rest yet also afraid to stop, afraid of destroying “my career.”

“Go after it aggressively,” Gil’s advice — letter, plan, etc.

What would it have been like working, say, as a plumber for my dad, knowing that someday the business would be mine? Fitting pipes together rather than lines of poems … Would their church have been sufficient?

~*~

In the end, I landed the position but had to keep it under wraps for a while. The biggest gain for me would be having four weeks of vacation a year, rather than two. I could still bank holidays and paid personal days, as I had previously, for getaways. And, yes, there was a bump up in salary.

~*~

Friday, watching Gayman [Frank was our Night News Editor, a step up from me] and Kent size up our new man — an expensive dinner at T’bird [I hadn’t gotten that royal treatment]. Earlier, announcement of staff changes was posted: Belcher reacted, “I think I’ll send flowers to Tippet.” Snickers in the newsroom, no congratulations from anyone except city editor Jim Wallace on my promotion.

3 May: Gayman off on vacation, two rough weeks for me as I filled in for him … 10 extra hours at the office last week …

Indian fishing platforms at Union Gap … salmon dip-netting seen during my commute to and from the office.

Another rough week: Gayman and the Spulers (Phyllis and Dean) all off. Whiz, Macknicki, Kent, Wallace, [Rob] Tucker, and me — downcast, our publisher on Kent’s back over irrational matters … [see in his obituary he had dropped out of school at 15 and later lied to get into the Navy WWII … later earned a BA in business, University of Washington].

Tippet, noting an active Mormon friend’s remark that when a couple marries at the temple, they must consummate the marriage before assembled church elders. Is it true?

The AP dispatch of Donny Osmond’s wedding mentioned that Mormon’s are forbidden from discussing what occurs in the temple but the couple did come out smiling. (Read what you want between the lines.)

Phil Spuler, remarking on a story we did about local official George Eastman: “A lot of people in this town won’t believe he’s had threats on his life. They think this is a friendly town. It’s not.”

And I thought of Fostoria, “home of hospitality,” yet a strange place, as I came to see.

Phil said Eastman’s quotes sounded familiar; many people coming here have said the same. Then Kent said he’d felt the same things, both as a top editor and as a parochial school board member.

“Swami Jnana sez it’s hard to be both a newsman and a poet.”

17 June: I’ve been a full-time professional journalist ten years now — how long ago and faraway that summer internship at the Journal Herald seems now. Met Nikki ten years ago this coming December. Gran has been dead and Kay gone from my life, too. The searching and suffering intensified — God, how did I survive that?

Five years now, out of the ashram. Or the Shankaracharya Pitham, as it’s now known.

Work today frustrating. Farm mag dummies late, then a two-hour meeting telling us we’re coding wrong (the codes keep changing). Me angry over Perth’s “There’s only one person around here dumber than Kent and that’s Hodson.” Let him sweat the copy flow Wednesday night (tomorrow) …

Vacations are hitting the news desk and all these damn computer shutdowns. I spent 7 a.m. till midnight Friday at the office, then noon till 7 Saturday. Still so far behind.

Anything to make the 5-star edition easier on me, so that I can address my other sections.

JMack handles the shop’s interruptions so well, as well as Purdy’s foot-dragging, when it occurs.

5 Aug, a Saturday: Company picnic tomorrow, “strongly recommended”

Completely exhausted, damn office, I’m trying to cover for three vacations without any assistance, and it’s simply too much.

Carol and Phil will have new responsibilities when they get back. I’m cutting Home, Entertainment, and the TV mag free …

Another 10-hour workday — still trying to get weddings etc. in the tube — 20 done today, 20 to go …

12 Aug, Saturday: Workt at office yesterday from 7:15 a.m. till 9 p.m., exhausted, ready for Marriott to be back on Tuesday (will give her the TV and Entertainment sections to dummy, and put more controls on Femme).

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

At this point, I’m not sure exactly when ActionNW was launched as weekly tabloid insert focusing on outdoors activities and opportunities, everything from hiking and camping to hunting and fishing and rodeos and travel, especially daytrips.

I do know that it soon became one of my responsibilities at the paper, Noted on 10:III:77, eight months after my arrival, “ActionNW preprinted today — I finally changed the format, raw-wraps [ragged right] and quote-outs. Oxford rules atop the pp. A cram-jam job that worked, and I’m happy.”

Obviously, we weren’t doing a lot of discussion before each edition. It really was seat-of-the-pants, like so much American journalism.

Over time, it would become the closest I would have to running a magazine … I took some inspiration from the Sunday Herald Tribune’s New York section. Yes, the Sunday magazine continues long after the newspaper itself folded.

I also found a letter of recommendation I wrote for a photojournalist buddy: “He sets high standards for himself and uses his art as a means of maintaining a state of constant discovery about life itself. As a result, he has deep influence on many of his colleagues.” Little would I know the eventual downfall …

Goz, bringing in a Time magazine review to Wren, pointed out: journalists as novelists seem to lack plumage. They cannot make their sentences dance, they cannot make them spin with magic.

Sounds like so many of the rejections I’ve been collecting.

James Michael Gosney, 79, died Nov 7, 2017. He was a sportswriter we tasked with the lead stories in ActionNW before giving him a daily column he used to profile everyday locals …

~*~

Noted on 30:VI:77, full moon: Maurie retired today — reception party at the office, surprise party later — new suit, everything like a high school graduation …

Officially, he was news editor of the afternoon edition … died March 16, ’92, in Yakima nursing home, I find now …

A sweet guy, as I recall … pretty much semi-retired already …

Was this another opening for me?

[How much I was oblivious to what was popping up around me or my threat to others and their existing order.]

So during this stretch I had Mondays off … allowing me an “outdoors day” free of the weekend crowds …

In mid-August: With a Wednesday off work, I slept till 11. Who needs 11 hours sleep? I had set the alarm for 6.

Wednesday, I shift back to two weeks of night labor, wondering how Tippet will accept my presence over him …

Friday night, after work, stopped at the Lewisville (a log cabin tavern) for a pitcher with Whiz and Jeff. Goz dropped in after a glut-out on escargot and Reisling. He and I talked out back till 3:30 under half moon and clouds after the tavern closed. He wondered about the value of it all, “Am I a good writer?” Answering himself, no, but later, yes, reflecting on the joy he’d given old men with one piece.

“Hooper, he was a good editor. Could really make a piece sparkle. But you, Mr. Hodson, have a touch that may be better.”

~*~

How many times have I not done something because I know from news stories how dangerous the time/place/action is?

How much have I never done because I was doing my job instead?

~*~

A really bad night at the office, when Macknicki and I were suddenly far behind after the new copy courier had dumped all of the UPI perforated tapes because the machine had gone bad. Perton swearing he’d never seen things so bad, copy piled up, etc.

Yes, I was dead when Kitty came home and was pissed I slept late the next morning.

Notes of frustration, having to cover for Mrs. Stone plus a farm tab on top of what was already too much …

~*~

22 Nov., morning, I note working two weeks of day slot (the afternoon edition), which even means getting Thanksgiving Day off … (Hurray!)

And then our HR administrator noticed Mrs. Stone was 15 minutes late the day she “fell” … um …

[slackers]. And thus to can or ax a bounder can become natural, to make the forest come to climax or to fulfill its own — to bump them off keeps the youngest saplings from starving.

16:XII: Worked night shift, came home, my wife within, the little house seemed so sad, even from the distance.

At work, two-paragraph story, conductor Thomas Schipper had died, of cancer, age 47. I had almost played his recording of Rossini’s Stabet Mater today as a requiem for Nosmo. How strange.

~*~

Gil’s leaving, for Woodbury, NJ, and a daily of his own, yet our sense of loss and reassurance, Whiz and me.

Gil telling me how Kent’s a bit afraid of me, thinks I’m unpredictable, too independent for his taste — how the back shop claims I’m indecisive (what I get for being considerate of them).

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

As I noted:

My mother-in-law sent a copy of the R-T — nothing there but sadness — the only merit to the pages at all were touches I had added: Datebook, Round the Square — a paper the current staff can’t handle …

And then, Friday night, 2 pitchers of beer with Gil, many revelations, that he has his eye on many people and when he gets his own paper, he’ll go after them … and that I’m No. 1 on his list. “It’s almost eerie how you take a project of mine and do what I want and improve on it” … would especially like to see me in a weekend editor capacity, responsible for the whole paper … also, details about the new photographer, as photo chief over Dean / fireworks … desire to revamp the p.m. edition but no idea what the publisher wants … As Gil said to Tippet: “Hodson’s my man, he never was part of the news desk pool” … that Kent can’t stand [fill in the blank], “Every office has the squealers who camp in the boss’ office” … Gil keeps waiting for the bubble to burst, for the dream to fade, but it doesn’t … [how was Kent able to create Gil’s position and then mine?] … In that regard, this was my golden era … not a later leap, back in Ohio, despite its aspirations … I came in there a step too late and D.P.’s fatal blow sent us reeling …

Here, though, our initial changes seem to be working: “We’ve thrown just about everything at you and you’ve improved it all,” as Gill confided in me.

~*~

Early February ’77:

Bummed and surprised after Whiz-Boy’s first slide show at the office and the threatened reaction of the drones, sleepwalkers like Marriott and the admen … the comfort of mediocrity, newspapers dying in their sleep versus the growth and excitement of life and excellence …

Early March:

Awoke at 4:30 despite falling off at 10:30 or 11 at Whiz and Wisteria’s, where we felt the awkwardness of office status distinctions. He was officially a step above me, meaning having dinner with the Kents and Gils the night before and, besides, they get a free membership at the Y.

My wife was secretly resentful, but it’s not a just world.

Monday night, the 4^th, at work — everything going well until the end, when heds piled up (Marriott on the rim), meaning we didn’t finish shipping until 12:20, didn’t get off the floor until 1 … bad night, horoscope said it was good day for my career …

The workweek was too long. Arriving at the office on Tuesday, already a day behind. The TV booklet was due out back on Monday. On Friday I lose three hours to the arts section and meetings. No time to breathe in between, no sense of creation. That’s no way to work.

August:

Kent “unveiled” his master plan yesterday — going to a more “magazine” style (my God, how many typographical sins have been committed under that category? How many magazines practice any kind of layout of that order?). Where we had variety, flexibility, we now have one rigid style; where we once kept mediums with mediums, we are now ordered to mix them, not necessarily attractively. … We now have a complex set of directives of what size goes with what hammer, depending on the number of columns used in that instance.

The new plan requires twice the time to perform, and twice the space, of the old …

Surprisingly, Gil was never consulted. Whiz is not a makeup man; Gil is. Gil is supposed to be in charge of the desk. But these orders came down on him as much of a surprise as to the rest of us.

Realize I need to sit back now, just do my job, not offer any help (it’s requested but never used). Let Kent do himself in or split somewhere with Gil.

The entire newsroom reaction: resentment. Fishback’s Q in the staff meeting wasn’t about feature photographs at all. It was about content and guts. Just where are we really going?

Enough of this. Must remember not to pull any “grand plans” when I’m in the place. Take everyone into my confidence.

[One thing I did win here was raising datelines to their own line of type, flush right, in the manner of the New York Herald Tribune.]

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

In reviewing my journal scribblings, I’ve been surprised how little I recorded about my introductory months at the Herald-Republic. By the way, that had been “Republican” for much of the paper’s history. What I am seeing, though, is how much I was Gil’s right-hand man, rather than the newbie at the bottom of the pecking order. Still, I was a utility player who had to jump in wherever the need arose. Not exactly a floater but close.

For the first time in my career, I was working closely under a manager who was actively grooming me. It was definitely different from my internships at the Journal Herald, which had presented some solid coaching all the same.

I don’t know how much of this period was reacclimating myself to daily journalism after my year-and-a-half break in academia, but in addition to adapting to a new landscape quite different than any I had known, I was also observing the lay of the land inside the newsroom, where Kent and Gil hadn’t made any big changes yet.

Astrologically, my Aquarius was a complementary opposite to Gil’s Leo, and from the ashram, I had learned to let him shine. In return, he respected my need for independence. It worked well. He was an avid sports fan, contrary to me, and had even been executive sports editor at the Miami News in one of his stints.

One bit of interesting coincidence was that in the Air Force, he had almost been posted in Enewetak in the Air Weather Service, 1957-’58, when Sam [my father-on-law] was the meteorologist in charge during hydrogen bomb tests.

In trying to catch up now, I see that he was born in Omaha in 1936 and died in Newburgh, New York, in 2015. I always thought of him as a Californian and learn from his obituary that he moved there after his military service, attended college, and then worked at a series of California papers before joining Kent as the assistant managing editor in Yakima.

~*~

As for my floater situation? As I noted:

Tenth straight day of work. The Sunday night/Monday morning doing me in. But have built the GR boards (timeless backup stories ready to paste up if the system crashes) and removed deadwood. …

On day shift this week and told I’ll be editor of special sections — day shift, M-F, beginning early December … [four months away] .

~*~

~*~

 Should you wonder why I go by Jnana:

Ours was a newsroom of Jims: both the current and future publishers, the city editor and his assistant, the sports editor, our local columnist, maybe a reporter or two … ultimately, a third of the males in the newsroom … as for the composing room, advertising, the pressmen? It was like being named “Boy.”

Even so, I was back to my pedestrian given name in this setting, unlike Bloomington. Here, Jnana became reserved for my friends, fellow Quakers, and literary endeavors. You’ve probably figured out by now that I have often functioned by relying on a compartmentalized life.

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

In the initial job description, if there had actually been one, I would have been doing some basic reporting, including the lead for Crossroads, the weekly religion tab section we ran on Saturdays.

I was also working nights and weekends, including one Saturday or Sunday night when I wound up in the copy desk slot rather the rim after Belcher handed it over to me after he had had it with superiors’ memos. We finished pasteup with one minute before the 12:30 deadline. I’m a whiz.

My basic schedule seems to have been day shifts, 10-7 tues-fri, then late weekend Saturdays while Gil’s in slot. So I do scrub work on advertising-driven special sections and love it … He’s appreciating my willingness and flexibility … he asked about weekend slot, “Kent was in Sat.” and then asked if I was comfortable there, adding he has plans … so things looking good (did new TV listings logo last night, it’s OK) …

One reporter’s husband had Keogh as his PhD chairman at IU… turns out Rash is the top man in his field in the country, yet one more humble Quaker in my exposure.

In retrospect, the early office was more conflicted than I recalled … my erratic hours did give me most Mondays off …

Kent’s big dream, with me being assigned much of the effort, was a weekly outdoors tab to be called Action Northwest. At this stretch, it was still in the early planning stage.

Essentially, I was learning the local ropes first.

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.